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Her calmer brown eyes, unlike Isadora’s vindictive ones, cut back to Vivienne, and she offers her the fakest of all smiles. But it’s still more welcoming and real than Isadora’s evil ones.

“Sorry,” Vivienne says softly, opening the door wide and stepping aside to usher her in. Rolling her eyes which appear rather cute to Vivienne, Carla sighs and takes a step in.

For some reason, Vivienne still expects to see Isadora hanging around somewhere, so she takes a step onto the porch and looks around. Maybe, very unrealistically, she is afraid to see her after almost killing her and running away. Maybe she feels guilty so she’s hiding.

“Will you please, bring in my bag, child?” Carla’s command echoes from the living room, sarcasm layered in the request.

Vivienne quickly discards her mission and hurries back to the threshold, grabbing Carla’s bag which turns out to weigh more than she presumes as it nearly drags her down.

“Have you thought of using the stroller, perhaps, child?” Vivienne doesn’t even have to look at Carla. From her condescending tone, she knows the woman is looking at her like she’s the most stupid girl she has ever met.

“Yeah, that. Thanks.” An embarrassing smile creeps up her lips as she pulls out the handle and drags the bag inside to her.

“Tea or coffee?” Vivienne asks after placing the bag next to where Carla sits daintily on the two-seater couch, glancing around cautiously as though she may very well be sitting on a pile of garbage.

Carla takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I don’t drink coffee.” Her judgemental eyes return to scanning Vivienne from head to toe, sharp gaze zeroing particularly on her plaid skirt. “You would know that if it ever crossed your mind that I existed.”

Vivienne’s mouth opens and snaps shut again. She has what she thinks would have been a great comeback. But if Carla is anything like Isadora, she knows she will go to school after a long holiday with busted lips and swollen eyes.

But seriously, is this woman sharing the same mental problem as her daughter?

The first time she and Vivienne met was at the wedding.

Carla stayed behind for a week after that.

Yes, she did drag Vivienne to church and forced a Bible into her tiny hands, but they still weren’t that close.

After Carla left, that was the last time Vivienne spoke to her.

She never saw a missed call with Cape Verdean country code beside it to assume it could be Carla. So what the hell is she on?

“I apologize,” Vivienne says with the kindest smile. “I’ll um…I’ll get the tea.”

Carla murmurs something in Puerto Rican under her breath. Something that sounds really snarky and judgemental.

As she tries to make the tea, she wonders if she should ask her what exactly she is doing here.

She just needs closure. Nothing is making sense or adding up. Where is Isadora if her mother is here? Why is her mother here after how many years?

“Sugar?” she asks over the kitchen counter, a last-minute thought before she almost dumps a spoonful of sugar in the tea.

“No sugar, child,” Carla replies, rummaging through her handbag and fishing out a small, red and round object. “I have my sweetener.”

“Oh, okay.” Vivienne feels the need to slap a permanent smile on her face as she takes the tea to Carla. And to be honest, her cheeks are starting to hurt.

“May I know—”

“So, where is your mother?”

The strange word Carla uses to refer to Isadora takes Vivienne off-guard and she dramatically halts, her brows furrowed.

Mother?

“Sorry?” she asks, her brows furrowed.

Through the rim of the cup Carla has taken to her lips, she peeks at Vivienne, then shakes her head in what looks a lot like disappointment.

“It’s been seven years that she has been raising and catering for you.” She places the cup aside. “You still don’t think she deserves to be called your mother yet?”

Vivienne feels like chortling. But she opens her mouth only to snap it shut again. She has no words.

“She hasn’t been home.” Vivienne doesn’t have the answer to her latter question, so she answers the former instead.

“I mean, I woke up one morning and she was gone. I thought it was for work, but she didn’t come home for 72 hours.

After a few days, I called her office and her partner said she took a leave. ”

“I see.” She sighs after a while, then sip her tea gently. “Well, where could she have gone without a note, at least?”

“I don’t really know any friends of hers.” Vivienne shifts uncomfortably on her heels. “So I don’t know anyone else to call. Do you know anyone?”

“I haven’t heard from her in three years.” Carla’s eyes drop to her plaid skirt again. “You live with her, you should have figured out a way by now.”

“Of course,” Vivienne murmurs, glancing at her skirt and grabbing the hem, tugging it down a little even though it does nothing.

“Isadora watches you go to school like this every day?” Her tone is a bit harsh. “With this skirt they probably gave you from the Elementary collection? What happened to the rest of the material?”

Vivienne takes in a sharp breath, about to speak but a loud blare cuts her off.

Her head snaps to the door at the sound of Kenji’s car. A sigh of relief washes over her.

“Um, my ride to school is here,” she says, glancing briefly at Carla before dashing toward the kitchen counter to grab her school bag. “See you when I get back, grandma.”

“Do you think she’ll be as terrible as Isadora?” Kenji asks, dropping onto the chair behind Vivienne.

“What?” She cranes her neck to look at him.

He props his chin on his fist, elbow braced against the desk, his gaze lazy but perceptive.

“Is that why you look kinda worried?” he asks. “That she may hit you and be nasty like Isadora?”

“No.” Vivienne shakes her head. But the weight of the words feel fragile on her tongue. “I don’t…think so.”

Kenji’s expression remains skeptical.

“I mean, she’s like a very devoted Christian.

” She shrugs as if that alone can fix anything.

For some reason, she always thinks Christians—the ones who actually do go to church, are really kind people, even though it can’t be so true sometimes.

She did hear about a priest who raped a teenage girl in his church last year.

Kenji’s scoff is immediate. “That has nothing to do with anything.” His free hand plays with the tendril of her curls. “The worst are in the church, trust me.”

“Still,” she muses, turning back to the front of the class as the chatter increases, the more students strut in.

“I don’t think she’s gonna be as bad. She’s gonna probably be torturing me with the word of God, waking me up with a Bible verse.

” Then her eyes drop to her thigh where her skirt lays.

“Perhaps ask me to go add some inches to my skirt.”

“That’s gonna be bad too,” Kenji mutters, distaste curling his lips. His eyes flicker to the door as more students shuffle in, the buzz in the room increasing as everyone chat away about their holiday experiences.

“Honestly, I’ll take that over swollen eye and probably loose teeth,” she chuckles, as if the scars from Isadora’s vice are funny.

“Morning, class!”

The familiar voice rips through the room, silencing every other sound.

Vivienne freezes, a sharp chill sweeping over her skin, seeping into her bones.

James Fadden?

Her heart slams into her ribs.

“What?” Kenji whispers, but the word barely registers before the murmurs of students ripple across the room.

“I thought he was just here until Mr. Wayne came back?” someone asks, ripping the question on Vivienne’s tongue right out.

James Fadden moves to his desk, adjusting his glasses with a finger, sharp eyes sweeping the room. “Unfortunately.” His voice drifts across the room, bathing Vivienne’s skin in goosebumps. “Mr. Wayne won’t be returning. I’ll be handling the class for the rest of the semester.”

No.

His gaze finds her at last, locking on her like a man with a purpose.

The last few days before winter breaks float into Vivienne’s memory.

He was always watching her. In his class, his sharp gaze always found her, a bone-chilling presence settling behind it.

In the hallway, on the bleachers, in the parking lot—no matter where she went, she felt eyes watching her.

And when she searched, she would find him, lurking in the shadows like a predator waiting for its prey to wander into the trap.

But as winter break came, she thought it was over. He was just a temporary teacher till Mr. Wayne would return. James Fadden was never meant to come back. But here he is anyway, and this time, he is here to stay?

“I enjoyed the few times we shared together last semester,” he says, his eyes barely straying from Vivienne. “I am happy to be back.”

There’s something cruel and deliberate in every sweep of his gaze. And the smile he manufactures to ease the tension in the class feels like something from the pit of hell.

Her pulse pounds. There’s a purpose in his stare. A promise.

He definitely is challenging her, waiting for her to break.

“I really think you should talk to him,” Kenji says, his pace falling into rhythm with Vivienne’s as they weave their way through the chaos of students flooding out of the school.

“Talk to him about what, exactly?” she asks, her voice taut, clipped, tension weaving into her bones.

He sidesteps a kid who almost barrels into him.

“He’s clearly making you uncomfortable. And I think that’s what he wants.

To make you scared. You need to ask him why he’s trying to make you scared.

” Vivienne tightens her grip on the strap of her backpack, his words making her chest heavier.

“Remember what he said about being here for the rest of the semester? Yeah, that’s fucking six months.

Imagine going through anxiety for six months? ”

Vivienne takes in a sharp breath before speaking. “Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it because he knows something. Confronting him will cement whatever he thinks he knows if it was just a guess before.”

“There are ways to do these things.” Kenji slings an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. “You gotta be coded when you ask him.”

She arches her brow. “And by coded, you mean?”

Kenji doesn’t answer immediately. His hold on her seems to tighten protectively, his gaze somewhere far away. And when she glances up at him, she notices his expression hardening.

“What is it?” She follows his line of sight.

“He’s here.”

Alarm prickles down her spine. And when her eyes finally fall on the black SUV Kenji is staring at, her stomach lurches.

It’s parked in the teacher’s spot again, windows tinted, the weight of unseen eyes pressing, assessing.

Her heart pounds.

Who is here?

Zev or Lucan?