I can see you

Chapter 33

(ROSY'S POV)

The storm had started sometime before dawn, the sky cracking open in slow pulses. Rain came first, soft and steady, like the sky was warning us gently before it turned cruel. By the time we left the house, thunder was already rolling in the distance, low and constant. Like a drumbeat, or maybe a countdown.

I didn’t speak much that morning. I couldn’t. The words were all sitting in my throat like stones, heavy and useless. I sat on the edge of the bed with my knees drawn up, fingers curled around the mug of coffee Edward handed me. It tasted like metal. My palms were too cold to feel the heat. I looked at him once. Just once. And he looked back like he already knew. I wasn’t going to ask if he was sure. He wasn’t going to ask if I was ready. We were past that now.

Outside, the storm was starting to get louder. The air buzzed with electricity, every gust of wind like a whisper too close to the ear. I watched the trees bend through the window, and for a second, I imagined they were trying to warn us not to go. Or maybe they were just tired too. I couldn’t blame them.

Edward didn’t say anything when I grabbed my coat. He just nodded, grabbed the keys, and opened the door. The rain hit us the moment we stepped out. Not hard yet, but sharp, like it meant to grow teeth later.

The drive was quiet. I did’t remember how long it took. Maybe an hour or maybe a day. Time didn’t stretch or shrink anymore. It just bled. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the glove box. I knew what was in there. He didn’t offer an explanation, and I didn’t ask. That gun wasn’t for defense anymore. It was a conclusion. An answer waiting for the right question.

Halfway there, I finally spoke. My voice sounded unfamiliar like it belonged to someone older.

"How did you find him?"

He didn’t look at me. Just kept his eyes on the cracked road.

"Killian?"

I nodded.

The thunder cracked once, sharp and close.

"I remembered something," he said, voice low. "A fake name he used when he set up my old therapy file. William Farris. It was nothing. Just a whisper in the back of my mind. But it felt wrong. So I followed it."

The windshield wipers squeaked in time with the rain.

"I checked old records. Licenses, property files, but most of them were dead ends. But then I found one. An old utilities bill. Just an address. Out near the edge of town. Zoned as juvenile residential."

I closed my eyes. I didn’t need him to say more.

"The orphanage," I said.

He nodded. The thunder rolled again. Longer this time.

"Do you think he’s still there?"

Edward hesitated.

"No," he said finally. "I think he never left."

We didn’t speak after that. We didn’t need to. By the time we reached the forest line, the rain had grown heavier. The road had turned to mud, and the tires sank slightly as Edward pulled to a stop. I stared at the building in the distance. It looked smaller and more older than I remembered. Or maybe it was just the rain playing tricks.

The thunder cracked overhead as I stepped out of the car. The wind grabbed at my coat, and the rain hit like needles now. I didn’t flinch. He checked the gun once more, then slipped it into the side of his coat. We walked in silence through the trees. The branches above swayed like arms in prayer. Or surrender.

Every step closer to that building felt like a heartbeat louder in my chest.

The orphanage hadn’t changed. Not really. Maybe the porch sagged a little more, maybe the vines along the siding had thickened but the bones were still the same. Crooked door, peeling paint, the air that smelled like wet wood and something older beneath it. I’d been here before recently, I think but I couldn’t place the when. Had it been a month already or two months? Time had started folding in on itself. I remembered walking these halls with Killian, his voice low and careful, feeding me memories I couldn’t trust. But now, standing at the edge again, it felt different. Like the house was waiting to correct the story.

We paused at the door. Edward looked at me.

"We don’t leave each other," he repeated.

I nodded.

The thunder crashed again as he pushed the door open. It creaked like something waking up. Inside, the air was thick with dust and rot. But under that, there was something sweeter and eerily familiar. Lilacs. I used to hate that scent as a kid. Now it just made my stomach turn.

The hallway was dim, but we could still make out the peeling wallpaper. The water stains on the ceiling. The faint outline of handprints where children had once pressed too hard. We walked slowly. Every room looked like it was holding its breath. The storm outside roared louder, the walls shaking with each thunderclap.

In one room, we found a table with two chairs. Set with plates. Plastic cups. Half-eaten meals gone cold months ago.

"He left it this way," Edward said. "For us."

I nodded. My throat was tight like I’d swallowed something I couldn’t digest. We kept going. Down the corridor and into the dorms. That’s where it started. The maze.

It wasn’t physical. Not really. The walls hadn’t changed but the rooms were wrong.
The first dorm we entered was full of beds. Too many. More than I remembered. The metal frames looked welded into the floor, rows of them lined up like bodies in a morgue. Each one was made perfectly. Neatly tucked blankets with folded corners and not even a wrinkle in sight but the pillows all had a single strand of black hair placed in the center. Edward didn’t speak. He just turned slowly and walked back out.

The next room wasn’t a dorm anymore. It looked like an old kitchen, except the counters were child-height and the bright pink wallpaper was peeling in huge, curling strips. There was something written beneath the paper in thick black marker.

"Repeat until it stops hurting." I touched the words without meaning to and my fingers came away stained.

Edward found a hallway that didn’t used to be there. Or maybe I was remembering it wrong too. Either way we followed it. The lights above us buzzed too bright, then too dim. One of them flickered long enough to show a figure standing in the corner ahead. When I reached it, there was nothing.

Mirrors began appearing in places they hadn’t belonged before. Inside old wardrobes, hanging crookedly over rusted sinks. Some of them weren’t reflections at all. They were just static, like glass turned into frozen television. And through it all, the scent of lilac followed us. Faint at first but then stronger. It smelled like her... My mother. Or maybe it was Killian’s way of making me think that. A planted trigger, a cruel perfume bottle broken open somewhere in the vents. But I didn't remember ever telling him about my mother's perfume.

The longer we walked, the more I felt like I wasn’t walking at all. Just falling forward into something that was already inside me. A loop I’d been part of since before I had a name. By the time we reached the third door, I wasn’t sure if we were trying to escape or get pulled deeper in. Either way I wasn’t sure I cared.

In one room, I saw a bed I hadn’t seen in years. My old one. The blanket still had the corner stitched with my name. I stepped closer and found a note pinned to the pillow.

"Do you remember what she did to him?" -R

I folded it in half without reading it again. In another room, Edward stopped. His face went pale. On the wall there was a photo of Roy. Exactly how I remembered him. He was young, small and smiling like he always did. He had the same shirt he wore the day he died.

"He’s trying to unmake us," Edward said.

I looked at him. The lines on his face. The shadow in his eyes.

"Then we don’t let him," I whispered.

Another door creaked open ahead. As if inviting and we followed. Room after room. Memory after memory. The thunder never stopped. Neither did we.