Lucia's body hit the marble floor with a dull, final thud.
For a moment, the world went silent — no screams, no fire, no gunshots. Just the smell of iron in the air, and the steady, erratic breaths of three broken people.
Frederick stood over her corpse, the smoking gun hanging loosely from his fingers. His eyes — usually sharp and unreadable — were vacant now. Hollow.
Aria could barely breathe.
> "You… you killed her," she said.
He didn't answer.
Marie sobbed against Aria's chest, still shaking violently.
Frederick finally dropped the gun.
> "No," he whispered, voice flat. "I killed what was left of me."
Suddenly — the alarm blared.
A shrill, mechanical scream echoed through the mansion.
Red lights began pulsing from the hallways.
The rest of Lucia's private guards — her loyal mercenaries — had been alerted.
Aria stood and grabbed Marie by the wrist.
> "We have to go. Now."
Frederick was still frozen.
Blood was soaking through his shoulder again — the stitches from the safe house fire had torn open.
> "Frederick, MOVE!" Aria shouted.
He blinked, then nodded, limping toward them.
They pushed through the back halls of the estate, guided only by flickering emergency lights.
On the walls, paintings of Lucia stared down, watching them go.
As they reached the lower garage, a black SUV sat waiting — keys still in the ignition.
> "She must've prepared it in case she needed to run," Aria muttered.
They climbed in.
Frederick took the wheel, even with one arm barely working.
> "You sure you can drive?"
> "No," he said, shifting into gear. "But I'm not dying here."
Tires screeched.
They tore out through the back gate as gunfire cracked behind them — bullets catching the steel bumper, the rear glass shattering.
Marie screamed.
But they didn't stop.
They drove until the estate was nothing more than smoke in the rear-view mirror.
They finally stopped at the edge of an abandoned railway line.
The sun was just breaking over the horizon — weak and dusty orange.
Marie had cried herself to sleep in the back seat.
Frederick sat motionless, hands trembling on the wheel.
His knuckles white. His jaw clenched.
> "She's dead," he whispered. "She's really dead."
Aria looked at him, exhaustion and fury mixing in her chest.
> "You almost died back there. You left me. You used me."
Frederick turned, eyes red but not from tears.
> "I also saved your sister."
> "After dragging her into this in the first place."
Silence stretched.
Then Aria said something she never imagined she would:
> "What now?"
Frederick's voice was soft.
> "We disappear. All of us."
> "And after that?"
He looked at her — broken, bloodied, human.
> "You start over. Without me."
Frederick stepped out of the car and walked toward the railway tracks. He stood there, arms open to the morning breeze, as if waiting to be erased by the sun.
Aria watched him for a long time.
Then she whispered to herself:
> "He's still the devil… but he gave me back my soul."
She climbed out and walked after him.
And when she reached him, she didn't speak.
She just took his hand.
And they stood there together.
Not healed.
Not whole.
But free.
They found shelter in a forgotten cabin deep in the outskirts of Vermont — a place no one lived, no signals reached, and no questions were asked.
For the first time in days, there was silence.
No alarms.
No threats.
Just wind through broken trees and the faint breathing of a girl who had seen hell.
Marie hadn't spoken since Lucia's death.
Not more than a whisper.
She curled herself into a corner of the room, blankets around her body like armor, eyes haunted and dry.
Aria tried to sit with her.
Tried to hold her.
But Marie flinched every time someone came close.
> "She saw too much," Frederick said quietly from the doorway.
> "And whose fault is that?" Aria snapped, not looking at him.
Frederick didn't answer.
Because she was right.
Later that night, Aria stepped outside and sat on the wooden steps of the porch, hugging her knees.
The cold bit at her skin, but she didn't care.
Everything that had happened — all the death, the escape, the fear — had finally sunk in.
Her sister had almost died.
She had almost become the next victim.
And Frederick…
She didn't know what to call what they had.
A romance? An addiction? A shared sin?
He joined her minutes later, his jacket hanging off one shoulder, the bandages under his shirt stained again.
> "You're bleeding."
> "It'll stop."
She exhaled sharply.
> "You always say that."
He sat beside her, eyes tired.
But something in his voice had changed — it was no longer charming or careful.
Just raw.
> "When I was seventeen, I treated my first patient."
Aria looked at him.
> "Lucia gave me the file. A girl with touch aversion, chronic anxiety, and sexual repression. She told me to… 'free her.'"
He stared out into the woods.
> "I didn't know any better. I thought I was helping. But I pushed her too far. She… she jumped."
Aria's breath caught.
> "She didn't die. But she never walked again. Lucia buried the report. Paid the girl's family to disappear."
He turned to her.
> "I've been running from that moment ever since."
Silence fell.
Aria finally whispered,
> "Why are you telling me this now?"
Frederick looked at her like she was the last real thing in a collapsing world.
> "Because you deserve to hate me for everything."
The next morning, Aria found a note on the table.
Frederick's handwriting.
> "Don't follow me. I'll never stop being a danger to you. But you saved me in ways I didn't deserve. I owe you that much. If the world ever makes sense again… maybe I'll find you."
> "Love doesn't fix monsters. But you made me wish it could."
He was gone.
Three months passed.
Aria and Marie moved far away, changed names, started again.
Marie began to laugh again, slowly.
Aria enrolled in trauma counseling school. For real this time.
She had put Frederick behind her.
Until one rainy evening, while closing the small bookstore she worked in…
A patient form slid under the front door.
No name.
Just one word scrawled across the top in red ink:
> "Relapse."
And clipped to the bottom…
Was his glove.