Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Rose
Cold. That's the first thing I notice when I come to.
It's bone-deep, seeping into me before anything else makes sense.
I try to move, but I can't. Something bites into my wrists and ankles.
My chest rises in shallow breaths as I struggle to pull air into my lungs.
The air smells wrong. Clean. Warm vanilla drifts through the room. It's the last thing I expected.
My head throbs. My vision blurs with slow pulses behind my eyes.
I blink. Once. Twice as the world comes back to me into bits and pieces.
There are wood-paneled walls that are not rough, but finished and polished, and a soft rug lies beneath my feet.
A small lamp is glowing on a side table instead of a harsh overhead light, casting warm, honey-colored shadows across the room.
There’s a couch with a knitted blanket folded neatly over the arm.
A bookshelf is lined with paperbacks, some stacked sideways having been read more than once.
A framed photo on the wall is hanging, but it’s too far away to make out. It’s all so personal.
It doesn't look like somewhere people hide bodies. It looks lived in.Then I see something that gives me pause. A scream lodges in my throat when I see the same bear that Maxwell has in his bedroom. The one where I swear I saw a fingernail, a chain, and an earring tucked behind a seamless layer.
My clothes cling to me, cold despite the warmth of the room.
I shiver violently as I test the straps around my wrists, but they don't give.
The restraints bite into my wrists as panic surges through me.
I see movement across the room. My eyes snap upward to the bed.
At first, there's nothing remarkable about it. Then I see the two figures lying there.
My vision swims before finally sharpening.
Maxwell and Lucinda. They're handcuffed to the bed frame. For a second, my brain refuses to believe it. Not in a place like this. Maxwell’s head has fallen forward, shoulders slack.
Lucinda is curled slightly on her side, wrist pulled tight as her breathing seems shallow, but there as I see the rise and fall of her chest. Relief floods me that they’re alive. Then something worse hits me.
“Maxwell?” My voice comes out rough and scratchy. His head jerks slightly. Slowly, he lifts it.
“Rose?”
Lucinda sits next to him. A whimper escapes her as she stirs, the chain rattling against the bed frame.
“What—” I swallow hard, my throat dry. “What's this?” Neither of them answers.
My gaze drifts around the room again. The space is neat.
Nothing is out of place except us. Someone lives here.
Every detail has been chosen on purpose.
Whoever brought us here never planned on letting us leave.
A sound behind me breaks the silence. My entire body goes still.
My breath catches halfway in as I brace for whoever is about to step through the door.
The warmth of the room only makes the cold clinging to my wet clothes feel worse. My body trembles uncontrollably. We were brought here to die. I know it now. Whoever brought us here never intended for any of us to leave alive.
It’s the campus killer. The sound comes first, then footsteps. They are unhurried as the door opens. Dr. Somersworth steps inside. Maxwell jerks upright, the chain rattling against the metal frame, the sound settling over us like a bad omen.
“Dad—” His voice cracks. It sounds raw and desperate.
“Dad, what the hell is this?” Dr. Somersworth doesn’t answer right away, just closes the door calmly behind him, much as he would in his office, or entering a patient consult room.
“Please,” Maxwell pushes, struggling against the cuffs.
“Just let me go. I won’t say anything. I swear. I won't.”
“Stop.” The one word is loud and commanding, silencing all other sounds and causing Maxwell to freeze. Dr. Somersworth looks at him. Not as a father, but as something else. A burden perhaps. “You’re making this more difficult than it has to be,” he says, lacking any fatherly tone.
“More difficult?” Maxwell chokes out a laugh. “You kidnapped me!”
Lucinda lets out a small, broken sound beside him. “What…what is this?” she whispers, but it echoes in the room, carrying with it the scared woman beside his son, but he just ignores her. His gaze moves past them and over to me. Then past me.
“Her,” he says, a small smile playing on his lips. I hear footsteps behind me, but I don't turn. Somehow, I already know who it is.
Chelsea steps into view. Calm. Composed. Unlike the rest of us, she isn't restrained.
“Hey,” she says softly, as though nothing is wrong.
Maxwell stares at her. Confusion hits first, then disbelief. “Chelsea?”
She tilts her head slightly, watching him. “I didn’t want it to be this way,” she says. And finally she says something that sounds like she means it.
“What are you talking about?” he snaps as panic breaks through more than rational thought. “Just unlock these, and we can figure this out—”
“No,” she says gently. And that one word makes him stop abruptly, shocking him completely. Silence stretches, and then she exhales. “I’ve been lying,” she says simply. She holds her hand in front of her.
My stomach drops. Maxwell shakes his head immediately.
“No. No this is. What is this? Some kind of—”
“I don’t have a family,” she continues, as if he didn’t just speak. “Not really. Well, not like you guys, anyway.” Her eyes move to Dr. Somersworth, then back. “He’s the only one I’ve ever had.” The room goes impossibly still. Maxwell's face drains of color.
“What…”
Dr. Somersworth steps forward. There’s almost something proud in the way he stands beside her. “She’s mine,” he says.
Maxwell stares at them both disbelievingly. “No,” he breathes out. “No, that is not—”
“It is,” Chelsea says softly. She lets it linger, filling the air in contemplative silence. “I’m your sister.”
The word hits like a punch. Maxwell recoils, the chain clattering loudly as he jerks back. “That’s not funny,” he snaps. “That’s not—” His nostrils flare. “Just stop the lies.”
“It's why he left," she continues in her calm, controlled tone.
“He didn't want anyone to know about me.” A flicker of something darker passes through her expression.
“So I stayed hidden.” Dr. Somersworth watches her but doesn't stop her, letting her tell her story.
“Out of the way,” she adds. “Like I was supposed to be.”
Lucinda shakes her head slowly. “This is all insane. You’re all insane.”
Chelsea looks at her and then. Almost kindly. “No,” she says. “It’s just the truth.”
My chest tenses with worry because all of this is building into something more.
I can feel it. It’s all part of a plan. Dr. Somersworth’s voice cut through again.
“She’s more like me than you, son,” he says.
There’s no warmth there, just cold calculating eyes, and now I understand what he means.
Chelsea doesn’t react to any of it. She just stands there certain in her place.
Maxwell shakes his head, hoping that all of this isn’t real. “No,” he mutters. “No, this…this is insane. You’re not—”
“I promise you I am,” Chelsea says more firmly this time, though she still doesn’t raise her voice. She’s too calm for my liking. People who are that calm always break the worst. “I just didn’t tell you.”
Lucinda stares at her with wide eyes. “Why would you…why would you do any of this?”
Chelsea looks at her like the answer should be obvious.
For a moment, her expression turns distant, distracted by a memory only she can see.
“Simple,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders.
“I enjoy playing with people. How people act toward you depends on what you show them. See how they act when you take it away.”
Maxwell’s breathing picks up. “Stop saying things like that.”
She ignores him. “You don’t really remember that night, do you?” she asks, looking at him now.
His expression falters. “What?”
She chuckles now. “You were so out of it,” she continues. “I helped you with that,” she turns to Lucinda. “Because I am such a good friend. I drugged Maxwell so that he would look at you and give you the attention you were so desperately looking for by whoring yourself out to him daily.”
Lucinda recoils, and Maxwell’s face drains of color. “No.” Lucinda looks like she’s going to be sick.
Chelsea looks over at me now. “He didn’t really choose her, Rose,” she adds. “Not really.” Her lips pull downward.
“Shut up,” Maxwell snaps, yanking against the cuffs. But she keeps going.
“I helped you, too,” she continues. “I planted doubt even with that bear.” She points to the one on her bookshelf, identical to the one Maxwell had in his room.
“Then, after Maxwell was caught with his pants down,” she lets out a small, amused laugh, “so to speak, it was easier for you to leave, but then you went and got with Alex.” She looks over to her father.
“And that just made things better, hitting two birds with one stone. I pretended to like him to get back at his father for what he did to mine. Stirring things up for him when he was in medical school, making accusations…” She shrugs lightly.
“And now look.” Her eyes flick between us. “Here we all are.”
Lucinda shakes her head, tears starting to fall. “Why? Why us? We were your friends.”
Chelsea goes still, and for the first time, I think she feels sad about what she’s done, but then something else passes across her face. Anger flashes across her face, chased quickly by jealousy. And she just confirms it all with her next words.
“You had everything,” she says as her voice rises an octave. “Friends. History. People who were there for you without question.” She looks at Maxwell briefly.
“Him.” Maxwell flinches, but she continues.
“I didn't even get to exist,” she says. “Not really.” Dr. Somersworth stares but doesn't interrupt.
Doesn't deny it. “I was the part of his life no one was ever supposed to see,” she says, nodding slightly.
“Something that didn't belong anywhere.” She pauses, her gaze drifting somewhere beyond the room.
“I watched you all,” Chelsea continues. “How easy it was. How careless you were with each other.”
Her eyes settle over me, accusingly. “And you,” she adds. “You are always trying to be loved. You trust too much.” A chill runs through me. “So I fixed it,” she says.
Lucinda lets out a broken laugh. “This is fixing it?”
Chelsea doesn’t react to her question. Maxwell shakes his head, frantic now. “You drugged me.”
“Yes,” she admits.
“You ruined everything,” he chokes.
Chelsea stares at him for a long moment. “No,” she says at last. “I showed you what was real.”
Dr. Somersworth steps closer. Chelsea doesn’t move or question it. “This one is not like the others we’ve killed,” he says, almost thoughtful. Reverent. A chill works its way down my spine.
He crouches, his fingers working at the strap around my wrist. The first restraint slips free, then the second.
Pins and needles shoot through my arms as blood rushes back into them.
He moves to my ankles, releasing each strap with the same detached precision.
My muscles twitch, desperate to move, but I force myself to stay still.
"You've been interesting to watch," he says, as though I'm still bound to the chair in his daughter's cabin in the middle of the woods. I don't let myself believe I'm free. Not yet. Not until he rises to his full height and turns his back on me.
“You were chosen because you're easy to break.”
My pulse pounds against my ribs as every instinct screams at me to run, but I don't move. He dismisses me with barely a glance, already convinced I've accepted my fate. He thinks his daughter will finish what he started.
Only then do I let myself believe it. I'm free. Freedom tastes a lot like escape.
Before I can move, a sharp scrape of metal cuts through the room. Maxwell has worked one of his cuffs loose. It hangs from his wrist, half torn free, the skin beneath it raw and bloodied.
“Don’t—” Lucinda says, but it’s too late.
Maxwell grabs the nearest thing within reach, which is a heavy metal lamp from the side table, and hurls it with everything he has left.
It catches his father across the side of his head.
A dull, brutal crack sounds through the confines of the small cabin as he falls face-first onto the floor.
Chelsea lets out a banshee-like scream as her head snaps toward Maxwell.
This time, uncontrolled anger flashes across her face, and we catch a true glimpse of the unhinged girl we all called our friend.
Chelsea snatches up the fallen lamp and begins to hit Maxwell in the head with it.
My body is shaking, but I’m not waiting.
I push up from the chair, and this time, I don’t hesitate. I take off running out the door.