Once I couldn't bear the burning anymore, I had to tell them where Mina was.
21
School hadn't started yet. The campus was deserted.
Cade still held a knife to my side as we climbed into his car parked below the academic building.
I gave him an address.
On the outskirts, a nearly abandoned concrete apartment building—that was where Linden had directed me.
In the car, I said weakly, "I'm not sure she's still there."
Cade floored the accelerator, grinning. "She'd better be, Sable. Otherwise, whatever she deserves, I'll pay back a thousand times over on you."
We drove for thirty minutes.
It was the longest half hour of my life.
When we arrived, it was late afternoon, the sun turning amber.
We got out on a desolate street and walked toward a lone, rundown building in the distance.
Which unit was it?
Unit six, I think?
I forced myself to recall the address I'd already deleted, scanning for unit numbers, then stepped inside.
The stairwell smelled of dust.
First floor, second floor, third floor...
On the top floor, I reached the door with the right number.
Cade and I exchanged a glance, then I knocked.
No answer.
Cade scowled and started ramming the door shoulder-first.
The door was old.
It had a padlock, groaning with each impact. I instinctively covered my ears.
After maybe thirty or forty hits, the rusted chain snapped.
The door swung open.
In the golden, dated living room, furniture from the 1980s sat gathering dust.
Empty. Not a soul.
I panicked, glancing at Cade, quickly waving my hands. "I told you, this has nothing to do with me—"
But it was too late.
Cade's face was like stone. He shoved me inside and locked the door behind him.
I lunged for the door, but Cade backhanded me so hard I hit the floor.
Terrified, my fingers scraped the dusty concrete as I scrambled away, desperate for distance.
I barely made it a few meters before Cade's shoe came down hard on my back.
I twisted around. He was already raising the knife above me.
I saw his cold, pitiless eyes.
"Sable, you ruined everything for me."
"You should stick around and play with me for a while."
Panicking, I sobbed and insisted it wasn't my fault—that Linden and Mina were the ones who'd forced me!
"It's all Mina's own fault! She was greedy! She stole the exam questions!"
"Mina had no idea what was good for her! Falling for Linden like that!"
"What does that have to do with me?"
My voice grew quieter as I cried. Cade crouched, pressing his knife tip against my forehead, slicing a gash.
And just then, we both heard a sound from above.
The unit was on the top floor—there had to be an attic.
"Linden!"
Through the floor, I heard Mina's faint, hollow cry. She sounded trapped.
Cade looked at me and grinned, then headed for the attic stairs.
Soon, more violent sounds erupted above. I caught fragments of Mina's crying and Cade's howling.
Finally, the one who descended the stairs was Mina—drenched in blood.
She looked at me, said nothing, and simply sat beside me, weeping softly.
I wanted to say I was sorry, but there was no time. For a long half hour, we sat in silence—until you arrived.
22
"That's everything, Detective Shaw."
Finishing the story felt like it had drained every last drop of strength from my body, like shedding a lifetime of tears.
Detective Shaw didn't speak for a while. Finally, he stood—not to approach me, but to study the transcript carefully.
He'd look up at me from time to time.
I don't know how long passed before someone knocked on the door. Detective Shaw stepped out and returned with a document.
"You did well. Both testimonies line up—nothing inconsistent."
I exhaled in relief, but curiosity got the better of me. I asked, "So how did Cade actually die?"
Detective Shaw sat back down. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. The first thing he said turned the question back on me.
"Do you remember when I first told you Mina claimed Cade killed himself?"
"I remember." I nodded.
Detective Shaw said, "I lied. Mina's actual words were that Linden killed Cade."
"What?" My jaw dropped. "But Linden was never at the scene!"
"True. But Mina said..."
Detective Shaw opened the document and slid it across the table toward me.
"Cade and Linden were the same person."
Under the fluorescent lights, the clinical white document stared back at me.
It was a diagnostic report from City Psychiatric Hospital, Department of Psychiatry.
Patient: Cade. Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder. Dual personality.
I sat frozen for a long time, unable to process it.
"What... does that mean?" I stammered.
I knew what it meant—I just couldn't piece it together.
Detective Shaw exhaled slowly and said, "This is just a preliminary theory, but let me explain."
23
First, in Mina's testimony, she'd met a young man named Linden on a self-destructing messaging app about twenty days earlier.
Linden was sunny, well-off, articulate, and mysterious.
He'd appear at all hours to chat with Mina.
But every session lasted exactly two hours.
Then, on August 5th, Mina received a message from her counselor Cade, offering to help her get the study-abroad slot through leaked exam questions.
The next day, Cade raped Mina in the equipment room.
Facing a madman who wielded mental illness as a shield, Mina was too terrified to do anything but hide in her dorm.
Even so, Cade kept tormenting her.
Those two hours chatting with Linden became the brightest part of Mina's day.
Even while enduring threats and nightmares.
Gradually, Linden's name became the only one Mina mentioned in our dorm.
Until August 21st.
Mina felt inexplicably drowsy, and when she woke, she found herself in a dark room.
The light came on, revealing a man standing in the shadows.
She was terrified, certain this was the source of her nightmares.
But the man spoke in a familiar voice and said his name was Linden.
He only had two hours at a time.
He would come every day, spending those two hours with Mina, until he could regain control of the body.
And according to Mina, she could see it—the man called Linden, who was unmistakably Cade—had eyes that belonged to a completely different person than the beast in the equipment room.
Gentle. Mina felt, dimly, that this was the Linden she'd imagined.
But in truth, Mina had no choice at all.
"Linden, how can I trust you?"
"I'll anoint you with my blood."
"Why?"
"That way, even when Cade's will takes over and approaches you, I'll wake up."
The man—Cade in body, Linden in spirit—touched her face.
"Because I won't let them hurt you."
24
Later, Linden told Mina that if she heard any sound, she should hide in the attic wardrobe and lock it from the inside.
Logically, Cade shouldn't have known about this abandoned apartment.
But barely a day later, while Mina was enjoying a rare moment of peace, she heard footsteps and violent banging outside.
Mina panicked, ran up to the attic, and locked herself inside the wardrobe.
Then she heard my voice.
From their conversation, she realized I had been conspiring with Cade, subjecting her to unspeakable cruelty all those days.
Mina was furious—especially when I threw the blame entirely on her.
But perhaps because she was in the darkness, Mina thought about what she herself had endured.
In her words...
Someone who has suffered would never wish that suffering upon a friend.
Mina was terrified, but she made up her mind—she would go out and save me.
The wardrobe was old and the darkness absolute. Mina struggled to open the lock.
So she pounded against the wardrobe, calling out to Linden for help.
Until Cade heard the noise and opened the door.
She looked battered, but not gravely injured. She felt her own eyes must be shining with a courage she'd never had before.
She stood in the wardrobe, staring straight at Cade.