The Dosing Schedule

Lily’s vision sharpened, the ink on the page vibrating with a truth that felt like a physical blow to her chest. *Must flatten the emotional peaks.* She wasn't an intern; she was an objective. Her hand trembled, the thin paper of the Moleskine crinkling under her thumb as she read the entry from the night she arrived. *L. has the Miller temperament. Unpredictable, cluttered with unnecessary empathy. The regimen will begin at 08:00.*

The "vitamins." The little blue capsules Elena handed her every morning with a smile and a tall glass of alkaline water. They weren't supplements for stress; they were a chemical eraser. Lily felt a surge of cold, white-hot nausea. She remembered her mother’s face through the patio glass—the rain, the desperation, the way she had looked at Lily as if she were a stranger. Sarah hadn't been attacking the house; she had been trying to breach the fog.

Lily turned the page, her heart thundering against her ribs. The handwriting became more hurried, the notes more clinical. *October 21: S. is becoming a variable. Her fixation on the 1999 event is a threat to the stability of the project. If she persists, I will have her committed. The narrative is already in place. Nobody believes the messy sister.*

The mechanical *whir-click* of the hallway bolt echoed through the room.

Lily’s breath hitched. She slammed the notebook shut, her skin crawling as the sound of the handle turning cut through the sterile silence. She looked at the desk—the tablet was slightly askew, the leather blotter shifted. Elena would know. Elena noticed every molecule out of place.

She didn't have time to hide it back in the hidden compartment. With a desperate, silent prayer, Lily shoved the black notebook into the heavy folds of her gala gown, the silk of the skirt swallowing the evidence just as the door swung open.

Dr. Elena Vance stood in the doorway, her black silk robe flowing behind her. She looked refreshed, her makeup perfect, her eyes scanning the room with the efficiency of a high-resolution camera. She stopped, her gaze lingering on the vanity stool where she had left Lily.

"You're standing," Elena noted, her voice a low, dangerous purr. She stepped into the room, her eyes narrowing as they flicked to the desk and then back to Lily’s pale face.

"I... I just needed to stretch," Lily rasped, forcing her hands to stay still against the silk of her dress. "The braid was pulling. I got a headache."

Elena walked toward her, the silence in the room thickening like drying cement. She stopped inches from Lily, her clinical gaze tracing the line of her niece’s jaw. She reached out, her hand cold and dry as she tucked a stray hair behind Lily’s ear. The jagged scar on Elena’s wrist flashed in the mirror’s light, a permanent reminder of a violence Lily was only beginning to understand.

"You look beautiful, Lily," Elena whispered, her smile as sharp and hollow as a scalpel. "But you look nervous. Are you sure you didn't forget your vitamin today? Your peaks are showing."

Elena leaned in, her arms wrapping around Lily in a suffocating, sisterly embrace. Lily stood paralyzed, the hard edges of the black notebook pressing into her hip, a silent, ticking bomb hidden against her skin.

Lily said she'd never betray her aunt. But as Elena hugged her, Lily felt the cold, hard reality of the monster.