𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 18+

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟐

Alright, let's get back into the action and hang out with my sweet babies, Claire and Rowan. I feel kinda bad dragging them into this, but I'm gonna keep the warnings in mind this time because things are about to get pretty bloody, y'all.

(I wrote this pretty fast so might be doing some edits so don't mind the updates)

CONTENT WARNING ⚠️ : This chapter contains explicit language and graphic depictions of violence.

𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐕

• • •

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

I could barely keep my eyes open, the sleep deprivation hitting me like a truck as I stared blankly at the case files spread across the table. Every fucking night was the same—visions of that inked man torturing me, and every day, my brother's face kept appearing in places it shouldn't. The hallucinations were gnawing at my sanity, and the worst part? No one around me had a clue. Not even Alex or Claire.

I tried to focus, I really did. But it felt like trying to hold onto sand, slipping through my fingers.

Claire, unsurprisingly, was pissed. "Eloise, seriously? You fell asleep again," she snapped, glaring at me from across the table. "We're working on a murder case here, not prepping for a nap."

"I'm fucking awake," I growled, straightening up in my chair. My eyes felt like they were lined with sandpaper. "And I didn't miss anything important."

"Yeah? Because zoning out during the biggest case we've had isn't exactly 'pulling your weight,'" she fired back, crossing her arms like she was waiting for me to screw up even more.

Alex, always the peacekeeper, jumped in before Claire could escalate it further. "Claire, chill. Eloise's been going through some shit, alright? We're all stressed out."

Mia, who'd been quietly listening, finally chimed in. "It's not easy for any of us. This case is a lot." She shot me a sympathetic glance, but I could tell she was worried about me. "But we need to get our heads in the game. We're representing a cheer captain accused of murdering another girl. This isn't some high school drama."

I sighed, rubbing my temples. "I said I'm fine. Let's just get back to it, okay? We've got a fucking client to defend."

Our client. A cheer captain from one of the local high schools, accused of murdering another girl with the help of her squad. It was the kind of case that made headlines—a popular girl with a perfect life, caught up in a brutal teenage murder. The victim had been another girl from the same school, found dead in the woods behind the football field, her body battered and left for dead. And now, everyone was pointing fingers at the cheer captain, saying it was a jealous rage or some messed-up revenge plot with her friends.

Claire scrolled through the evidence on her laptop, her eyes narrowing. "The prosecution's still trying to push the angle that our client, Brooke—the cheer captain—planned the whole thing with her friends. They're claiming it was premeditated."

"Of course they are," I muttered, flipping through the stack of photos of the crime scene. It was grim. The teenage girl, Haley, was found with bruises and cuts all over her body. The more I looked at the images, the more nauseated I felt. "But we don't have any hard evidence linking Brooke directly to the murder, right?"