You're Not Supposed to Be Alive

The thought refused to leave my head. He had been expecting me.

I stared at the hospital bracelet for another heartbeat, trying to force my mind to understand what I had just discovered, but nothing fit - every answer created another question, and every question made the room feel smaller, the walls pressing closer than they had any right to.

My name. My bracelet. Hidden inside a locked bedroom in Damian Blackwood's house, tucked away like something too dangerous to be seen and too precious to destroy.

I took a slow breath. Panic would only make me careless, and careless mistakes would get me caught, and getting caught now would cost me everything I had spent five years building toward.

Carefully, I placed the bracelet back inside the wooden box, arranging it exactly as I had found it, and the lid settled into place with barely a sound. I slid the box behind the row of novels until it disappeared completely, then checked the shelf twice, running my fingers along the spines to make sure nothing looked disturbed, nothing shifted, nothing that would betray me later.

Next came the notebook. I returned it to the drawer, aligning it with the stack of stationery until it matched the faint outline it had left in the dust, and the fountain pen went back beside it, exactly at the angle it had rested in before. The drawer closed silently, the way everything in this room seemed to close silently, as though it had been trained never to make a sound.

I looked around the room one final time. The photograph remained exactly where I had found it, face down, keeping its secret. The chair still faced the window. The flowers stood untouched, their white petals stark against the dim light. Nothing suggested anyone had been here - nothing except the pounding of my own heart, which felt loud enough to give me away all on its own.

Only then did I reach for the door. The corridor outside was silent. I stepped out, locked the door behind me, slipped the copied key into my pocket, and picked up the basket of folded linens I had left against the wall before entering, using it now as both alibi and shield.

By the time I started walking, my breathing had almost returned to normal. Almost.

I had taken only a few steps when the sound of a car engine drifted through the open windows overlooking the front drive, and the basket nearly slipped from my hands.

No.

My eyes moved toward the window. Gravel crunched beneath tires. An engine switched off. Someone had returned, too early, and my heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was certain it could be heard from across the corridor.

Damian.

I looked at the clock above the corridor entrance. Four twenty-three. His meetings weren't supposed to end until six. Something had changed, and I had no way of knowing whether that something had anything to do with me.

Then another sound reached me. "Evelyn?"

Lily. She was awake, and her voice carried that particular note of urgency she always had the moment she realized I wasn't in the room.

I closed my eyes briefly. Of all moments.

I forced myself forward - not too quickly, not too slowly, just another nanny carrying laundry through the east wing. Normal. Everything had to look normal, even as every nerve in my body screamed that nothing about this moment was normal at all.

The staircase came into view, footsteps echoing from above, slow and measured, each one landing with the deliberate weight of a man who never hurried, not even when hurrying might have served him better. I looked up. Damian Blackwood stood at the top of the landing.

Our eyes met instantly. He stopped. So did I. For several seconds, neither of us moved, the space between us thick with everything neither of us was saying. His gaze shifted slightly, from my face to the locked door behind me, then back again - the movement was almost invisible, but I noticed. He knew exactly where I had been.

"You returned early," I said, and to my surprise my voice sounded steady, betraying none of the tremor still running through my hands.

"The second meeting was postponed." His answer was calm - too calm - but his eyes remained fixed on me, searching, analyzing, as if he was trying to find something hidden beneath my expression, or confirm something he already knew and had simply been waiting for the right moment to say aloud.

"Where is Lily?"

"She just woke up from her nap." I adjusted the basket in my hands, grateful for something to hold onto. "I was on my way to her."

He didn't respond. He only watched me, and for the first time I saw something I had never expected from Damian Blackwood.

Fear. It appeared for only a second, flickering across features that had never once slipped in front of me before, then vanished behind the cold control he wore so effortlessly, like armor he had learned to put on before he learned to walk.

"See to her."

"I will."

I lowered my head slightly and walked past him, close enough to feel the tension radiating off him like heat off pavement. Every instinct told me to look back. I didn't.

I turned the corner and almost walked straight into Lily. She stood barefoot outside her bedroom, her dark hair messy from sleep, one hand wrapped around her stuffed rabbit, the other reaching out before she had even fully seen me. The moment she saw me, her face softened - that expression, that impossible recognition, like she had been waiting for the world to become right again after tilting sideways for a moment too long.

"Evelyn."

"I'm here."

She crossed the distance between us without hesitation and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her face against me as though she could disappear into the fabric of my dress. I placed one hand gently over her hair, and the simple touch almost broke me, because now I knew - I knew exactly who she was, and I knew someone had taken years from both of us, years neither of us would ever get back no matter what happened next.

Behind me, the corridor remained silent. Slowly, I lifted my eyes. Damian hadn't moved. He was still standing where I had left him, watching us, watching Lily cling to me, watching my hand protectively resting against her head. His expression revealed nothing, but his eyes looked like a man watching something he had spent years believing was impossible - a memory returning, a ghost coming back to life, a mistake he could no longer hide, no matter how carefully he had built the walls meant to keep it buried.

Then another voice shattered the silence. "No."

The word came from the staircase, soft, disbelieving, carrying a weight that made every hair on my arms rise. Everyone turned.

Mrs. Agatha Hayes stood frozen halfway down the stairs, the household ledger lying open at her feet, loose papers scattered across the polished floor like something had physically knocked the breath and composure out of her at once. She didn't seem to notice. Thirty years at Blackwood Manor had built her reputation on one thing: control. Nothing frightened her, nothing surprised her - until now.

Her eyes were fixed on me. Not Lily. Not Damian. Me.

Her lips parted slightly. "No..."

The whisper trembled through the corridor, and one shaking hand lifted slowly, a finger pointing toward me as though she needed the gesture to make what she was seeing real. Lily immediately moved closer, sensing the sudden change around her, her small fingers tightening in the fabric of my dress. Damian remained silent, his jaw set, his eyes flicking between the housekeeper and me as though calculating how much damage had already been done. The entire house seemed to stop breathing, the air itself gone still and heavy.

Mrs. Hayes swallowed, her face having lost all color, and when she finally spoke, her voice broke, cracking down the middle like something that had been holding together far longer than it should have.

"You're..."

She stopped, her eyes filling with tears, and shook her head slowly, as if refusing to accept what she was seeing, as if believing it might undo something she had spent years convincing herself was finished.

Then she whispered the words that sent ice through my veins.

"You're not supposed to be alive."