Page 61 of Cracked Doll

Miller clears his throat, shifting some papers on his desk. "Given this... development... would you be open to making a formal statement? About that night? Anything you can remember now that might give us a new angle? I hear you are a key witness."

I don't answer immediately. I can't. I feel lifeless, like a doll with its strings cut. I slowly stand up, my movements mechanical and hollow. I don't feel the fear anymore; I just feel empty. A vast, echoing emptiness where my trust in my own family used to be.

"Thank you, Detective," I say, my voice flat and devoid of emotion. "I... I will make a statement. I just need to process what I've just heard."

I turn to Amara, who is looking at me with a mixture of horror and fierce protectiveness. I can tell she wants to scream at the detective, to tear the room apart, but she sees the state I'm in.

"Amara," I whisper, my voice trembling. "Please. Just take me out of here.”

The walk home from the station is a blur of grey pavement and suffocating silence. Amara had practically begged me to stay, her voice laced with a desperation that almost made me cave. She didn't want me alone—not tonight, not after the world I’d built my sanity upon had been ripped apart by a tired detective in a rumpled suit. But I couldn't stay. I needed the silence of my own room to hear my own thoughts, or perhaps I just needed to be in the place where the lies had been told for seven years.

Now, I am sitting on the edge of my bed, the springs creaking under my weight. The room is freezing, the air tasting of dust and old regrets. I stare at the wall, my mind looping over Miller’s words. Cold case. No arrests. Files gone.

My father’s face flashes in my mind—the way he’d looked at me with that practiced, pitying expression whenever I asked about the man who slaughtered my sisters. He told me the monster was in a cage. He told me I was safe.

And then, it clicks.

A memory surges forward, sharp and vivid: the corkboard in Rhys’s office. I remember the way the dim light had hit the pinned papers, the official stamps, the clinical layout of police reports. I hadn't looked closely at the time—I had been too consumed by the terror and the electric pull of the man himself—but I saw them. Police files. Official documents.

They weren't stolen to erase a trail. They weren't purged by some corrupt official to protect a killer.

They are with Rhys.

The realization hits me like a physical blow, knocking the breath from my lungs. He has them. He has the truth about Cordelia, about Rosalind, and likely the truth about my mother. He’s been holding the pieces of my shattered life in his hands, watching me struggle in the dark while he held the torch.

I stand up so abruptly that the bed frame shudders. My heart is hammering against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. I don't feel the emptiness anymore; I feel a cold, hard spark of determination.

I reach for my coat, draped over the mahogany wardrobe. It is a heavy, sweeping piece of Victorian craftsmanship, made of midnight-black wool that swallows the light. The silhouette is sharp, with a cinched waist and a dramatic, flared skirt that brushes my ankles. The collar is high and stiff, framing my neck, while the front is adorned with intricate, jet-black buttons that look like polished obsidian. The lining is a deep, blood-red silk, a hidden secret against my skin, and the wide lapels are trimmed with a subtle, velvet piping that adds a touch of mourning elegance to the garment.

I slide it on, the weight of the wool grounding me, and fasten the buttons with trembling fingers. It’s a chilling night—the kind of cold that seeps into your marrow—but I barely feel it.

I grab my keys from the nightstand, the metal jingling loudly in the oppressive quiet of the house. I glance toward the hallway. Silence. My father is gone, likely drowned in a bottle of cheap scotch with whatever pittance of money he had left before I returned. The house feels hollow, a shell of a home built on a foundation of deceit.

Before I leave, I reach for the yellowed newspaper clipping—the one detailing my mother’s disappearance. I fold it carefully and tuck it into the inner pocket of my coat, right against my heart.

I step out into the night, the door clicking shut behind me with a finality that feels like a bridge burning. The streetlamps cast long, distorted shadows across the cobblestones, and the wind howls through the alleyways like a wounded animal. I am entirely alone, a small, black figure drifting through a gothic wasteland.

But I have a destination.

I have to get to The Midnight Menagerie. I have to find the man who treats my trauma like a game and my life like a dollhouse.

I have to find Rhys Castellan.

Chapter 19

The walk to The Midnight Menagerie is a fucking nightmare of silence. Every few steps, I whip my head around, scanning the oppressive shadows of the alleyways, half-expecting to see that towering, predatory silhouette looming behind me. But there’s nothing. For the first time since he crawled into my life, I don't feel his gaze boring into the back of my neck. It’s unnerving. The sky is a void, a heavy shroud of charcoal clouds with no moon to light the way, no stars in the sky, leaving me to navigate by the flickering, sickly yellow glow of the streetlamps.

When I reach the carnival, the atmosphere is thick with the scent of ozone and expensive perfume. The common areas are bustling, a surreal blend of gothic whimsy and dread, but still, he isn't there. He isn't stalking me through the crowds or whispering in the wind. It’s like he’s vanished, and the lack of his presence feels like a physical ache, a void where my terror usually sits.

I reach into my coat and pull out the necklace. The metal is cold against my palm, a key to a world I never asked to enter. I use it to slip past the guards and into the VIP section, where a party for the gothic elite is in full swing. The air is saturated with the smell of incense and old money. I scan the room, searching for those piercing eyes, but I don't stop for anyone. I don't care about the masked aristocrats or the decadent displays of wealth. I have a purpose.

I bypass the party entirely, my boots clicking sharply against the marble as I head upstairs. No one stops me; it’s as if the house itself knows I belong here, or perhaps they simply fear the man whose domain I’m invading. I climb the stairs until I reach the heavy oak door of his office. I stop for a heartbeat, my breath hitching in my throat, before I raise my hand and knock.

"Come in, my cracked doll," his voice drifts through the wood, smooth as velvet and just as suffocating.

I push the door open and slide it shut behind me, the click of the lock echoing in the silence. Rhys is sitting behind his desk, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. The room is bathed in a dim, moody amber light, cast by a few scattered lamps that leave the corners in deep shadow. Behind him, the floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of the night, but there is no moon or stars—only a vast, oppressive blackness that makes the glass look like a mirror, reflecting the interior of the room back at us. I make a note to not look back at it completely.

"I didn't expect you to knock," he says, his voice a low purr.