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CHAPTER 11: The night everyone looked at me wrong

Author: Vicky PE
last update Last Updated: 2025-12-02 04:53:48

The lights flicker again, and I swear the shadows in Aunt Ruby’s living room lean toward me. The storm outside howls like its throat is full of my name, and Noelle watches me like she’s waiting for me to bloom into something awful.

I take one shaky step back.

Aunt Ruby takes two steps forward, wielding a cracked salt jar like she’s about to perform a chaotic exorcism.

“Noelle Arden,” she says, pointing the jar. “You get out of my house before I smack the unholy straight out of you.”

Noelle sighs. “Ruby, don’t be dramatic.”

“Dramatic? I was born dramatic,” Ruby snaps. “I’ll die dramatic. Now get!”

Noelle’s expression twitches — amused at first, then suddenly cold. “He said you’d try to interfere.”

Aunt Ruby freezes. “He tells you too much.”

Noelle shrugs like she’s discussing the weather. “He tells me enough.”

My skin crawls. “Why is he even talking to you? Why you?”

Noelle tilts her head, smile returning in a way that makes something sour open in my stomach. “Because I was always clos
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