Chapter 6
Ember's POV
I glanced at my mom. She had her own cup raised, already drinking, unbothered.
I looked back down at mine.
Vincent was watching me — just that steady, sideways kind of attention that doesn't announce itself. But I caught it. Like he already knew the answer and just wanted to see how long it would take me to get there.
I took a sip.
The taste hit the back of my throat — salty, with a burnt edge underneath, nothing like it smelled.
I set the cup down.
"Not bad," I said.
My voice came out even. Steadier than I expected.
Vincent said nothing. He pulled his gaze away, turned, and slid his free hand back into his pocket, like nothing had happened at all.
I pressed my fingertips against the base of the cup, just enough to keep it from making a sound. Something was still sitting at the back of my throat, salty, with a bitter edge underneath.
I drew in a slow breath and pushed it down.
Arthur said something beside us — his voice warm, relaxed in the way that only comes from a lifetime of having nothing to prove. My mom answered him and laughed. I glanced at her face from the side.
She looked fine. Steady. Cup in hand, back straight, something in her eyes I almost never saw back in Black Creek.
Vincent stood about two steps away from me. He wasn't looking at me, wasn't joining their conversation. Just standing there, still as a post driven into the floor.
Does he even want us here?
I wasn't sure if I was reading it right — maybe he was like this with everyone, maybe this was just his default. I turned both possibilities over in my head, reached no conclusion, and didn't have time to reach one.
We'd just moved in. Our bags weren't even unpacked. I had no standing to wreck anything on the first day.
A little while later, a woman in uniform came over and said my room was ready, that she could take me up.
My mom looked at me. Her eyes said go on. I stood, and followed the woman toward the stairs.
The room was down the inner end of the second-floor hallway. White door. When I pushed it open, I stopped dead in the doorway.
It was enormous.
The room I had in Black Creek would've felt crowded with two beds. Here, there was one bed, and after that there was still enough floor left over for another. The curtains were heavy. The carpet was pale gray, and when I stepped onto it, it made no sound. The bedside lamp threw a warm yellow light that didn't bite.
The woman told me from behind that a bath had already been drawn, and that the boxes on the desk were welcome gifts from Mr. Arthur and young Mr. Vincent — not to be shy about it, and to come find her if I needed anything. Then she pulled the door shut behind her.
I stood in the middle of the room, looked around once, and went to take a bath.
When the hot water hit, the chill I'd been carrying along my spine finally let go. I bowed my head and let the water run over the back of my neck, listening to the sound of it, and my mind kept circling back to Vincent's face — blank, clean, nothing there, like a whiteboard someone had just wiped down.
He tampered with it.
I was almost certain. That drink wasn't an accident. Even if the powder hadn't dissolved properly, the salt and the bitterness weren't things that happened by themselves.
He had stood there and watched me drink it. Watched my throat move. Asked me if it was good — and that question hadn't been concern. It had been waiting. Waiting to see me choke.
I let the thought soak for a while, then set it aside.
It didn't matter right now.
I came out with my hair still damp and crossed to the desk to look at the boxes.
The first one held clothes, folded neatly. The fabric was the kind I couldn't name a brand for, but could feel wasn't cheap. I went through them piece by piece. No tags, but the styles were right. The sizes were right. Someone had measured, or guessed, ahead of time.
The second box was smaller. Inside was a skincare set, all English labels, none of the brand names familiar. The bottles were matte white with metal caps. I unscrewed one and smelled it — faint, nothing like the aggressively sweet drugstore stuff. I lined them up in a row and looked at them for a moment, not sure how to use them, not sure whether I was supposed to.
The third box was lighter than the other two. When I picked it up, it barely had any weight to it.
I lifted the lid.
Something flew out, straight at my face.
I stumbled back a step and hit the edge of the bed. My knee caught the bed frame hard, and I half-fell onto the mattress, still holding the box. A rubber thing draped itself over the back of my hand — soft, green, ridged with a scale pattern.
A spring-loaded rubber snake.
I stared at it for about two seconds.
Heat climbed into my eyes. I didn't catch it in time. I clenched my jaw. Something in my throat was shaking.
Damn.
I threw the box onto the bed and stood up. The carpet was soft under my feet. My knee still hurt. The tears didn't fall, but my eyes were wet. I dragged the back of my hand across the corner of one eye, pulled in a deep breath, let it out.
I wanted to find my mom.
I walked to the door and pulled it open.
The hallway lights were low — warm yellow, casting a long shadow down the floor.
Vincent was standing right outside my door, knuckles raised, caught mid-knock.
