"Ten days. You said that after ten days, if you hadn't stabilized, I could leave on my own."
"Linden, I've waited for you, haven't I?"
The moment Mina finished speaking, a tremendous crash echoed from inside the room!
It was Cade.
He let out a savage laugh and lunged at Mina.
But it was as if a force within him fought back, veering him violently sideways until he crashed into the old furniture.
Then Cade produced his knife and, without a moment's hesitation, slashed his own calf.
The force nearly severed his knee.
Mina stood frozen, watching in horror as wound after wound appeared on Cade's body.
With his injured leg, he could barely crawl.
One personality strained toward Mina.
Another wrestled to hold the body back.
Mina was terrified. But in her eyes there was also infinite sorrow as she watched the grotesque figure on the floor.
Finally, Cade grasped his knife and shakily stood before Mina.
Or rather—Linden grasped it.
Because in the fading light, Mina heard the blood-soaked man speak his last words.
"Mina, I kept my promise."
Then Linden, the split-off personality, drove the knife deep into his own heart.
25
In the interrogation room, Detective Shaw looked at me with something like contempt.
I understood.
One was the roommate who sold out her friend.
The other was the girl who always stayed in the light.
"So... how is she now?" I asked, barely audibly.
"That girl is doing all right."
Detective Shaw adjusted his earpiece, and for the first time, his eyes held something like admiration.
"Do you know why Cade named himself Linden?"
I shook my head, listening as Detective Shaw laid out the details.
"After learning everything, Mina worked out the whole story herself and showed us her chat logs."
"Back when Cade first threatened her, he told her this was a world where there were more wolves than meat."
"According to Cade, Mina was just a piece of meat—not meant for him, but for the wolves."
"Because in the legends, the leader of wolves is called the jackal."
"The jackal is cunning but born crippled. It can only ride on the wolf's back, directing the starving pack."
I was brimming with questions. "What does that have to do with Linden?"
Detective Shaw narrowed his eyes, as if weighing Mina's words.
"Mina said Linden was exactly the jackal Cade spoke of—the jackal in the jungle."
"Linden's love was false. He lurked in the shadows, playing with her, only daring to step forward at the very end to save his beloved."
"A jackal that could only live behind others. A despicable, foolish jackal whose act became reality."
26
The outcome of the case: I was detained for a month for assisting in a kidnapping.
The reason: according to medical records, Cade had explicitly acknowledged "Linden's" existence under hypnosis.
As for the evidence of Mina's sexual assault, the hidden cameras in our dorm, and the chat logs between Cade and us—they all supported my testimony.
The only thing that couldn't be verified was Linden's contact information.
It was a messaging app that auto-deleted accounts after three days of inactivity. Linden's account had dissolved into the data stream of the internet, gone forever.
Nobody would remember.
Perhaps even Cade's gravestone wouldn't bear that name.
The day I got out, aside from my mother, I didn't see Mina anywhere.
"Did she go abroad?"
I asked Detective Shaw softly.
He didn't answer.
"I know."
I smiled bitterly.
"With a friend like me, whether she went abroad or not, she'd want to leave."
Just as I was about to walk away, Detective Shaw called after me.
"You should know—you deserved a harsher sentence than this. This shouldn't even have been classified as a minor offense."
"It was Mina who chose not to press charges against you."
I froze. When I turned, Detective Shaw had already walked away.
"Thank you," I whispered.
The wind was starting to cool.
It lifted my ponytail, and the world seemed to grow lighter.
Somehow, I found the courage to stay in this city.