6. Meeting
"Benjamin? Brother, are you alright?"
Johann pressed his forehead against Benjamin's, his voice laced with concern. Benjamin was burning up with fever—a common occurrence in winter.
The cold season was always cruel to Benjamin. His weakened lungs made even a mild cold life-threatening. Last winter, he had nearly died from one.
"You shouldn't have gone outside in this weather."
Benjamin's skin was scorching.
"I'll send for the doctor. Stay in bed."
Johann grabbed his coat. The physician who treated Benjamin lived in the city—a three-hour carriage ride at best. He could only pray Benjamin would last until then.
"I'll be back."
As Johann closed the door and descended the stairs, his gaze drifted toward Leticia's room. He crept to her door and eased it open.
Leticia lay still on the bed, bandages around her head, still unconscious.
'She'll be fine...'
Without a carriage, escaping the surrounding forest was impossible. Even if she woke while he was gone, she had no way to flee.
The door clicked shut behind him.
---
The moment his footsteps faded, Leticia sat up.
She had never lost consciousness.
The faint sound of wheels crunching snow drew her to the window. Below, Johann climbed into a carriage and disappeared into the woods, leaving tracks in the fresh powder.
Leticia hurried out, the frigid hallway air biting her skin. The manor was eerily silent—as if abandoned. But servants had to be somewhere. A place this size couldn't run alone.
Her bare feet carried her down the corridor until she paused before a familiar door.
This had been their room.
The twins' bedroom.
On stormy nights when her mother was gone, they would tuck her between them in this very room, spinning tales about angels racing chariots across the clouds to calm her fears.
The memory ached like a bruise.
With a creak, she pushed the door open—and recoiled.
The room was preserved like a tomb.
Charred curtains. A bedframe blackened by fire. Walls stained with soot.
All untouched for thirteen years.
"This wasn't my fault..."
Her whisper clung to the scorched air.
"I was just six..."
She understood Johann's rage now.
But she bore no guilt.
Her life had shattered that night too—plunging her into slums, brothels, and now this hunted existence. Hadn't she paid enough?
If her mother's sins demanded repayment, hadn't she suffered sufficiently?
Her life was ruined.
Johann had already defiled her.
Wasn't that vengeance enough?
It was just a fire, wasn't it?
Her mother hadn’t taken a single stolen jewel. The coachman who fled with them—his fate remained unknown. They’d never seen him again.
All her mother had done was set the flames.
The stolen treasures must have been returned to the barony.
And Johann? He was unharmed.
The manor hadn’t burned to the ground. He hadn’t died in the blaze.
Yet here he was, taking revenge on her thirteen years later—what kind of mad monster did that?
Had his life been more wretched than hers? No.
He still lived comfortably in this manor, didn’t he?
He’d inherited the barony, his handsome face intact, his wealth untouched.
He would continue to live well.
While she? She’d remain trapped in this misery—a murderer hiding in shadows, doomed to rot in back alleys.
Hadn’t Johann’s vengeance been satisfied already?
How many men had she killed to protect her body’s purity?
Yet Johann had ravaged what she’d fought so hard to preserve.
There wasn’t an inch of her skin left unmarked by him.
Even drugged, the memories were vivid.
The way he’d forced her legs apart. The bite of his teeth. The heat of his breath. The scrape of his hands.
All of it burned in her mind.
Filthy. Degrading.
Now she had to carry it forever.
If anything, she could scream that her mother’s debt had been overpaid.
---
Leticia closed the door behind her and paused on the staircase landing.
Escape was impossible. Johann would return soon.
She had to prepare.
‘Find the drugs.’
She needed options—from the simplest to the most desperate.
The easiest: drug Johann, steal his carriage, flee.
If that failed? Drug him again, then drive a knife through his heart.
And if even that didn’t work? Burn the manor down around him.
(Of course, he’d need to be locked in or unconscious first.)
To execute any plan, she needed supplies:
Drugs. A knife. Keys or locks.
The kitchen would have knives.
But the priority was the drugs.
Johann had drugged her. Opium, from the smell.
She’d seen enough opium addicts in the slums to recognize it.
Rarely, she’d witnessed overdoses—users collapsing after swallowing raw opium instead of smoking it.
Enough ingested outright could kill.
If she couldn’t find sleeping pills or poison, opium would suffice.
It had to be here somewhere. Johann kept it.
Not in the kitchen, though. Somewhere private.
Abandoning the lower floors, Leticia turned back.
She didn’t know which room was his, but she’d search every one.
Dozens of doors opened onto empty rooms.
Only two floors remained: the attic and the one below.
Memory surfaced—the top floor had once held a vast library. The late baron had spent hours there reading. She and the twins used to play hide-and-seek among the shelves.
"Locked…"
On the attic floor, one door resisted her push. A keyhole gleamed.
His room?
Useless if she couldn’t open it.
She lacked the strength to break it down—her legs still trembled, her head wound throbbing.
How?
An axe from the kitchen or stables might work—but smashing the door would alert everyone to the theft.
As she hesitated—
Tap. Tap.
The sound of a cane on wood.
Leticia froze.
A figure stood at the top of the stairs.
Hooded. Leaning heavily on a walking stick. A man, unmistakably.
"Aah!"
She stumbled back with a shriek.
Who—?
A servant? No, the clothes were too fine.
The hood shadowed his face, but his posture was hunched like an old man’s.
The former baron?
But thirteen years wasn’t enough to bend a man in his thirties so severely.
Then who—?
"Leticia?"
The voice from under the hood was rusted metal grating on stone.
Her name.
"Who…?"
Trembling, she stared up.
The man gripped the railing, descending step by careful step.
"Is your head alright? You lost so much blood…"
Who was he?
A man who knew she had fallen down the stairs.
Not Johann.
Not Johann, yet he knew her name. A man living in this manor...
"Ben...jamin...?"
No.
Benjamin was Johann's twin.
Everything about them had been identical—height, build, even their voices.
This man was hunched. Broken.
As he drew closer, the hood shifted, revealing his face.
Leticia recoiled.
A stranger.
She didn’t know this disfigured man.
The face beneath the hood was a ruin of melted flesh, the skin sagging grotesquely.
Who is he? How does he know my name?
No memory matched him.
"Leticia. Johann isn’t here. If you want to escape, now is your chance."
When he reached for her hand—
"Don’t touch me—!"
She slapped his arm away.
How could she not?
The hand that had stretched toward her was a twisted, fused claw—like something from a nightmare.
"It’s me. Benjamin."
Her hands froze mid-push.
Confusion flooded her.
Benjamin? Impossible.
The Benjamin in her memory bore Johann’s face. His smile. Not this... monstrosity.
"You’re not—"
"I told you stories about thunder and lightning. Remember?"
Her stomach dropped.
Was this truly him?
If so, why? How?
A terrible realization struck.
The fire.
The melted face. The scarred hands.
The burns.
Now she understood.
This was why Johann hated her.
Why he’d been so desperate to break her.
He’d lost his other half—the twin who was his mirror, his soul.
His other half had burned like this.
"No time for stories. Johann went to town. To fetch the doctor." Benjamin gestured down the stairs. "He won’t return soon. Old Dr. Lennox moves slowly. You must leave before he comes back."
Seeing her flinch, he withdrew his hand and stepped back, pointing to the coat draped over the banister.
"I’ll help you escape."
He held it out.
"It’s cold outside."
Beneath the hood, his lips curved—just slightly.
The smile was different now, warped by scar tissue.
But Leticia recognized it.
The same gentle smile from thirteen years ago.
The boy who’d comforted her during storms hadn’t changed at all.
Only his shell had.
***
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