CATALINAThe streets blurred as we ran, feet pounding against pavement slick with the humidity. Luhan’s grip tightened around mine, urgent and desperate. But I knew the truth. We weren’t outrunning his father. Not really.Luhan stumbled, catching himself against the brick wall. I turned, pressing my palm against his chest, just for a second. Just to steady him.“He won’t stop,” Luhan whispered. His voice was wrecked.I anxiously swallowed because I knew he was right.I flinched at a shadow that moved at the alley’s entrance. His father caught us.Luhan stepped forward, instinctively shielding me with his own body. His father adjusted the cuff of his sleeve slowly with his eyes settling on Luhan like this was nothing more than a business transaction.“You made this much harder than it had to be.” His voice was quiet.Luhan stiffened. “She did nothing wrong.”His father sighed, his eyes flicked to me, ignoring Luhan’s plea. “And you? Do you truly believe you can save yourself?”I swal
CATALINAI fumbled in the dark, my fingers trembling as they skimmed over the smooth, cold surface of the wall. The room smelled of dust and old wood, but beneath it all, I could still catch the faint scent of Luhan’s cologne lingering in the air. He was close. He had to be.My pulse pounded against my ears, drowning out the muffled voices beyond the door. His father was out there. If I didn’t find the button, if I didn’t open this damn door in time…I pressed my palm against the wood, feeling for the slightest indentation, the smallest shift beneath my touch. The hidden mechanism had to be here somewhere. The voices grew sharper. His father’s voice was low, commanding, and merciless.I swallowed my panic and dug my nails into the wall, tracing the grooves with desperate precision. Come on. Come on.Then, I felt it. A subtle give beneath my fingertip. A raised edge, hidden in the grain.A voice from outside: “You have nowhere to run, boy.”No. No. No. My heart lurched as I presse
CATALINAI knocked over the glass with my hand, shattering the delicate porcelain and the comfortable silence of the early morning. The clatter echoed in the sudden void that opened up inside me.Luhan, who had been calmly staring at me just moments before, looked up, his brow furrowed with concern. My gaze was fixed on him, who had just delivered the words that irrevocably cleaved my life into a before and an after. The way he said it, it wasn’t a mistake.“Catherine… my aunt… she’s my mother?”The words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. It was a cruel, impossible riddle. I had those thoughts before, but… I didn't expect it to be true.‘The Catherine right now doesn't exist.’My head spun as Mr. Yu's remarks the other day replayed in a new, distorted light. The porcelain shards on the floor glinted, reflecting the sudden, blinding realization. Catherine approached me, stole her sister's identity, and made me believe her false story.The entire story was a lie, constructed on
CATALINA The moment he gazed at me, a cold dread wrapped around my throat, squeezing. I’d been careless and reckless in a way I couldn’t afford to be. My chest tightened as his eyes locked onto mine, unreadable, calculating.Fear crawled through me, laced with something sharper, as I felt the phone's weight in my chest like a fragile secret against my skin. Every fiber of my being screamed to keep it, to fight. But he doesn’t lunge, doesn’t demand to hand in the phone.Just silence. Patient, unnerving silence.“You don’t have to hide it,” he says, absurdly calm.The air tightened between us, but I didn’t move. That patience unsettled me. A game? A test? My heartbeat stuttered as his shadow stretched across the table, his presence too careful, too measured. It felt like a trick or worse like he was waiting to see if I would surrender of my own will.My pulse hammers, waiting for the catch, the demand, the punishment. But none comes.He lowers himself into the chair across from me,
CATALINAThe gates sealed shut behind me with a final, resonant clang. A sound that, in its cold certainty, felt more like a sentence than an arrival. A sharp coil of fear twisted inside me, but I swallowed it, forcing my breath to remain steady. Panic was useless here.The drive had been long, too long, the roads unraveling behind me like threads severed from everything familiar. Civilization had faded mile by mile, like the diminishing glow of a dying lantern, until only wilderness remained. And now, here I was.The mansion loomed ahead, sprawling and severe, its silhouette bruising the sky like a wound. It was grand, almost palatial, yet every inch felt built to contain rather than welcome. It should have dazzled and commanded awe, but all I felt was the chill creeping into my bones.Luhan stood at the entrance, waiting. He had the stillness of a man accustomed to control, and it infuriated me, the ease with which he occupied space as if I were just another acquisition. The weigh
DANTEI blink. Once. Twice.The world feels unsteady beneath me like the floor might give way at any moment. Karen’s voice, calm and steady, still echoes in my ears, but the meaning of her words is struggling to take root. “I’m Karen Lawrence, twin sister of Karyl Lawrence.”A twin. Karyl has a twin sister.I stare at her, searching her face for something, proof, denial, some sort of sign that this is all some bizarre misunderstanding. But there’s nothing. Only quiet certainty in the way she sits before me, waiting for my reaction.Something tightens in my chest. All these years… all this time… and I never knew. How could I not have known? I try to speak, but words fail me. I shake my head slightly as if that will rearrange my thoughts into something coherent. It doesn’t.Karen watches me, her expression unreadable.“I… I didn't know she had a twin sister. She never tells me.”Karyl and I have been friends since we were four or five, the day her mother was hired as a secretary for m