Chapter 102

NB: If this poll reaches 100 votes, I’ll start Tome 2.

The air in the apartment was stale, heavy with the lingering scent of old coffee and the clinical ozone of a laptop running too hot. Adeline did not drop her keys. She slammed them onto the console, her breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches. The courthouse was a blur behind her, a cacophony of gavel strikes and predatory flashbulbs, but here, in the dim light of her foyer, the silence felt like a physical weight.

She lunged for her desk. Her fingers, slick with a fine sheen of sweat, fumbled with the USB drive Roger had pressed into her palm like a forbidden talisman. The metal was cold, biting into her skin. She jammed it into the port, the soft click of the connection echoing in the quiet room.

The screen flickered.
A folder titled Project 0 appeared.

Then.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The knock was not a greeting. It was a rhythmic intrusion.

Adeline froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird in a cage of bone. In one fluid, desperate motion, she ripped the drive from the computer. The system chirped a digital protest, but she was already moving, sliding the drive beneath the lace of her bra, the cold metal a sharp sting against her frantic heart.

“Adeline,” came a familiar voice. “It’s me.”

She hesitated before unlocking the door.

Professor Vane stood there, thinner than she remembered, a file tucked under his arm like a shield. His eyes flicked past her shoulder, already searching the room.

Her jaw tightened.

“What are you doing here?”

“May I come in?”

“No.”

A beat. The hallway hummed with distant city noise.

“Please,” he said quietly. “We need to talk.”

Against her better judgment, she stepped aside.

Inside, the silence felt heavier than before. She folded her arms.

“What do you want, Professor?”

“Where is Riz?”

“He’ll be here soon.”

“Please,” Vane swallowed. “I went back over my notes.”

She laughed once, short and sharp. “You mean the ones you stole your conclusions from?”

“I studied them meticulously,” he continued, ignoring the jab. “And I must confess, something about Williams troubles me.”

She spun on him.

“Wait. Are you suffering from dementia,” she snapped, “or am I hallucinating? You questioned my judgment in open court. And now you show up here like what? A mentor again? Get out.”

“Adeline.”

“No.”

“I am sorry.”

“I’m no longer interested. Figure it out yourself.”

He placed A folder on the table.

That stopped her.

Her gaze fixed on it, traitorous curiosity stirring beneath her anger. Vane noticed. He always had.

“Please,” he said. “We have no more time to lose. Allow me to show you something. I obtained it through Makizal.”

The name landed like a key turning in a lock she had sworn was sealed.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice barely holding.

“I went back over your notes,” he said. “All of them. I reviewed the case from the beginning. And something about Williams does not add up. From the moment she struck Esther until her trial, did you notice she had no more tremors? No epistaxis?”

“I noticed, but I chalked it up to dissociation. You said yourself she was starting to heal, so it was normal. She was stabilizing.”

“I was wrong. Not without therapy,” he said sharply. “Not when memory reconnection should increase somatic response. There should have been headaches. Dissociation spikes. Emotional overflow.”

He paced now, agitated. “Instead, she became still.”

Adeline shook her head. “What’s your suspicion?”

“I am not yet sure, but…” He picked up a document from the table. “Please. Read this.”

Adeline looked at him, suspicious, then read it casually.

A session transcript.

Williams’s words stared back at her.

Transcript: Session 441

Williams: And what if I told you I liked it? Would you encourage my mother to schedule even more sessions?
Adeline: Tell me, do you like people desiring you?
Williams: I love it. I want them to desire me to the point of suffering. I want to see their eyes, lustful, desperate, helpless. When I speak, and they stare at my lips, my fingers, my neck. I want them to cling to hope in their delusion until reality hits them.
Adeline: And what is that reality?
Williams: Hope, Miss Adeline, is a feeling of expectation. Reality is realizing you were hoping for something that will never happen.

End.

“You remember this,” Vane said softly. “You dismissed it as provocation. Sexualized defense.”

“I don’t see your point.”

“If she had no awareness of her trauma, no emotional continuity, why would she articulate desire as control? As endurance? You would never have repeated it to her mother. She knew that. Which means she was not speaking to you.”

Adeline’s throat tightened. “Then who?”

He slid another paper toward her. “Look at this.”

“Where did you get this?”

“Makizal,” Vane said. “Her IQ assessment test in middle school.”

Her breath caught.

The score was undeniable.

“With an IQ like this,” she said, “she should have skipped grades.”

“She was offered the option,” Vane replied. “But Williams refused. She wanted to proceed slowly.”

“How do you know that?”

“Miss Kai,” he said. “So, with such an IQ, I asked myself why Miss Roger would have been convinced her method worked.”

Adeline’s thoughts raced back to the USB drive pressed against her chest.

His voice sharpened.

“It was Williams who wrote those phrases on the walls. She whispered them to herself. Trauma victims avoid reminders. They do not curate them, unless they want to make sure they never forget.”

Adeline remained silent, staring at the papers. The more Vane questioned his doubt, the sharper her own theories grew, but she was not ready to risk sharing them.

“No, stop,” Adeline exclaimed. “Williams was broken, raped. All of this is just the result of trauma. She is taking her life back into her own hands.”

“You are not her friend,” Vane said, almost gently. “You are her psychiatrist.”

“I tried to be one until you came with your…”

“I was fooled by empathy,” he retorted desperately. “And by her precision.” He spread the sheets across the table. “Look at this. Her library records. Books on anatomy, criminal psychology, and philosophy. With such an IQ, imagine studying all of this. Manipulation would become child’s play.”

“I was never manipulated. You confused me.”

“How many years before you realized something was wrong?”

“No. Let’s stop this. Williams was beaten and raped because she was a lesbian, okay? And all of this is the result of her trauma. Whether she studied psychology or not, she suffered. And right now, she is progressively taking back control of her life.”

“I am speaking of vengeance,” he urged. “It never left. She weaponized herself. She used Esther. Built a private language. Roger was right about one thing. Williams needed to be locked up. She is Machiavellian. This is not just suffering. It is vengeance prepared for decades.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Adeline grumbled.

“Because I knew what you wanted to diagnose,” he hesitated, his voice barely a whisper, then said it. “Dissociative Identity Disorder with Co-conscious.”

Adeline’s breath hitched, but she remained silent.

“Williams suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder with co-consciousness,” he continued. “In this case, two main identities remain conscious. They original Niran Williams and the Doctor. They perceive each other mutually,” He paused. “The mirror was their mode of dialogue. The original Williams was buried internally, allowing internal conversations. But what rang the alarm bell is that they could not intervene simultaneously. It was a form of sharing.”

The professor had understood what Adeline sensed, yet had deliberately led her into error to remove her. She collapsed onto the sofa, wounded, clutching the papers.

“When she trembled or bled from the nose,” he continued, “that was the real Williams. It was not a result of stress. They exchanged places knowingly, aware of each other, for a very long time.”

“You are saying they coexisted for years?” Adeline whispered.

“No. For years, the real Williams controlled the Doctor through the mirror. And I believe Miss Roger sensed this and deliberately hid it, for reasons unknown.”

Vane stood and took a mirror hanging nearby, placing it before her.

“Look. We thought the mirror was the Doctor’s strength. That the real Williams was lost in a labyrinth.”

“Yes.”

“That is where we were wrong. The mirror was Williams. A form of mirror therapy combined with hypnosis. The psychiatrist and the patient were the same.”

“So, when the Doctor looks in the mirror, she is looking at the real Niran Williams.”

“Yes. She gives the orders. They exchange positions when necessary. That is why sometimes she trembles and sometimes not.”

Adeline held the mirror. That night, when she had drugged the Doctor and been assaulted, she had forced the real Williams to surface, incapable of controlling her brain.

“The Doctor is a trauma surgeon,” Vane said. “She never trembled during surgery. Never panicked. You know how chaotic hospitals are.”

Adeline smiled faintly and set the mirror down. “These are theories. That is what you told me. There is no more danger.”

“Adeline, are you trying to understand?”

“When I needed you, you did not help me.” She gathered her folder, stood, and threw it at him. “I worked with Williams for years. Roger too. And the moment I brought you in, you robbed my case. It is too late. Go.”

“When one has nothing left, only ego remains,” Vane said, emotionally. “For the love of psychiatry, I lost everything. My family, my friends, and when I got old, the very institution that glorified me got rid of me, as if I were a worn-out machine.”

His gaze was one of disappointment, yet filled with pity.

“These last days, you were my only visitor outside of medical appointments,” he said quietly. “I felt heard again. And I ruined it. I am sorry. But you are far more brilliant than I am.”

“Why are you here, Professor?”

“To help you finish your theory. There is a list,” he said. “Think about it.” He placed the folder on the table again. “If your theory holds, Williams was already planning revenge.” He tossed her several pages. “She prepared a massive project, the WE Kids Project. Officially, it would help hundreds of children battling cancer. That is when she planned her greatest act. The embryo incident was an unforeseen stroke of fate.”

“What?” Adeline murmured, leafing through the documents.

He added—

“Williams has always been a step ahead.”

And it was then that Adeline began to understand what the professor was trying to tell her. Everything had always been subtly presented before them. Small behaviors. Small phrases.

As in checkers, each move required a specific piece. So, before Romaric, she already had Makizal, a man devoted and obsessed with her because she knew how to make herself desired and venerated. Without understanding it, he had vowed a loyal love to her.

But then, that day when she shot Makizal, it was not out of pure madness. She was already planning to keep Esther, but needed to sever the link that had helped her all this time.

In other words, the one who had squeezed the trigger was the real Williams, not the Doctor. If it had been the Doctor, a trauma surgeon, she would not have missed the precise point required to kill him. But the Doctor could not commit violence.

Upon her return, she had to strike Evelyne with all her strength and behave as if ill, and that, only the real Williams had the capacity to do. The poor Doctor was nothing more than a parallel construct created to serve the original. Both were geniuses.

Now, she was the victim. Everyone knew her story. They sympathized, and all those who had harmed her were exposed. After the WE Kids Project, when all eyes would be fixed on her…

Adeline stood up. “It is absurd. Would you say Esther is in danger?”

“Esther owes her something.”

“Her body? But she could have given it to someone since then.”

The professor shook his head. “Possible. I know nothing. Perhaps the embryo in her womb. But there is indeed a debt. As for those who harmed her, for now, everything that happens to them will be treated as pure karma. Next, it will be all those who are in the Doctor’s life.”

The professor was speaking of himself, of her, of Miss Roger.

At last, even if Adeline wanted to refuse it, she was forced to recognize that Williams had a particular hold over those she needed, and that after this unfortunate incident, she had turned it to her advantage. Miss Roger, the one who had seen clearly from the start, had lost all credibility after the trial. And she, who had defended Williams with brilliance, could no longer turn back.

It was then that Adeline thought of the burden borne by success and its expectations.

She grits her teeth.

“I am so sorry, but you cannot return to Miss Kai to speak to her of this. The best thing is to leave the city as soon as possible, before she calls a replacement for Makizal. For he too will be eliminated.”

“Makizal, with all his team?”

“Oh yes. She missed her shot. But she won’t miss him next time.”

The professor began to write on a sheet of paper while Adeline thought of all those psychopaths who had lived childhoods that pushed them toward violence. For Williams, it was a primary obsession transformed by adolescent trauma, and she would not grant any peace until her own justice was done.

The countdown had begun again, and as soon as the WE Kids project would be revealed to the world, she would decimate them one by one behind the scenes, a subtle karma.

Adeline glanced once more at the mirror, then at the professor, and said, “Why wait so long? Others are perhaps already dead, married, or sick.”

He turned to her and replied, “Revenge is a cold dish eaten slowly but surely, and the later it comes, the greater the delight. She waited for them to forget and resume their lives so that the damage would be greater.”

Adeline covered her mouth.

Woe to those who had stabilized and built families. They would relive the same ordeal her mother had endured. Already, their reputations had been tarnished. Several had lost their jobs. Soon, they would collapse under financial hardship, social rejection, and depression.

Adeline removed a necklace from her neck and placed it on the table. The professor looked at her, surprised.

“Do you remember what you once told me about belief?”

“What about it?”

“That believing in a force greater than ourselves often brings even the most formidable murderer to change his heart.”

“And so?”

“I believe in God, and in this chaos, He sent Esther back. She is pregnant. I think this pregnancy has meaning. Perhaps forgiveness. Perhaps rebirth.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I believe she can soften Williams’ wounded heart.”

“We are talking about revenge and psychopathy.”

“Esther has loved her all these years. She will not betray her if they reunite. And if she manages to redirect Williams’s obsession for vengeance toward her through desire before the birth, we will be saved.”

The professor handed her a sheet of paper. “Here is where you will find all the notes I secured. At any moment from now, she will conduct rounds to destroy everything.”

Adeline took the paper and opened the door for him. “Thank you.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Find a solution.”

“Did you understand what I said? You are already in danger. If Williams senses anything, you will regret it.” He gripped her hand.

“I am Adeline Riz, a renowned psychiatrist. Williams may be a genius, but I am exceptionally gifted in my field, and I do not intend to be intimidated. Pack your things and flee your problems as you always have. I am not finished.”

He looked at her with bitterness. “Fine,” he said. “Well, I am proud of what you have become. From the first day I saw you, I knew your potential, and I do not regret betting on you. Take care of yourself. But remember this. When one follows passion excessively, one isolates oneself.”

She understood him well. It was a pattern common among hyper-intelligent individuals. Like Williams, she was surrounded by people of exceptional professional stature and solitary lives. She had made an exception by placing herself beside Riz, but that flame hung by a fragile thread.

She knew now that the Williams chapter was not over. The psychological battle was only beginning, and the one destined to conclude it was the one and only ESTHER DARA.

To be continued…. END