14. Shadows Without Comfort
Chapter fourteen
Shadows Without Comfort
The sedatives haven’t fully left my system.
Everything tilts and blurs, as if I’m looking through warped glass.
Maeve’s upscale hotel room, with its sleek surfaces and neutral colours, feels cold and lifeless.
It’s nothing like the smoke and chaos of the estate.
I perch on a chair that probably costs more than my car and watch my cousin move around with her usual efficiency.
Maeve, always perfect in her pantsuit, sorts papers, makes calls, and tries to organize my life into neat boxes labelled “solution” and “problem.” I’m still struggling just to speak clearly.
The clinic’s drugs linger in my blood, refusing to let go.
“The doctors were very clear,” Maeve says, not looking up from the leather portfolio she’s methodically filling with documents. “You need complete rest, away from environmental triggers. This arrangement is for your protection, Elara.”
My protection. That phrase keeps coming up. Garrow pretends to care, Silas made promises he didn’t keep, and Maeve’s version of caring just smothers me. Everyone says they want to protect me, but I only end up more vulnerable, more controlled, and more alone.
“Did you bring my clothes from the house?” I ask, the words coming out slightly slurred. I hate how weak I sound, how easily dismissed.
“We’re not going back there.” Maeve’s tone brooks no argument. “I’ve arranged for new essentials to be delivered. Everything else can be handled remotely.”
I stare at a painting across from me, a beige abstract piece that probably cost thousands but looks like an elephant painted it with a brush tied to its trunk. It’s easier to focus on bad art than deal with the mess of emotions inside me.
Anger at Silas pulses hottest. How could he just watch while they dragged me away? All his talk about protection, about the house safeguarding its people, was empty words when actual intervention was required.
But under the anger, a small voice offers reasons.
What could he have done against armed officers without risking himself?
Without putting the whole network, the sanctuary, and everyone who relies on it in danger?
The feather he left me—his way of reaching out—sticks in my mind. It feels like both a gift and a rebuke.
“Elara, are you listening to me?” Maeve’s sharp tone cuts through my thoughts.
“No,” I answer honestly. “Not really. Don’t care to.”
She lets out that familiar Maeve sigh, the one that somehow mixes disappointment and superiority. “I’ve been explaining our next steps. The flight to Boston leaves tomorrow morning. My colleague there specializes in cases like yours.”
“Cases like mine,” I repeat flatly. “You mean people who’ve been forcibly sedated for telling inconvenient truths?”
“People experiencing paranoid episodes triggered by trauma and isolation.” Her voice softens with practised sympathy that makes my skin crawl. “The fire brought everything back, didn’t it? The accident, losing your parents. It’s not your fault, Elara.”
I don’t bother arguing. What’s the point? They’ve already decided I’m crazy— Maeve, Dr. Rao, Garrow, the officers who held me down. The truth has become irrelevant in the face of their unified narrative.
Maeve moves to the desk and spreads out a stack of crisp legal documents, with yellow sticky tabs marking the signature lines. Each page gleams with expensive watermarked paper and official-looking seals. My stomach drops as I recognize the header: PROPERTY TRANSFER AGREEMENT.
“I’ve negotiated very favourable terms considering the circumstances,” Maeve says, her professional voice taking over as she taps a manicured nail against the top document.
“Greenfield Development will take over all responsibility for the property, taxes, restoration costs, and environmental remediation. You’ll receive reasonable compensation, enough to establish yourself comfortably anywhere you choose. ”
My brain feels like it’s wading through molasses. Still, certain words penetrate the fog: Greenfield Development. I’d seen that name before in Silas’s files. One of Garrow’s shell companies, used to acquire properties after conveniently timed fires or owner “breakdowns.”
“This is the practical solution, Elara,” Maeve continues, sliding an expensive fountain pen toward me. “That house has been nothing but trouble since grandmother died. Let it go.”
Everything suddenly makes sense, and it turns my stomach. This isn’t just greedy capitalism—it’s a plan. The fires. My so-called breakdown. Maeve showing up right after the blaze with county officers. The diagnosis was ready to go. The transfer documents already prepared.
“How long?” I ask, my voice dangerously quiet.
“The closing process should take about thirty days, but—”
“How long have you been working with Garrow?” I clarify, rising from my chair despite the room’s slight spinning. “Planning this little takeover?”
Maeve’s expression flickers, just a microsecond of calculation before her mask of concern returns. “You’re not thinking clearly. Lyle Garrow is simply representing the township’s interests in preserving a historical—”
“Don’t.” I cut her off, steadying myself against the desk. “Don’t insult what’s left of my intelligence after whatever Dr. Rao pumped into me.” I pick up the top document, scanning language about “unstable structures” and “mental incapacity of current owner” with growing fury.
“You would sell my birthright to the very people who tried to destroy it?”
“Elara, be reasonable—”
Reasonable. Has she ever been reasonable? Was Garrow reasonable when he had his men set fire to my home? Was Maeve reasonable when she let them drug me into silence?
Something breaks inside me. Suddenly, I feel clear and furious, the last of the sedative haze gone. I grab the stack of documents and start tearing them up, beginning with the signature pages. The sound of ripping expensive paper is oddly satisfying.
“What are you doing!?” Maeve gasps, reaching for the papers. “Stop that immediately!”
I don’t stop. I tear each page into smaller and smaller pieces, my movements growing more precise and purposeful with each rip.
“This is what I think of your practical solution,” I say, watching the confetti of legal jargon scatter across the polished hotel carpet. “And your reasonable compensation.”
Maeve stands there, stunned, her usual calm finally slipping to show what’s really going on underneath. When the last document is in pieces at our feet, I move closer, close enough to see the small stress lines around her mouth that even her expensive creams can’t hide.
“You’ve never cared about this family’s legacy,” I say quietly. “Only how to monetize it. How much is Garrow paying you? Or is it just the professional connections? The prestige of working with the great developer who’s ‘revitalizing’ our dying little town?”
“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” Maeve hisses, abandoning pretense. “Garrow owns this town. Every judge, every doctor, every cop. You can’t win.”
“And you can’t sell what isn’t yours to sell,” I counter. “Stay in your lane, Maeve, or you won’t like what happens next.”
“Are you threatening me?” She almost laughs, but there’s an uncertainty in her eyes that wasn’t there before. “Look at yourself, Elara. You’ve been declared mentally unstable. You have no credibility, no allies, no resources. What exactly do you think you can do?”
What can I do? It’s a fair question. I’m alone in a town Garrow controls. I have no proof except for what everyone says are hallucinations, I’m legally considered incompetent, and I’m still dealing with the drugs they gave me.
But I’m also the heir to a sanctuary that has survived generations of attacks from men like Garrow. I’ve walked the hidden passages that have sheltered hundreds fleeing his influence. I’ve fought beside Silas against flames meant to destroy us both.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” I tell her, my voice steady despite the lingering effects of the drugs. “But you’re about to find out.”
Something moves in the corner of my eye, a shadow where there shouldn’t be one.
I turn away from Maeve’s lecture about my “irrational behaviour” and look at the hotel window.
Across the street, half-hidden behind a streetlamp like she’s trying out for a crime show, stands Marta Ellery.
Even in the fading light, her thin frame and dark braid are easy to spot as she stares up at our window.
My heart pounds. I’m not alone after all.
“Are you even listening to me?” Maeve demands, her voice sharp with frustration. The shredded documents still lie scattered around our feet, a paper battlefield marking the lines we’ve both crossed.
“Listening,” I lie, keeping my body angled toward the window. Marta hasn’t moved; her stillness is almost preternatural. How long has she been watching? Did Silas send her? Is she here on her own? Either way, her presence means something crucial: the network hasn’t abandoned me completely.
Maeve runs a hand through her perfect hair, a rare gesture of discomposure. “You don’t understand the position you’ve put me in. These aren’t people you can simply refuse.”
“You mean Garrow isn’t someone you can say no to?” I counter, studying her face more carefully now. Beneath her controlled exterior, something else lurks, not just ambition or greed, but genuine fear. “He’s threatened you too, hasn’t he?”
A flash of vulnerability crosses her features before she can mask it. “This isn’t about me. It’s about protecting what’s left of our family. That house is poison, Elara. It always has been. Everyone who gets tangled up in its history ends up—” She stops abruptly, lips pressing into a thin line.
“Ends up what?” I press.
“Destroyed.” The word comes out barely above a whisper. “One way or another.”