CHAPTER 428: ACTRESS

ARIA

The drumbeat in my chest was a frantic, trapped thing trying to escape through my throat. Each step toward the café door was a separate act of will, my legs moving through something thicker than air.

My stomach was a nest of writhing snakes, coiling and twisting into a sickening knot. A coldness had seeped into my blood, a glacial chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

I was a sculpture of composure on the outside, carved from sheer desperation.

Running was not an option. Hiding was over.

I had to face the woman I had called my other half. I had to look into the eyes of the devil I had mistaken for an angel.

The love I still felt for her was the most painful part, a rotten tooth my tongue couldn’t stop probing. A part of me, a stupid, hopeful part, wished this was all some horrific mistake. That some other vengeful ghost was responsible.

Because the why was a bottomless pit. Why would she do this? For years. Just to keep me isolated. Just to keep me for herself.

The café door chimed, a sweet, normal sound for a profoundly abnormal moment.

My heart stalled in my chest.

She was there. In the corner. A scarf hiding her neck, sunglasses masking her eyes. But I would know her shape anywhere.

Her head turned. She saw me.

With a slow, deliberate motion, she removed the sunglasses.

The bruises were livid. A storm of purple and black around her eye. Swollen, discolored skin across her cheekbone.

A sympathetic ache bloomed deep in my core, an old, trained response to her pain.

My feet rooted themselves to the floor.

I had to force them. One heavy, leaden step after another until I stood before her table.

Sarah watched me with that familiar, heartbreaking expression. The soft vulnerability she wielded like a master. The look that had always made me want to gather her up and protect her from the world.

But I remembered Kael’s voice, shredded and broken, confessing his violation.

I built a wall of ice inside my chest.

I made myself see the performer behind the performance.

I sat. I did not speak.

"Aria." My name was a sigh from her lips, a sacred word.

It used to feel like coming home. Now it felt like a lie.

"How are you—"

"Why did you do it?" The question left me, flat and hard.

She stilled. Her face went carefully, terrifyingly blank for a single heartbeat.

"Do what?" The words were measured, cautious.

A harsh, disbelieving sound escaped me. It tasted bitter.

"I don’t even know where to begin." My voice was low. "But let’s start with Kael." I leaned forward, my body tense. "Why did you assault him, Sarah?"

I saw the flicker in her eyes. A rapid calculation. Weighing which version of her victimhood would be most convincing.

She settled on shattered innocence.

Tears pooled instantly, magnifying the bruises. Her hands stretched across the table, seeking mine, seeking the comfort I had always provided.

I pulled my hands into my lap, folding them tightly.

Her fingers closed on empty air.

"I would never." Her voice broke, a perfect fracture. "Aria, you have to listen to me. He’s poisoning you against me. Filling your head with lies."

My ribs ached. My stomach churned. A hot rage began to simmer under my frozen skin.

If her face wasn’t already a mess, I might have made it one.

"He forced himself on me," she continued, the tears tracing clean paths through her makeup. "That night I only wanted to help. He said you betrayed him with Sylas. He wanted to hurt you. I tried to calm him, but at his apartment... he was too strong, and he..."

I laughed. A short, ugly bark that ripped through the café’s quiet.

"You’re a very good Actress Sarah," I stated, no inflection.

She visibly locked up. Her eyes scanned mine, hunting for a weakness, a shred of lingering faith.

"What about Eric?" I pressed on, each name a stone I was throwing at the ghost of our friendship. "Same story? Did he attack you too?"

Dawning horror transformed her features.

"And Ryan? Damon? Kyle?" My voice sharpened, a blade honed on each syllable. "Did they all overpower you? Is that the narrative?"

"Aria, please—" She leaned in, the table digging into her ribs, her voice a tremulous plea. "You don’t understand. I had no choice. They were using you. I was protecting you—"

"What about Cain?" I delivered the final, killing blow.

Her mouth clicked shut.

"Did you kill him to protect me too, Sarah?"

Silence.

She had no answer. There was no answer.

"I know everything," I whispered, the words cold and final. "So stop the performance. It’s just me now."

Sarah’s head bowed, blonde strands covering her face from the scarf. Her shoulders collapsed as she leaned back.

She drew a long, shaky breath.

Then a short, sharp exhale. "Hah!"

When she lifted her face, the blood in my veins turned to slush.

Because she was smiling.

It wasn’t her smile. It was a stranger’s smile. Empty. Cold. A void where a person should have been.

"I suppose the mask is useless now," she said, and her voice was utterly changed. No emotion. No warmth. Just a hollow, dead sound. "No point in wearing it."

My insides plummeted.

The understanding was a physical impact, brutal and complete.

This. This was the real Sarah. The one who had lived behind my best friend’s eyes for years.

"Why?" The word was torn from a raw place in my throat. "Why would you try to destroy my life for so long?"

Sarah relaxed into her chair, studying me with eyes that held no soul.

This version of her terrified me to my core.

I would not look away.

"I did it for love," Sarah stated, simple as fact.

"Love?" I repeated, horrified and lost.

"But the person I thought would understand me best," she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, "is now looking at me like I’m a monster."

I couldn’t grasp it. The logic was a maze with no center.

"Sarah, you need to confess," I said, my voice trembling. "Turn yourself in. You need help. This sickness... you need real help—"

"There it is." Her expression curdled. "You’re just like the rest now. One of them. The ones who see me as a sick thing. An aberration."

"You raped the man I love!" The shout ripped out of me, raw and deafening.

"And?" Sarah’s lips curled into a cruel smirk that made my stomach heave.

She tilted her head, the smile widening into something grotesque.

"It’s your fault, really," she mused. "You made him so soft. So breakable. He could have fought it if he wanted. Maybe some part of him did want it. He really couldn’t stop moaning too you know... He definitely enjoyed it so now he’s just ashamed and needs someone to blame—"

My hand flew out and connected with her face.

A sharp, cracking report echoed off the walls.

My palm stung. My breath sawed in and out of my lungs. My vision was a red tunnel.

The entire café went still. Patrons stared. A waiter started toward us, hesitant.

Sarah’s head was snapped to the side from the force.

Then she began to laugh.

It was a dry, rasping, insane sound. It scraped down my spine.

"There she is," Sarah crooned, her empty eyes fixed on me. "That’s my Aria. Always too much fire. Too reckless. Yet somehow still so clean for this filthy world."

Her hand drifted down, settling on her stomach in a possessive gesture.

"Such a pity you lost Kael’s baby," she said, her tone almost conversational. "But I’ll keep this one. I’ll keep it for us both."

I lunged.

Hands grabbed my arms, pulling me back. Staff members, their faces alarmed.

I shook them off, my body vibrating with a fury so pure it was almost clean.

"Enjoy this," I spat, my voice shaking with the force of my hate. "Because soon, you will pay for every single thing you’ve done."

As if summoned, the café door opened.

A soft wave of gasps. Murmured voices.

I turned.

Kael filled the doorway, his gaze instantly finding me, absorbing the shattered scene... Sarah’s smirk, my trembling fury, the watching eyes.

He crossed the space in three strides, his hand closing around my arm, firm and certain, and pulled me toward the exit.

I didn’t fight him.

I let him steer me out into the cold air, away from the sound of Sarah’s laughter that chased us, a poison hook in my heart.

Away from the stranger who had worn my best friend’s skin.

Away from the woman I’d loved who’d turned out to be a monster.