Page 120 of The Bleak Beginning

I scan the small hallway, expecting to see other students or perhaps some staff members, but the place appears deserted.

As I step through the second set of doors, I sense someone behind me. I whirl around just in time to see Bishop and the rest of the Legacies on the other side of the glass. His dark eyes lock onto mine with a heated intensity.

The other three wore expressions as varied as the colors of a chameleon. Camden’s predatory gaze burns with excitement, mirroring Bishop’s malicious smirk. Sutton fidgets, vibrating back and forth on her feet while Sylvester stares at me with a chillingly neutral expression, hiding his true emotions behind a mask of calm.

“Enjoy parents’ weekend,” Bishop says with a mocking wave of his fingertips and sinister chuckle, his voice muffled through the glass. The lock’s click echoes through the room, its sound abrupt and final.

My heart races as I frantically try the door, but it’s no use. I pound on the glass, shouting at them to let me out, but they simply stand there and watch me struggle. I’m trapped. The realization hits me like a bucket of ice water: this wasn’t the meetup place for parents. It was a setup from the start.

A deafening piano melody suddenly pierces the air behind me, each note striking my heart with a force that leaves me breathless. Its melodic notes pulse through my body and send my chest into overdrive. My anxiety spikes as I recognize the intricate piece, a skill that only one person I know possesses. The notes swirl around me like a tempest, reminding me of my own inadequacies and failures in mastering such complexity.

I spin around, my heartbeat pounding in sync with the haunting melody. There, perched at a grand piano that seems to have materialized in the center of the empty pool, sits my mother. Her fingers dance across the keys with practiced grace, her eyes closed, as if lost in the music.

“How are you here?” I snap, my voice full of tension yet barely audible over the crescendo of notes.

She doesn’t respond, doesn’t even open her eyes. The music swells, filling the natatorium with eerie beauty. I take a step toward her, then another, drawn by an inexplicable force until I meet the bottom of the empty pool where the slant comes to a flat halt.

I’m stuck, caught between the Legacy members and this ghostly apparition of my mother. The chlorine scent somehow intensifies down here, stinging my nostrils, making me dizzy.

She’s wearing a dress in the same deep shade of plum as the one she wore the last time I saw her, three years ago. However, this one has a high neckline and flows loosely to her ankles.

“How did you get out?” I growl, my voice laced with anger and confusion.

Still no response. The pulsing music echoes around us, taunting me. Her lack of answer only fuels my frustration and fear.

“Answer me, Vera,” I demand, a surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins as I try to understand how she managed to break free from her behavior health facility.

The keys abruptly come to a halt, the echoes reverberating through the abandoned pool room. The once graceful and fluid notes of the piano are frozen in a moment of harsh dissonance, as if startled by my words. “That’s mom to you.”

I feel a chill run down my spine at her words. The familiarity of her voice, tinged with that condescending tone I know all too well, makes my stomach churn.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say, my voice trembling despite my efforts to stay calm. “You’re supposed to be—”

“Locked away?” she finishes for me, finally opening her eyes. They’re the same piercing blue I remember, but there’s something different about them now. Something colder, more calculating. “Is that what you were going to say, sweetheart?”

“What’s going on?” I demand, taking a step back. “How did you get here?” I couldn’t shake the sickening feeling that I already knew the answer to my question. The Legacies, who’d imprisoned me in this place, were most likely the culprits. But I needed to ask anyway, desperate for some sense of truth and closure for myself.

“It’s parents’ weekend,” she says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “And I couldn’t miss the chance to see my darling daughter perform.”

My blood runs cold. “Perform?” My laughter is hollow. It’s been years since I last played, since I made the decision to stand up for myself.

She stands up from the piano bench, her movements fluid and graceful, like I remember. “Don’t play coy, dear. You knowexactly what I mean. Your big debut. The moment you finally prove yourself worthy of the family name.”

I take a step back, my heel hitting the start of the incline of the pool. “I’m not performing anything.”

“Of course you are,” she says, her voice taking on that sickly sweet tone she always used when she was about to deliver a crushing blow. “Your appearance looks good. Your outfit matches today, your hair, on the other hand, could use some work. A brush perhaps?”

I instinctively reach up to touch my hair, then immediately chastise myself for falling into her old patterns. “My hair is fine,” I say firmly, dropping my hand. “And I’m not performing. I’m done with all of that, Vera.”

She gives me a sharp look as I address her by her first name, but “mom” doesn’t feel like a fitting title anymore.

It had been three years since I finally stood up for myself and stopped letting her trample all over me. But now here she was again, invading my space like a relentless parasite. She had no place in my life anymore, and certainly not here at Altair. Her presence felt like a sharp, jagged intrusion on the life I had worked so hard to rebuild.

“Your skills haven’t faded since you left,” I observe, handing her a sincere compliment she had never given me, even if it ended up slightly backhanded like hers. “Either you’ve been sleeping very well or you’ve been skipping your medication.”

I used to hope for an apology, a small sliver of remorse for the pain and suffering she had caused me. But deep down, I knew better than to ever expect one from her. How could someone who never saw their own wrongs admit fault? It was like trying to squeeze blood from a stone, a futile and agonizing task that only left me feeling more broken.

Her eyes narrow at my comment, a flicker of something—anger? Amusement?—passing over her face. “Oh, sweetheart,”she purrs, taking a step closer. “You always were so observant. It’s one of the things people could admire about you.”

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