CHAPTER 429: NEWS

SARAH

The heat from her palm still bloomed across my cheek, a bright, shameful flower.

But it was nothing. A candle flame compared to the inferno of watching Kael’s hand on her arm, pulling her out. Taking her from me. Again.

Always taking her from me.

I sat perfectly still in the sudden quiet, a strange vibration humming under my skin, a swarm of bees trapped in my veins. People moved toward me, their mouths opening and closing, sounds like far-off radio static.

"Miss? Do you need assistance?"

"Are you hurt?"

I looked through them. They were ghosts. Insignificant.

A new sensation bloomed in my chest, a hollow, gnawing ache. It felt wrong. Like a sickness. An imperfection.

I wanted to claw it out with my own fingernails. To tear through skin and rib to remove the faulty, feeling part of me.

I stood abruptly, the chair legs scraping a shriek against the floor. I collected my bag and walked out, leaving their concerned murmurs behind me.

The world had a new, sharp edge. Aria’s eyes, filled with a hate I had only ever seen her direct at others, were burned onto the back of my eyelids.

She looked at me like I was a monster. A thing to be fixed. Caged. My parents’ faces superimposed over hers. The doctors at the institution with their clipboards and their condescending smiles. They all saw the same flaw.

But I wasn’t flawed. I was perfected. They were the ones who were blind.

The finality in her voice was a nail in a coffin. "You’ll be paying for your crimes soon."

A soft, breathy laugh escaped my lips as I slid into the driver’s seat.

She thought these were crimes. She didn’t understand they were acts of devotion. Every single one. For her. Because of her. A symphony composed only for her ears.

But she had stopped listening.

---

I drove to the edge of the city. The city blurred into streaks of light and shadow, my hands moving the wheel without instruction from my mind.

When the car rolled to a stop, the engine cutting out, I looked up.

The old theatre.

Our place. Where the rusty speakers would hook into the car window and the sound was always tinny, but it never mattered. We’d talk through the entire film, sharing a bag of greasy popcorn, our voices the only soundtrack that mattered.

I stepped out of the car and walked inside.

It was abandoned now. Rusted and falling apart. The screen had holes in it, the speakers were long gone, and weeds grew through the cracked pavement.

But somehow, it still felt the same.

I found our row. Back center.

Two broken cup holders. A carving in the armrest.

A + S

The air left my lungs in a rush. My stomach clenched into a solid, painful fist. The hollow ache in my chest expanded, a black hole sucking me inward.

My finger traced the grooves. I could still feel the resistance of the plastic under my pocket knife. I could hear my small laughter, a little nervous, a little thrilled. "Aria, you’re going to get us in trouble." But I let her do it. I let her mark this place as ours.

I should have understood then. That her love was a passive thing. A receiving thing. It would never be as hungry, as absolute, as mine.

I lowered myself into the cracked vinyl seat, the ancient springs groaning in protest, and stared at the ruined screen until the sun bled out behind it.

The ghosts were loud here. Her laughter echoed off the corroded metal. Her secrets, whispered only to me, hung in the air. Every cherished moment I had hoarded, every proof of our special, unbreakable bond, now rose up to mock me.

Piece by piece, the sanity I so carefully maintained began to flake away, like old paint.

And beneath the decay, that other voice, the one that was always there, the clear, cold stream running under the ice, spoke its simple truth.

You were never meant for their world. You should have stopped pretending.

The raw, ugly, beautiful part of me, the part that never pretended, never apologized, simply... was, finally uncoiled. Stretching after a long sleep.

And my mind, clear and sharp as broken glass, fixed on the true problem.

Kael.

This was his design. His pollution. If he had never existed, Aria would still be mine. We would still be perfect. She would still look at me with love, not with that revolting disgust.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. A jarring, ugly sound. Dad. I rejected the call. It buzzed again.Mom. I ignored it.Again. And again. On the fifth insistent ring,I answered, a snarl forming on my lips.

"What?!"

"You’ve destroyed us!"

My father’s voice was a shriek of pure panic. "Do you have any concept of what you’ve done?!"

"What are you talking about?"

My voice was flat. "Look at the news!Just look! We told you to be discreet! But you, you had to attach yourself to that family, and now your mother... they swarmed the house, she collapsed..."

"What—" "

Just look,you wretched girl!" The line went dead.

My fingers felt thick and clumsy as I typed my name into the search bar. The screen populated. My body turned to stone.

"SARAH BROWN: INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD PREDATOR UNMASKED"

"Fake Victim: Records Show Kael Roman’s Accuser Has Violent History"

"Cain Matthews Murder Case Reopened: New Suspect Named"

"The Psychopath Next Door: The Truth About Sarah Brown"

Headlines.One after the other. A synchronized digital execution. My history.The institution. Cain. All of it. Laid bare.

I couldn’t move.

I stabbed at Andrew’s contact.No answer. I called again.And again. Silence. A primal fear,cold and sharp, dug its claws into my throat.

I started the car, peeling away from the curb, one hand dialing his number over and over as I drove. Stopped at a red light,my eyes drifted to an electronics store window.

A wall of televisions, all playing the same news segment. My face.My name. Scrolling text about my "mental instability." The air in the car vanished.I was suffocating.

I slammed the front door of the Roman mansion so hard the frame shuddered.

Sabrina stood in the living room,swirling a glass of red wine, a smirk etched onto her face like a scar.

"Where is Andrew?"

I demanded. She gave a delicate,mocking laugh. "Not here, darling."

"Tell me where he is."

"Why would I ever do that?"

She took a slow sip.

"You know, I always sensed you were... off. But a mental institution? That’s just poetic."

My hands curled,nails biting into my palms.

"You poor,broken creature," she cooed, her voice syrup and poison. "Did they try to mold you into something presentable? Did they think they could teach you how to feel?"

I held her gaze,letting her see the nothingness in mine.

The smile on her face flickered. But she pressed on."I suppose some things are just beyond—"

My hand shot out,closing around the neck of a heavy crystal whiskey decanter. I hurled it.

She shrieked,diving as it exploded against the wall, showering the room in glass and amber liquid. I didn’t stay to watch her cower.

I was already moving,my mind a frantic chessboard. Then I knew. His club. The den where he went to drown his pathetic weakness in powder and flesh.

---

The club was a throbbing beast, the bass a physical pressure against my skin.

I carved a path through the sweating bodies, shoving past grabbing hands and shouted protests.

I found the private room at the hall’s end. I opened the door.

Andrew was sprawled on a velvet couch,a woman grinding on top of him, his trousers around his ankles. A mirror on the table was dusted with white powder.

Cocaine.

Naturally.

He saw me and violently pushed the woman off,his eyes wide and black with the drugs.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"he slurred. The sight of him... drugged,debauched, weak, churned my stomach.

"Have you seen the news?"

My voice was eerily calm. He barked a laugh.A raw, ugly sound.

"Yeah,I saw. And?"

"And?" I repeated.

"You need to contain this! Erase it!"

He laughed harder,reaching for the woman again, pulling her stumbling back onto his lap.

"If Kael released that,it’s over. You’re practically fucked. You’re on your own."

"What?"

He kissed the woman’s neck,his hands groping her, a performance for my benefit.

Then he looked back at me,his eyes glazed and stupid. "You’re useless to me now,Sarah. Go find a hole to crawl into. Vanish."

He turned his face back to the woman’s chest. The rage that filled me was clean and holy.

"If I am falling,"I said, my voice low and precise, "I am not falling alone."

That reached him. He stood,unsteady, shoving the woman to the floor.

"Are you threatening me?"His voice dropped, a pathetic attempt at menace.

"I am stating a fact,"I said, stepping backward. My hand brushed against cold,hard metal on the side table.

A gun. Andrew lunged. I swung the weapon like a hammer,the solid weight of it connecting with his temple with a sickening crunch.

He crumpled,howling, blood immediately sheeting down the side of his face. His screams were a beacon.Shouts echoed from the hall. Heavy footsteps.

Bodyguards. I didn’t hesitate. I ran,bursting past the door, through the crowd, the gun a cold comfort in my hand, Andrew’s blood warm and sticky on my fingers.

And as I burst out into the night, I felt something settle over me.

Cold. Clear. Final.

If I was going down, I was taking everyone with me.