Chapter 110: Lucy 

Lucy’s POV 

My eyes fluttered open slowly, heavy as if they’d been stitched together by sleep–or drugs. 

For a long moment, everything blurred. Then, like a camera lens twisting into focus, the world around me sharpened. Wood. 

The scent of old timber hung in the air–earthy, raw, faintly damp. Wooden walls enclosed the space, their surface uneven and knotted, like they’d been chopped and nailed in place by hand. The bed beneath me creaked slightly as I shifted, its frame carved from the same rough material. A tattered quilt covered me, its faded patchwork dull in the dim light leaking through the narrow window. 

A vanity stood in the corner, mismatched and aged, its mirror clouded at the edges. One of the floorboards groaned under the weight of the wind–or something else. Everything around me felt still, preserved, like a place forgotten by time. A place where silence settled too easily. 

And yet…something was wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong. 

I blinked and tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness hit me like a tide. My throat was dry, my body heavy. My wrists ached- red lines etched into the skin like ghosts of restraints. I looked down. My clothes were wrinkled. My phone–gone. Panic prickled in my chest. 

Where the hell am I? 

Just then, a soft knock came from the doorway though there wasn’t any door. 

I froze the moment I saw the person standing there. 

Barbara. 

My heart nearly exploded from confusion and horror. 

She was smiling. 

A soft, eerie smile. The kind of smile someone wears when they’re pretending everything is normal when it’s anything but. “Good morning, Lucy,” she said sweetly, stepping inside as if we were just two friends having a sleepover. “Oops! Sorry. Good evening, I guess.” 

Her voice was gentle. Cheerful. Familiar. 

But every word from her lips crawled like ice down my spine. 

She said it like we were still best friends. 

As if she hadn’t made my life miserable with her venomous gossip page. 

As if she hadn’t posted my secrets, my twisted truths, and exposed my worst fears to the entire school. 

As if she hadn’t once confessed–in the most terrifying, obsessive way possible–that she was in love with me. 

And… As if she wasn’t the one who had chloroformed me. 

My heart thundered. My breath became shallow. I clutched the bedsheet like it could protect me from the monster in front of me who was once the person I would trust the most. 

“Finally. We get to meet each other after weeks of separation.” Barbara clasped her hands together like she was about to reveal a surprise, her expression too cheerful, too staged. “By the way,” she said, tilting her head slightly, “did you sleep okay?” 

Her voice was coated in honey, smooth and sweet–but her eyes told another story. They sparkled with something wild. Something unhinged. 

I didn’t answer. 

I couldn’t. 

I was too busy trying not to scream. 

“Tell me?” She asked, her eyes not as softer as before. 

“I… I don’t know,” I spoke hesitantly, my voice trembling despite my best effort to sound composed. “You tell… did you?” My eyes scanned her face, desperate to decipher whether Barbara was a der She chuckled. A low, amused sound that didn’t quite reach her eye 

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e threat or just…. lost in some twisted delusion. 

“I know that look,” she said smoothly, stepping closer. “You must be wondering if I’m real or just one of your nightmare, right?” 

I flinched as her hand came up, and she gently caressed my cheek with the back of her index finger. The 

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Chapter 110: Lucy 

tender… disturbingly so. 

“Depends how you react,” she added softly. “If you stay calm, I’ll will be your dream. If you panic and hurt me again-” her smile widened, “-then I might be your nightmare.” 

My stomach turned. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Barb?” I asked, my voice cracking under the weight of my fear. “Why are you doing this?” 

Barbara’s expression shifted. Her pupils dilated. Her breath hitched like she was offended by the question. 

“What do you mean why?” she said, tilting her head sharply. “I love you, Lucy. Isn’t that enough reason?” 

My mouth went dry. 

“You… you literally kidnapped me,” I said, disbelief pressing against my ribs like a cage. “If Kaiden finds out about this- about you. He’ll kill you.” 

Barbara’s manic composure flickered for a second. Her lips parted. Her heart stuttered behind her glassy eyes. She knew what Kaiden was capable of and she was scared, only for second. 

She then masked her fear quickly with a dramatic sigh and a careless shrug. “Oops,” she said mockingly, glancing at her watch. “But by now… he must have noticed you’re missing. It’s too late now.” 

“No.” I forced myself upright, ignoring the sharp throb in my skull and the cold fear crawling up my spine like a thousand tiny fingers. My voice trembled, but I kept it steady enough to sound convincing–I hoped. “It’s… it’s not too late,” I said, hands clenched in my lap. “Let me go, and I promise I’ll tell him I just needed space. That I wanted a moment alone to breathe. So I took the bus and got off at the farthest station. That’s all.” 

I swallowed hard, my eyes locking onto hers. “Please, Barb. I swear–I won’t tell him about you.” 

Barbara stared at me for a long, long time. 

Too long. 

Then she smiled again–sadly this time. “You think he’ll believe that?” she whispered, her voice low. “Lucy… he’s probably tearing the whole town apart by now. You think Kaiden will just accept a lie like that? You’re his whole world, Lucy.” 

Her voice cracked with something between envy and grief. “Same as the way he is yours.” 

Barbara suddenly let out a shrill, manic laugh. 

“Oh, my dear innocent Lucy,” she cackled, her body bending with the force of it, one hand clutching her stomach as if it was the funniest thing in the world. 

“You were innocent before, and innocent now as well,” she sneered through her laughter, her voice laced with mockery. Why the hell, in this twisted little heart of mine, do you think I’d spend grands to hire the big guy to kidnap you if I was that scared of your darling stepbrother, huh?” 

Her face darkened as she came closer, the manic joy in her expression collapsing into something much more dangerous. She grabbed my face with both hands–tight, possessive, almost bruising. Her nails dug into my skin, and I tried to pull away, but her grip only tightened. 

Gone was the best friend I used to share secrets and gossip with. In her place stood a stranger. A woman with a storm in her eyes and a crack in her soul. 

“I love you, Lucy,” she whispered, but there was no warmth–only madness. “And now… you’re going to stay with me. Forever. Your whole world will be me.” 

Her breath fanned across my face, and I froze, my blood running cold. 

“Not that Kaiden,” she hissed. “Not those fake friends of yours, not your evil mother… no one, except me.” 

My heart thudded violently in my chest. Her face was too close. Her grip too tight. Her words were… terrifying. 

This wasn’t the Barbara I knew. 

This was someone else entirely. 

A manic. A psychopath. 

To be continued…