Page 39 of Their Arrangement

Intentional.

Like every stroke of that color gave me an inch of control. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if it was borrowed. Even if it was given to me by the same man who’d just torn me in half with a single sentence.

I leaned forward. Stared at myself in the mirror. Harder this time. My eyes still looked tired. But they were sharper.

Focused.

“If you’re not meant to be seen,” I whispered.

My voice didn’t shake. It didn’t rise. It just… existed.

“I guess that means I should make them look harder.”

I didn’t smile. Not at first. But something flickered at the corner of my mouth. A smirk. A shadow of one. The kind of expression you make when you know you're breaking. And choose to keep going anyway.

I pressed my hand to the edge of the sink. Steadier now. Just barely. And then I walked out of the bathroom.

Obedience on my lips.

And defiance blooming just beneath it.

5

WOLFE

She didn’t walklike she belonged here.

She didn’t move like the women who glided across our marble floors in their designer heels and sculpted perfection. She clutched her bag too tight. Walked like she was waiting for the floor to fall out from beneath her.

And maybe she was.

I watched from the second floor landing, hands in my pockets, head tilted just slightly. Hidden by the curvature of the glass stairwell. I had a perfect view.

Cloe BreAnne Woods.

Fucking ghost in the machine.

The girl who used to orbit my sister like a second moon. Quiet. Constant. Always hovering at the edge of things, just close enough to soak up Camille’s light without trying to steal it.

She was nothing then.

She’s nothing now.

And yet—here she is.

Floating down our hallway like a shadow draped in desperationand discount perfume.

She didn’t see me.

No one ever did, really.

That was the point.

She carried a box in her arms—one of the cheap recycled cardboard types we used for archive transfers. Too heavy for her. The weight of it tipped her forward, made her stumble slightly, forced her to move slower than the current around her.

No one offered to help.

A man brushed past her—not cruelly, just dismissively. Like she didn’t register.