Page 74 of Corrupting Camille
I corner.
I punish.
I make sure the lesson sticks.
I call Joaquin instead. First ring.
“Where is she?”
“She left Sinclair hours ago,” he says. “Dropped everything. Emergency at a place called Haven House.”
Haven House.
My fingers start tapping against the table. It’s not casual. It’s controlled. Measured. A warning.
“She go alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Send the address.”
It hits my phone before he can say anything else. I’m already standing, chair scraping back, the sound sharp enough to make the waiter jump.
He says something. I don’t hear it. Don’t care.
Camille Sinclair just chose a building full of broken strangers over me.
She didn’t cancel. She didn’t explain.
She vanished.
And I don’t do silence well.
***
Rain stabs down like needles, slicing across the roof of the car with violent rhythm. The city looks different here, older, forgotten. Like it’s held its breath for years and finally exhaled every ugly secret it was paid to bury.
The townhouse in front of me isn’t much. Red brick. Peeling paint. A door warped by too many winters and too few repairs. No cameras. No guards. Just grief behind closed walls.
And Camille’s inside.
I open the door, step out. The rain doesn’t fall on me, it attacks me. Soaks through my clothes in seconds, clings to my skin like a second layer. My jaw is already dripping; my shirt plastered to my spine. But I walk.
Because fuck appearances. I’m not here to be seen.
I’m here to see what she’s running from.
Inside, the air is warm, but not in any way that comforts. It smells like bleach trying to cover rot. Like trauma scrubbed raw but still festering under the surface. Too quiet. Too still. The kind of silence that screams.
And then, her voice.
Soft. Barely there. The kind of voice you only use when you’re handing someone a piece of your soul and praying, they don’t drop it.
“When I was ten….my father had this friend…”
Everything in me stills.
The hallway disappears. My breath cuts off. My spine locks in place.
