DO YOU LOVE HER?
I arrived at the hospital with too many things spinning in my head: "Her"'s voice, Hugo's phone resting in my lap, but above all… the note.
It was a printed note asking for something.
From me.
And that was the inconceivable part.
Because only someone who knew about my intrusions could ask me for files from Hugo's computer.
Files I had planned to use to make him eat out of my hand.
Even stranger was that he knew and didn't seem to care.
Hugo wasn't just the CEO and face of the most powerful tech corporation in Montellion.
He was also involved in illegal business, selling information to a foreign group.
There were highly compromising files and names in his cloud.
The fact that I had accessed them so easily should have alerted him.
Instead, he let me into his house.
I had always dreamed he would discover me and lock me away in some basement.
All I had managed to do was start a game.
Dense.
Tortuous.
Unpredictable.
The hospital lights blinded me for a moment.
It smelled of chemicals and metal.
Or maybe it was blood.
I took a crowded elevator up to the fifth floor.
My hands hidden in the pockets of my jacket.
Apprehensive.
No gloves.
I walked down a brightly lit hallway that felt like a tunnel.
Shouts from doctors and nurses, moans from patients, the insidious smell of death…
My ears were pounding.
Like a discordant string orchestra.
I stopped when a metal door opened to my left.
Hugo appeared before me.
His eyes red.
And an expression of exhaustion I had never seen on him.
He didn't say a word.
He just grabbed my hand and dropped something into my palm.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
Sue's ring.
The same as mine.
The one that was no longer on my finger.
I couldn't remember if I had left it in the room.
"Do you love her?" I asked, afraid.
He clenched his jaw, looking over my head.
Suddenly the noise disappeared while I kept waiting.
"Keep it," he said at last. "Now go."
He turned his back on me but I stopped him.
"Is that… why you made me come here?"
A small but clean fury stirred inside me.
"What did you think I wanted you for?"
He raised an eyebrow, and I couldn't hold back a laugh.
"I know," I said, mixing rage and sarcasm. "This is part of the game."
Suddenly he lost his calm and shook me by the shoulders.
"You think everything revolves around you and your madness?!" he roared. "Go home and stop bothering me."
I pulled free from his grip.
"You shouldn't have brought her to the mansion for me to see," I spat.
Those words sounded foreign in my mouth.
He ignored them.
"I told you you weren't the only one."
His tone softened.
"But you accepted this game. I've already gotten too involved. Things have happened…" My voice became a murmur. "I can't stop now."
He looked at me sideways.
He was too still.
Inside my pocket, I squeezed the ring against my fingers until it hurt.
"Do whatever you want," he said finally.
"And her… do you know what happened to her?"
He sighed.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"You're not," he murmured. "But it doesn't matter."
"Who is Her?"
But my question hung suspended in the sterile, dry air.
The door creaked and I closed my eyes.
An uncomfortable second.
He didn't even ask for his phone back.
With weak legs I looked for somewhere to sit.
Next to me, a man was crying with his head in his hands.
I took Hugo's phone.
I didn't open it. I just held it there.
That woman would call again.
And the first thing I would ask her… was why her voice was identical to mine.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE.
I arrived at the mansion exhausted.
A couple of hours before dawn.
My eyes kept closing against my will.
"Her" never called, and when I tried, the operator recited the nonsense that the number didn't exist.
At that moment I decided to forget everything and sleep.
It had been a distorted day.
Like a glitch hiding inside an algorithm.
Waiting for the exact moment to strike.
It already had, damn it.
But it was still mocking me.
I left my shoes in the foyer and walked slowly toward the stairs.
Upstairs, I stopped in front of Hugo's door.
The room he had given me was in another corridor. Far away.
Why had I seen him fucking Sue there then?
It made no sense.
Unless he had done it on purpose.
And if that was the case, then he wasn't lost to me.
I had always believed I was in control.
That wasn't true.
He had been one step ahead from the very beginning.
And honestly… it didn't bother me at all.
Without thinking any longer, I opened the door and stepped inside.
It wasn't the first time.
So I didn't understand why my chest was pounding so hard.
And everything else.
Ashen shadows enveloped me.
Invading my space.
I breathed in Hugo's scent trapped between the walls.
Until I felt dizzy.
It was a scent I carried with me like a sentence.
Then I looked at the bed.
It was rumpled.
Things were also out of place.
A tilted painting.
A cigar box upside down.
Feathers on the floor and drawers half open.
I didn't sense immediate danger.
Even though I knew I shouldn't be there.
I walked to the bed and sank into it.
The cold sheets smelled of old perfume and lust.
I caressed a damp pillow as I relaxed.
I didn't want to think about anything.
Only about him.
The only reason my life had taken such an uncertain turn.
I thought it would be easier, but at least he hadn't thrown me to security or the police.
And I was still within his reach.
Carrying his secrets.
Occupying a piece of his world.
With no intention of leaving.
I don't know when I fell asleep, but at some point I felt a presence around me.
That presence.
I opened my eyes heavily.
I was lying face down, at the edge of the bed, one hand hanging off, brushing the carpeted floor.
When I lifted my gaze…
I saw the door.
Open.
And I remembered closing it.
I tried to move but couldn't.
That threw me off completely.
I was in the middle of sleep paralysis and nothing made me feel more exposed and vulnerable.
Fuck.
The presence grew.
It became more real.
I could almost feel it breathing on the back of my neck.
"Isabeeellaaaa…"
I trembled.
My name in that dark whisper sounded like nails tearing my skin.
Pretending to be a caress.
Then I heard moans behind me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to escape my own body.
The bed creaked again and again.
As if someone was fucking right next to me.
I tried to speak but couldn't.
Something sticky and acidic tightened my throat.
I don't know how much time passed.
I only opened my eyes when I heard the door slam shut.
This time there was a faint clarity, as if dawn had broken.
The door was closed again and there was a sudden absence where something incomprehensible had been.
I lifted my hand without effort.
I could move again.
I took a deep breath.
I convinced myself it had been a nightmare.
And I turned to the other side.
My mouth went dry.
There was someone lying on their back.
Under a sheet.
Breathing steadily.
I sat up abruptly.
Without fear.
And I reached out my hand, ready for a confrontation.
I stopped cold.
Because it wasn't necessary.
I simply couldn't believe what my eyes saw.