6. SIX
SIX
LENORE
People leave.
The ones you want to stay never do. And somehow, you survive. You’re supposed to survive. But I didn’t. Not after I left.
Some people drown their sadness in alcohol. I drowned mine in loneliness. I ran from everyone and locked every door inside myself. The few I let in? They all reminded me of him. But none of them were him.
I missed his laugh. That wild, sharp edge in his eyes screamed red flags. I saw them all. Ignored everyone.
Young and stupid.
But also young and in love.
Once you meet someone who makes you smile like you never knew you could—someone who keeps you awake at night, who you crave just to see or hear, even when they’re talking nonsense—it’s over.
You’re caught. You wonder how someone so reckless, so wrong, can feel so right .
And the whole time, there’s this little voice whispering:
He’s your stepbrother.
You shouldn’t feel the way he felt.
But I did.
The heart wants what it wants, even if what it wants is the very thing that destroys it. That tears you apart until all that’s left is glass—shards held together, but never whole. Even pieced back together, it’s still broken. And the reflection… is never the same.
Somehow, I woke up in bed. I didn’t know how I got there. I didn’t remember coming inside. I didn’t remember changing. But I was wearing the white nightdress again—the one I used to sleep in. Still smelled like cotton and lavender oil, just like it used to.
I stood up slowly, head foggy. The sunlight pouring through the window didn’t make sense.
It was raining before… wasn’t it?
What is happening?
Am I dreaming?
I took a careful step forward, glancing around the room. On the old chair by the window, my jacket swung lazily, rocking back and forth. My jeans and top were folded over the armrest.
Did I change?
When?
I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to focus, to remember . But nothing came. Just static in my brain.
I left the bedroom and stepped into the hallway. As I made my way down the stairs I could hear the loud bang at the door.
Three knocks. Loud. Sharp. Violent.
Fists were slamming against the wood, and each slam stuttered in my chest.
Another knock.
Then his voice. “Open the door, Lenore.”
Troy.
No.
Now I remembered. I was the one who called him.
I thought a haunted house was more terrifying than the man I shared a bed with.
That’s what loneliness does—it whispers that anyone is better than no one.
So you reach out, not for love, but for the illusion of it.
Just to feel someone’s arms around you. Even if those arms never held anything but control.
When I left Gloomsbury Manor at eighteen, I slept in a tent under a Boston bridge.
A full year like that; thin, hungry, digging through trash for something to eat, holding out my hand for change just to buy something cheap, and burning to keep warm.
The drink came next. A sip here and there until it turned into mornings that started and ended with poison.
I drank to forget, to stop the shaking, to blur the edges of cold sidewalks and colder stares.
I drank because being numb was easier than being present.
By nineteen, people knew my face. Not because they cared.
Because they saw something they could use.
They asked me to sell myself until asking stopped and taking began.
I didn’t want to survive after that. But I did.
Somehow. I left. I tried. And somewhere in that trying, something inside me cracked open.
I stood up because no one else was going to lift me.
And just when I’d gathered my broken pieces, stacked them into something like a person again—he came back.
He didn’t just knock me down; he took what was left and kept it like a trophy.
That’s what people like him do. They collect.
If they see beauty, they want to own it.
If they see damage, they want to fix it. But there’s beauty in the broken, too.
That’s how it began from the first moment, from a day when everything was turned to worse. And when the red flags waved, I walked straight through them, arms wide open, whispering, How much worse could it get?
Worse. It always gets worse.
When you start to feel like a ghost, you become one. And then people stop seeing you, except when they need someone to walk through.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. I bit myself I called him. I thought maybe the house would swallow me whole before he could reach me.
“I know you’re in there,” he barked through the door, and then softer, dripping with that fake concern I used to fall for, “You sounded scared on the phone, baby. I came to help.”
My stomach turned.
I stood frozen in the hallway, bare feet on cold wood, that white cotton nightgown clinging to my legs like fog. The house was silent, but not calm. It was watching. It didn’t want him here either—I could feel it in the walls.
The door handle jiggled.
“Don’t make me break this door down,” he snapped, patience slipping.
I walked, slowly, and carefully, down the steps.
One. By. One.
Each creak of the stairs felt like a countdown.
When I reached the bottom, I paused in the hallway. His shadow was visible through the glass of the door. Tall.I opened it just a crack, but he shoved his arm the rest of the way, stepping inside like he had a right to.
Troy looked the same; muscles too tight, jaw clenched like it hurt to speak gently. His dark hair was full of cheap gel, sticking to his forehead. And his eyes, those eyes that used to charm, now only made my blood run cold.
He looked around, sneering.
“This place is a dump,” he muttered. “Why the hell would you come here?”
I didn’t answer.
His eyes fell on me, on a white nightgown.
His smirk pulled crooked. “Cute. Did you dress up just for me?”
“Don’t,” I said. Voice quiet. It’s firmer than it used to be.
He laughed. “Relax, baby. I came all this way for you. You sounded like you were losing your mind on the phone.”
“I was.”
“You always were a little off,” he muttered. “It’s part of your charm.”
He stepped closer.
Too close.
That familiar tension buzzed under my skin like static.
“I missed you,” he whispered, reaching out to brush a hair from my face.
I flinched.
I could hear the footsteps from upstairs.
He froze.
“What the hell was that?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I already knew. Just didn’t know someone else heard it too.
“You brought someone with you?” he asked, scanning the ceiling.
“No.”
And then, faintly, from upstairs, that lullaby again.
His head snapped toward the sound. “What the fuck is that?”
I looked at him. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
He turned back to me, jaw tight, suddenly trying to mask the flicker of unease behind his eyes. “Don’t start with your creepy shit again.”
But the air changed.
Colder.
Heavier.
The lights flickered once.
Twice.
Then went out.
Pitch black.
Troy swore under his breath.
I could feel his hand close around my neck.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
I couldn’t see his face. Just the sharp sting of his cheap, suffocating cologne, everywhere. I shoved at his chest, but he came back.
This time, his fist connected with my right eye. Blinding me. Pain bloomed, in hot and red. And I let it happen. I saw it coming. Could’ve moved. Should’ve screamed. Fought. But I didn’t.
I just... let it happen.
It’s wild, the way we sometimes let ourselves break. A man handing out bruises like gifts, stealing pieces of me I didn’t realize was up for grabs. And I still asked myself: What did I do to deserve this?
I kept asking.
Why?
But monsters don’t always have claws. Sometimes, they wear the face of someone you used to sleep beside. Sometimes, they whisper lies while pulling off your clothes. Sometimes, they leave bruises instead of kisses.
It wasn’t a weakness. It was helplessness.
He turned me around and yanked down my pants. My body shook. Every part of me trembling.
And in that moment, I knew—I’d reached the edge. The final moment. The one I wouldn’t come back from. The one that would scar me in places no one could ever see.
I shut my eyes tight. Let the tears fall. Let the pain in.
And then darkness took me.
Something pulled me down—past the floor, past my body, into something cold and endless. I collapsed, disappearing into it.
And in that void, I tried to dream. Dream that Dorian would show up, find me, and drag me out of hell. Dream that he’d protect me like he used to, even from death.
But this wasn’t a dream.
This was the nightmare I’d been living for months. This was hell, and I knew it.
And if I’m honest, sometimes, I wish I hadn’t survived.
Sometimes, I wish I had been the one who died.
Not him. Not Dorian.
I woke up in bed.
The clock buzzed—6:00 a.m.
My eyes wandered down to my arms, my hands. I wasn’t wearing the white night dress anymore. Jeans. White top. The clothes I’d worn when I arrived.
Rain tapped against the window.
Of course, it was raining. Of course.
That’s what my life was. A loop of storms. A cycle of waking nightmares.
But was it all a dream?
God, I thought, what is happening to me?
I stood up slowly, legs shaky, and walked toward the wall covered in that old green wallpaper. And when I got close, I saw my reflection in the cracked mirror across from it.
My face was bruised.
I reached up with a trembling hand, fingers brushing the swelling around my eye, the sharp sting of it lighting up my nerves.
This was real. All of it.
Troy did again, and I let it happen again.
My body was numb. Skin painted with bruises, hair knotted and tangled. I was walking chaos, and somewhere deep inside, something screamed.
The little girl I used to be cried in there. She was dying in there.
I used to see light in people. I used to believe in it. Now all I saw were passing shadows, flickering shapes, like ghosts brushing past. Behind my eyes, just white static, and I was the loudest noise of them all.
Tears slipped without permission. My chest rose and fell in uneven stutters, my heart pounding like it was trying to escape. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
I curled behind the doorframe, peering outside, as quietly as I could. Checking. Is he still here? Was Troy waiting to jump out again? Or had he left after forcing what he wanted, again?
No one was there. Not even wind.
I crept out, step by step, moving down the staircase like a ghost afraid of waking the dead. And halfway down, I caught it—movement by the front door. A shadow passing.
The doorbell rang, and just as I blinked, the shadow disappeared.
I held my breath, unsure whose it even was anymore, and inched forward. When I reached the door, I froze. My whole body was stiff. I told myself to stop, but my hand moved on its own. It wrapped around the knob. Turned it.
The door opened.
A cardboard box sat on the doorstep, light brown, soaked red at the bottom. Is this a joke?
I knelt. Lifted the lid.
And then everything in me revolted. My heart thrashed against my ribs. Cold sweat trickled down my temples.
Blood. So much of it.
Inside, two blue eyes stared back at me. I knew them. I knew those eyes. Troy’s. Placed in his own severed hands, staring up at me. And beside them, a note:
“He can’t touch you or look at you the wrong way ever again, little stepsister.”
I gasped. My heartbeat thundered, legs gave out. I hit the floor hard and scrambled back, palms slipping on the wood, lungs begging for air. My vision narrowed, blurring at the edges. Then—darkness.
I was passing out.