“I’d be terrified of crashing it into a tree or something,” I reply, fumbling with the door handle, but it doesn't budge.
“Why would you crash into a tree, Lauren? Are you Jane of the jungle or something?”
“Actually, I'm a pretty good driver.”
“Well then, no need to worry.” He tosses the keys over the top of the car, and I catch them mid-air, surprised. “You drive. I’ve got work to do anyway,” he says, walking around to my side, stopping just a few inches from me with his hands casually in his pockets. “And? What are you waiting for?”
I swallow nervously, but to escape his proximity, I head toward the driver’s side without saying a word.
The ride is quiet. The only sound filling the car is the female GPS voice calmly giving directions. Silas wasn’t kidding when he said he had to work; he didn’t lift his eyes from his cell phone the entire drive, completely absorbed in whatever he was doing.The fact that he trusts me with his car still leaves me speechless. I half expect him toevaluate my driving the whole way or to correct me at every turn, but he doesn’t. He just lets me drive, and that simple act of trust is something I hadn’t anticipated.
When I turn off the engine, he starts speaking without looking at me. “Andrew Donovan is a lifelong friend of my father’s. He wants to buy this apartment for his daughter. He’s already seen pictures online, but he wants to explore it and see if it’s a good investment.”
I take the paperwork from my bag and review all the information before going upstairs. The apartment is valued at ninety million dollars.
Oh my God.
Silas looks at me carefully. “Don’t worry, Bunny, we came half an hour early so you can explore it beforehand.”
I’m about to correct him on the nickname, but before I can, he opens the door and steps out of the car.
How did he know I needed more time before the showing?
Back Then- The Walker House
Parties are never my thing. Not even close. Loud noises don’t just irritate me, they dig into my brain like a jackhammer. It’s not the music that gets to me, but the shouting. My God, the yelling. Nothing yells more than a drunk teenager, and right now, it feels like every one of them is screaming inside my skull.
Brianna, my best friend, practically begged me to come to the Walker’s party. I said no, of course. But then Emma found out, and suddenly, it wasn’t just a party; it was an opportunity. She was so desperate to go that she made an offer I couldn’t refuse: she’d do the dishes for two months if I took her.
Two months of no dishes? Sold.
But now, standing in the middle of this chaos, I’m starting to regret my decision. The mansion is packed with people I barely know, and I’m reaching my breaking point. My head aches from the noise, my nerves are frayed, and I needout—somewhere without the constant thrum of drunken laughter, without bodies pressed together like sardines in a tin can. I start wandering through the halls, my mission clear: find a quiet room. The Walkers’ house seems like a labyrinth, with endless doors, most of them either locked or occupied. On my fourth attempt, I throw a door open and freeze. Emma. In the middle of a very intense make-out session with a boy.
“Lauren!” she yells, her voice sharp with embarrassment.
I don’t even have the words. I slam the door shut, my heart racing. Seeing her like that—my little sister—doing something so ... intimate. It rattles me, more than I expected. I bolt down the hallway, my feet moving before my mind can catch up. I need to get away from this whole situation, from this entire party.
I grab the nearest door, fling it open, and slip inside, locking it behind me. I turn around, half expecting to find another gross scene, but instead, I find a room bathed in the soft glow of a single lamp sitting on a desk. The quiet is instant and absolute, like stepping into another world.
The air here feels different—calm.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady my pulse. The darkness in the room isn’t threatening; it’s comforting. Like the shadows wrap around me, shielding me from the chaos outside. I step closer to the desk, noticing sheets of paper scattered everywhere, and pencils tossed carelessly across the surface. The papers are filled with writing—hurried, almost frantic scrawls that loop and slash across the pages. Curious, I lean in, still standing, and begin to read. The sentences are disjointed, half-formed thoughts, almost like a journal or a collection of ideas.
Whoever wrote this wasn’t just writing—they wereunloading.
I find myself lost in the words, my fingers brushing the edges of the papers. There’s something raw and real in the writing. I don’t even know why, but it feels like I’ve stumbled upon something deeply personal, something I shouldn’t be reading—but I can’t stop. It’s like the chaos in my mind starts to settle with each sentence.
Rage and calm; fire and ice; passion and frigidity; love and hate. Only an alchemist can bring it all together and create a single feeling—one that has no name, one that does not exist among mortals. No one feels it, except a few. Does the alchemist feel it? It would be fair since she was the one who forced it on me.
I move the page and find another one underneath:
The alchemist possesses black magic. Only she knows how to bewitch me; she plays with my head, plunges me into madness, projects images in my mind where I touch her body, I lick her breasts…
I shouldn’t be here.
I take a step back, meaning to put distance between me and thisglimpse into someone’s private thoughts, but instead, I bump into something solid.
“What are you doing here, Bunny?” The voice is unmistakable. Silas. His low, chilling tone cuts through the darkness, and every muscle in my body seizes up.
