Ellen paced back and forth in her room, her feet moving restlessly over the floor. The room felt too small, like the walls were closing in on her. What happened this morning was still sitting heavily with her.
She was biting her nails, an old nervous habit she hadn’t done in years, but now she couldn’t stop. Her eyes were wide, her mind racing as she replayed everything that had happened, over and over.
She had already thrown away the roses—tossed them into the trash outside. The memory of them made her stomach turn, and she shuddered, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the image. "Ugh," she muttered under her breath, her voice trembling slightly. "What kind of sick person sends roses soaked in blood?" She felt a wave of nausea rise in her chest, and she pressed a hand to her stomach, closing her eyes for a moment to steady herself.
"It can’t be Mason," she said aloud. She paused in her pacing, her brow furrowing. "Mason isn’t a maniac. He isn’t a psychopath." She shook her head again, her expression hardening.
No, Mason would never do something like that. He might be a little bit cold, but he would never try to scare her like this. There was nothing like a card or anything to figure out who sent this to her. She needed to ask Colleen for more details when she got home since she was the one who accepted it.
She resumed her pacing, her steps growing quicker as she tried to think. Did she have any enemies? She let out a bitter laugh, the sound harsh in the quiet room. "Well, that’s a stupid question," she muttered. "Of course I do."
Two, in fact. Aubrey and Gerald.
The thought of them made her blood boil, her jaw clenching as she remembered the way they had looked at her, the hatred in their eyes. But how did they know she was here? She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. How could they have found her?
She stopped pacing, her eyes narrowing as a thought struck her. "They must have come looking for Mason at home," she said. "They didn’t find him, and the security probably told them." She nodded to herself, the pieces beginning to fall into place. Yes, that made sense. They had come looking for Mason, and when they couldn’t find him, they demanded to know where he was, which would also reveal her location.
"But are they really this sick?" Ellen asked herself, her voice filled with disbelief. She turned, her eyes staring blankly at the wall as she considered the possibility. She could imagine Aubrey doing something like this—Aubrey, who was always so determined to get what she wanted, who had never been able to accept that Mason had married with someone else. Maybe she was at her wit’s end, maybe she thought that terrorizing Ellen would scare her into giving up, would make her step aside and let Aubrey take Mason.
"Well," Ellen began, "she’s wrong." She straightened her shoulders, a determined expression crossing her face. "She might have freaked me out a little earlier, but not anymore." She wasn’t about to let Aubrey win, wasn’t about to let her scare her away.
This was the first time Ellen had faced anything like this. In her real world, she didn’t have enemies—not to the point where they would go out of their way to terrorize her. Sure, she had people who didn’t like her at work, or the landlord, people who disagreed with her, but nothing like this. Nothing so... personal.
She resumed her pacing, her steps slower now as she tried to figure out what to do next. "How should I handle this?" she muttered, her brow furrowed.
Should she call the police? Would they even take her seriously? She could already imagine the conversation, the officer’s skeptical expression as she tried to explain that someone had sent her a bouquet of bloody roses. It sounded ridiculous, even to her own ears.
"Or should I confront Aubrey?" she wondered aloud. She could go to her, demand answers, force her to admit what she had done. But what if Aubrey denied it? What if she just laughed in Ellen’s face, called her paranoid? And even if she did admit it, what then? Would it change anything? Would it make her stop?
She sighed, shaking her head. "Was it okay to think that Aubrey or Gerald did it?"
The question lingered in her mind, making her chest feel heavy. She had been so quick to blame them, to assume that they were behind the bloody roses. But what if she was wrong? What if they had nothing to do with it?
She let out another sigh, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her shirt. "It’s already accusing," she whispered. She didn’t have any solid proof, nothing that could definitively link Aubrey or Gerald to the roses. All she had was their history—their hostility towards each other, the tension that seemed to hang between them every time they were in the same room. But was that really enough?
Ellen closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the headboard. She could still see Aubrey’s face in her mind, the way she had glared at her, her eyes filled with anger. And Gerald—his smirk, his condescending tone, the way he always seemed to look down on her, as if she were beneath him. They didn’t like her. That much was obvious. But did that mean they were capable of something like this?
"God," she muttered, opening her eyes again, staring up at the ceiling. "This is probably the effect of changing too much of the plot." She let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. She had made so many changes, tried so hard to steer things in a different direction.
"Maybe it’s not even them." But if it wasn’t Aubrey or Gerald, then who? Who else would have a reason to send her something like that?
If it wasn’t them, wouldn’t that be more scary?
She rubbed her forehead, a frown forming on her face. No one else came to mind. She didn’t have any other enemies, at least none that she knew of.
So why now? Why was this happening to her?