Chapter 3: Stranded
The silence after Pedro spoke was brittle and sharp. He stared at his phone screen where the recording’s waveform pulsed, a visual echo of Emily’s venom. His knuckles were white around the device. Outside the curtain, the hospital’s muted symphony of beeps and distant voices continued, indifferent.
“I didn’t know she’d…,” he started, but his voice died.
“You didn’t ask,” Cylene finished, her words flat. The adrenaline that had spiked was gone, leaving a sickly fatigue. Her head throbbed where it had hit the pavement. “You saw what you wanted. A younger, shinier reflection.”
He flinched but didn’t deny it. He just rubbed a hand over his mouth, his eyes on the floor. “The zoo… it was a mistake. Bringing you there.”
“Bringing me?” A weak laugh escaped her. “Pedro, you live in a different solar system.”
The doctor arrived then, a harried woman with a tablet who asked Cylene questions about her diet, her stress, her sleep. Cylene answered in monosyllables. Yes. A lot. Poorly. The doctor advised hydration, nutrition, follow-up, rest. It all sounded like a language spoken very far away.
When they were discharged an hour later, the world had tipped into evening. The hospital doors sighed open to a parking lot bathed in the sickly orange glow of sodium lights. Long shadows pooled like oil on the cracked asphalt. In the distance, a flickering neon sign buzzed weakly—"La Casa de Pedro", the letters peeling like old skin. It was his old production company logo, a ghost from their past on a cheap commercial building.
He’d parked close. His Audi was sleek and dark under the lamplight. Her own car, a ten-year-old sedan, sat three rows away, looking small and defeated. The air smelled of antiseptic and rain-soaked pavement, the hum of distant ambulances a low, uneasy pulse beneath the city’s murmur.
“I’ll drive you home,” Pedro said, his hand hovering near her elbow.
“I can drive myself.” The words were automatic, a reflex of pride. But a wave of dizziness swayed her on her feet, forcing her to lean against a concrete pillar. The cold seeped through her blouse.
Juliet, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, slipped her small hand into Cylene’s. Her fingers traced the faint bruise blooming around the IV port on her mother’s wrist. “You should go with Daddy,” she said, her voice very matter-of-fact. “Your car sounds funny.”
Cylene looked down at her. “Funny how, bug?”
“Like it’s coughing.” Juliet demonstrated, a little a-hem, a sound in her chest. “It did it when we got here.”
Pedro’s jaw tightened. “Cylene, please. It’s not a negotiation.”
She was too tired to fight the mechanics of it. Nodding felt like moving a boulder. “Fine. Just home.”
The short walk to his car was a silent procession. He opened the passenger door for her, an old courtesy that felt foreign. She slid in, the leather seats cold and unfamiliar. The car smelled of his cologne and new car smell, a scent that was no longer hers. Juliet clambered into the back, clicking her own seatbelt with a decisive snap.
He started the engine, a smooth, expensive purr. He didn’t speak as they navigated out of the lot. Cylene watched the city slide by, a blur of lit windows and moving taillights. Her bag, with the USB drive inside, was a lead weight on her lap.
“What happens now?” Pedro asked, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“With the script?” She let her head rest against the cool window. “My lawyer has everything. The dates. The recording. Her little confession.” She turned to look at him. “Your testimony about her access to my computer would help. But I won’t ask for it.”
He glanced at her, surprised. “Why not?”
“Because you’ll screw it up. You’ll hesitate. You’ll try to soften it for her.” She looked forward again. “The evidence is enough. It just has to be louder than her noise.”
He drove another block, the silence between them filled only by the whisper of tires on asphalt. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, the words quiet but clear.
Cylene didn’t reply. She watched a couple arguing on a street corner, their gestures sharp and angry under a storefront sign. Sorry was a warehouse word, too big and empty to hold meaning anymore.
When they pulled up to her apartment building, her sedan was parked at the curb. It looked innocuous in the dim light. “Come on, Jules,” Pedro said, unbuckling. “I’ll walk you guys up.”
“We’re fine,” Cylene said, opening her door. The night air was cool on her skin. “Thank you for the ride.”
She got out, her legs steadier now. Juliet scrambled after her, taking her hand again. Cylene walked to her car door, fumbling in her bag for the keys. A part of her wanted to prove she was fine, that the machine of her life still turned over.
Pedro watched from the driver's side of his idling Audi, his face illuminated by the dashboard lights. She inserted the key, turned it.
The engine coughed—a wet, hacking sound Juliet had mimicked perfectly. It sputtered, choked, and died with a final shudder. The headlights, which had flared briefly, went dark.
Silence swallowed the street. Just the idle of Pedro’s car and the distant siren.
Cylene stared at the dark dashboard. The failure was absolute. It wasn’t a protest. It was a quiet, mechanical surrender. Just like her marriage. Just like her career. It simply stopped.
She let her forehead rest against the steering wheel. The cold plastic bit into her skin. She didn’t have the energy for this, not tonight.
A small hand patted her shoulder blade. “It’s okay, Mommy,” Juliet whispered, leaning between the seats. Her breath was warm against Cylene’s neck. “We can take the bus. Or Daddy can fix it.”
From the curb, Pedro killed his engine. The sudden quiet was profound. He walked over, his shadow falling across the driver’s side window.
“Pop the hood,” he said, his voice practical.
“It’s not worth it,” Cylene mumbled into the wheel.
“Pop the hood, Cylene.”
She did. He lifted it, a cloud of warm, metallic-smelling steam billowing out into the orange light. He peered inside, a silhouette against the glowing streetlamp. After a moment, he lowered it with a soft clunk.
“It’s the alternator, I think. Or the battery’s totally dead.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. “You’re not driving this tonight.”
“I gathered.” She leaned back, closing her eyes. The USB drive pressed against her thigh through the fabric of her purse. Pedro’s unread apology texts were a silent weight in her pocket. Her phone buzzed. Martin, her ex-manager. Probably about the recording. She ignored it.
“I’ll call a tow in the morning,” Pedro said. “For tonight… you should come back to my place. Jules is tired. It’s closer.”
The suggestion hung in the air, loaded and impossible. Going back to that house, the one she’d shared with him, the one Emily had infiltrated. Sleeping under that roof.
“No,” she said, the word definitive.
“Mommy?” Juliet’s voice was small. “I’m really sleepy.”
Cylene opened her eyes. Her daughter’s face was pale with fatigue, smudges under her eyes. The adrenaline of the day had drained from her, too. The fight was gone, replaced by a simple, human need for a bed.
Cylene’s resistance crumbled. It wasn’t a surrender. It was a tactical retreat for the sake of the one pure thing left. “Okay,” she breathed. “Just for tonight.”
The drive to his house—their old house—was short and tense. Every turn was a memory she didn’t want. The ice cream shop they’d gone to every Sunday. The park where Juliet learned to ride a bike. The route was a map of her former life.
He pulled into the driveway. The porch light was on, a warm yellow beacon she’d chosen herself. It felt like a betrayal, that light still being there.
Inside, it was different and the same. Her favorite rug was gone. The bookshelves held fewer books. A vague, floral scent—Emily’s perfume—lingered in the living room, underneath the familiar smell of the house itself. It was a violation.
“Jules’s room is the same,” Pedro said quickly, as if reading her thoughts. “Your… the guest room is made up.”
She just nodded, guiding a near-sleeping Juliet down the hall to her old bedroom. Tucking her in was a familiar ritual that brought a sliver of normalcy. Juliet’s eyes were already closed as Cylene kissed her forehead.
“Mommy?” Juliet murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
“Yeah, bug?”
Her small fingers found Cylene’s wrist again, tracing the bruise from the IV. In the dark room, her voice was a clear, soft bell. “Daddy’s friend… the one with the red hair. She’s the monster under my bed, isn’t she?”
The words, so simply stated, lanced through Cylene’s exhaustion. She felt a hot tear escape and track down her temple into her hairline. She couldn’t lie. Not about this.
“Yeah, baby,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “She is.”
Juliet nodded, as if confirming a long-held suspicion. “Okay,” she sighed, and was asleep.
Cylene sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, watching her daughter breathe. The monster had a name, a face, a recorded confession. And she was in her daughter’s house. The fury that rose then was cold and solid, a new kind of resolve.
She stood, her body aching, and walked out, leaving the door ajar. The hallway was dark. Pedro was in the living room, standing by the unlit fireplace, staring at a framed photo of the three of them from years ago.
He didn’t turn around. “Is she asleep?”
“Yes.”
He nodded to himself. The silence stretched, filled with everything unsaid. The hum of the refrigerator kicked on.
“I’ll get the USB to my lawyer first thing,” she said, her voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “And the hospital security footage. Emily violated the order. That’s a police matter now.”
He finally turned. In the dim light from the kitchen, he looked older, the lines on his face deeper. “What do you need from me?”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“I want to help.”
“Then get a better lawyer for the custody modification, because Pedro, she violated the order and you let her near my daughter,” she said, walking to the guest room door. She paused, her hand on the knob. “Because after I’m done, there won’t be a Glass Horizon for her to star in. And people like Emily don’t stick around for the rubble.”
She went inside and closed the door. It didn’t lock. She leaned against it, listening. She heard him move, the creak of a floorboard, the clink of a glass. Then quiet.
The guest room was neutral. Beige walls, a plain duvet. It smelled faintly of laundry detergent and dust. It was no one’s room. For the first time all day, she was alone.
She took the USB drive from her purse. The white plastic was warm from her body heat. She held it in her palm, a tiny, physical kernel of truth. Then she placed it carefully on the nightstand, next to her charging phone.
She didn’t undress. She lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling. Outside, a siren wailed, rising and falling. It sounded like a warning, or a promise. She replayed Juliet’s words in her head. The monster under my bed.
The monster was real. And tomorrow, Cylene would stop just defending herself. She would begin to hunt.
Sleep refused to come. The beige ceiling of the guest room pressed down, a blank canvas for every mistake. The USB drive on the nightstand seemed to hum with potential energy. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the flicker of the zoo’s security lights, felt the rough impact of pavement against her temple.
A thin line of orange light bled under the door from the hallway. She heard the soft pad of footsteps, the creak of the floorboard outside Juliet’s room. Pedro, pacing. The familiar sound of his restless guilt. It used to be about a stalled project, a difficult investor. Now the stakes were human. Now the collateral was their daughter.
She pushed herself up, her body a collection of complaints. The headache was a low, persistent drumbeat. She picked up the drive, its plastic casing cool and smooth. Proof. It felt too small, too simple to hold the wreckage of two years.
She opened the door. The hallway was dim, lit by a single nightlight shaped like a star. Pedro stood by Juliet’s closed door, his forehead resting against the wood. He didn’t turn.
“Can’t sleep either?” His voice was a gravelly whisper.
“My brain won’t shut off.” She leaned against the doorframe, the drive pressed into her palm. “I keep running the numbers. My lawyer’s retainer versus my last paycheck. The cost of a new alternator. The price of a professional expert witness to dissect file metadata.”
He finally looked at her. In the weak light, his face was all shadow and exhaustion. “I’ll pay for it. All of it. The car. The lawyer. Whatever you need.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“It’s not for you.” He pushed off the door, his hands finding his pockets. “It’s for the damage I let in. It’s for Jules. It’s for us. For my failing you at every level. Let me do this one tangible thing, Cylene. Please.”
The ‘please’ undid her, just a little. It wasn’t performative. It was tired. She looked away, down at the star-shaped light. “We’ll see. The lawyer first. Martin is connecting me with a pitbull who loves making ambitious people cry.”
A ghost of his old smile touched his mouth. “You always did have a type.”
“Competent?” She allowed a thin, sharp breath that was almost a laugh. “Yeah. I guess I did. Competency porn is a thing.”
Down the hall, the soft click of a latch. Juliet’s door opened a few inches. A small face, pale and smudged with sleep, peered out. “I heard talking,” she mumbled.
“Sorry, bug.” Cylene moved toward her, the planks of the floor cool beneath her socks. “We didn’t mean to wake you.”
Juliet shuffled out, clutching a worn stuffed gorilla from the zoo gift shop years ago. She looked from her mother to her father in the half-dark, her brow furrowed with a concern too old for her face. “Is the monster coming back?”
Pedro’s breath caught. He dropped to a crouch, putting himself at her eye level. “No, sweetheart. Never. She’s not allowed here anymore. I promise.”
“You promised before,” Juliet said, her voice quiet but clear. It wasn’t an accusation. It was a simple reporting of fact.
He flinched as if struck. Cylene saw the words hit him, sink in. He had no defense. He just nodded, his throat working. “I know. And I broke that promise. I won’t break this one. I know better. You and mama deserve my best.”
Juliet considered this, her small fingers digging into the gorilla’s fur. She looked at Cylene. “Is Daddy telling the truth?”
Cylene knelt beside Pedro. The proximity to him was strange, a jarring echo of a thousand past bedtimes. She looked at her daughter. She wouldn’t lie to her, not even to soothe. “I believe he means it right now. Hopefully, he doesn’t fall down. But we’re all human.”
This seemed to satisfy Juliet. She leaned forward, resting her head on Cylene’s shoulder. Her hair smelled of baby shampoo and sleep. “My bed feels funny.”
“It’s your old bed,” Pedro said softly. “You haven’t slept in it in a while.”
“It’s lonely,” she whispered.
The two words hung in the hallway. Cylene closed her eyes, absorbing the blow. She scooped Juliet up, the solid, warm weight of her a profound relief. “Come on. You can crash with me in the new very boring room.”
She carried her back to the guest bed, Juliet’s limbs looping loosely around her. Pedro followed, hovering in the doorway. Cylene tucked Juliet under the covers, then slid in beside her. The bed was narrow. They lay face to face, noses almost touching.
“Go to sleep, bug. The monster’s gone. It’s just us.”
Juliet’s eyes drifted shut, then flickered open. “Did you catch her in a trap?”
“Not yet,” Cylene whispered, smoothing her hair. “But I found her footprints. And I have her voice in a bottle.”
A tiny smile. “Good.” Then, sleep finally reclaiming her, she asked one last, drowsy question. “Can we get a real dog?”
“Maybe,” Cylene breathed, feeling Juliet’s body go slack against hers.
Pedro still stood in the doorway, a silhouette. He watched them for a long moment, then mouthed “thank you” before pulling the door gently closed, leaving it open a crack.
Darkness and quiet settled. Cylene listened to Juliet’s breathing even out. The hunt would begin in the harsh light of morning. There would be phone calls, legal filings, strategic leaks. There would be a war fought in conference rooms and trade papers. But here, in the close dark, there was just this: the rhythmic proof of her daughter’s life, the faint smell of Pedro’s laundry detergent on the pillow, the unsettling familiarity of a house that was once a home.
A shudder went through Juliet’s small frame. A whimper escaped her lips, her face contorting in the grip of a dream. Then her eyes flew open, wide and unseeing, filled with a terror the waking world hadn’t yet earned.
Then her eyes flew open, wide and unseeing, filled with a terror the waking world hadn’t yet earned.
The scream tore from Juliet’s small body, a raw, griefsound that shredded the quiet dark of the guest room. It wasn’t a cry. It was a full-throated siren of pure panic, high and desolate. Cylene jolted upright, her heart a frantic hammer against her ribs, as Juliet thrashed beside her, tangled in the sheets, still trapped in the nightmare’s residual current.
“Baby, wake up, you’re okay, you’re safe.” Cylene’s voice was a rough, urgent anchor in the tempest. She gathered Juliet’s shaking frame against her chest, feeling the rabbit-quick pulse beneath her skin. The door flew open, banging against the wall, and Pedro filled the doorway, his face bleached of color by the hallway light.
“What happened? Jules?” He was at the bedside in two strides, his hands hovering, unsure where to land.
Juliet’s screams dissolved into ragged, hyperventilating sobs. She clutched fistfuls of Cylene’s shirt, her small body heaving. “She–she was in my closet,” she gasped between wretched hiccups. “The red hair was snakes. They were gonna bite you.”
A cold knot twisted in Cylene’s gut. She locked eyes with Pedro over Juliet’s head. His expression crumbled from confusion into a sick, dawning horror. The monster under the bed had graduated. It was in the closet now, with snake hair, targeting Cylene.
“There’s no one here, my love. No snakes.” Cylene rocked her gently, her own hands trembling. “It was just a bad dream. A really, really bad dream.”
“But it smelled like her!” Juliet wailed, pressing her face into Cylene’s neck. “That flower smell that makes my nose itchy!”
Emily’s perfume. The cloying, expensive scent that had clung to the couch, that had violated this house. It had seeped into the child’s subconscious, a toxic signature. Pedro sank onto the edge of the bed, his weight making the mattress dip. He reached out, his hand finally settling on Juliet’s back, a broad, warm pressure.
“The bad smell is gone, Jellybean,” he murmured, his voice thick. “I opened all the windows. I threw away the candles. It’s never coming back.”
“You promise?” The question was muffled against Cylene’s skin, a desperate plea for a truth she needed to touch.
“I swear on everything.” Pedro’s gaze found Cylene’s again, and this time there was no hesitation, no fog of self-pity. Just a clear, stark resolve. “On you and your mom.”
They stayed like that, a fractured triangle reconfigured in the dark, until Juliet’s breathing evened out into the shallow rhythm of exhausted sleep. Carefully, Cylene extricated herself, laying Juliet back on the pillows. The child’s brow was still pinched, her fingers twitching. Cylene smoothed the damp hair from her forehead.
Pedro followed her out into the hallway, pulling the door closed until only a sliver of light remained. In the dim glow, he looked hollowed out.
“Snakes,” he whispered, running a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.”
“Her subconscious is a better writer than I am.” Cylene leaned against the wall, the cool drywall a relief against her spine. The adrenaline was draining, leaving a gritty fatigue behind. “It’s not just about us anymore. It’s in her walls.”
“I know.” He sounded defeated. “I see it now. I’m… God, Cylene, I’m so fucking sorry doesn’t even start.”
“Save it.” She pushed off the wall, heading toward the kitchen. “Save the energy for the lawyer. For the police report. Words are cheap. Actions are what she’ll understand. What I understand.”
He trailed after her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sleeping again tonight.” She filled the kettle at the sink, her movements precise. “And since we’re all up, we’re making a plan. You’re going to call your lawyer at dawn, not mine, and file for an emergency modification of the custody agreement citing parental alienation and a hostile environment created by your whore.”
He blinked, processing the legal language tossed at him in his own kitchen at three in the morning. “Okay. Yes. What else?”
“You’re going to text Martin, my manager, and authorize him to give your contact info to my new lawyer. You will give a full statement about Emily’s access to my computer, my drafts, our personal space. Every detail.” She set the kettle on the stove, the click of the burner loud in the quiet house. “And you will not warn her.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll want to.” She turned to face him, her arms crossed. “The part of you that’s still tied to her will itch to give her a heads-up, to soften the blow. You’ll tell yourself you’re being fair, or avoiding drama. That is a lie. It’ll create drama you won’t survive. It'll create the thing that takes your daughter from you permanently."
He stood very still, absorbing the accusation. Then he gave a single, slow nod. “I’ll want to. But I won’t. I’ll document the itch, and I won’t scratch it.”
The kettle began a low whistle, building to a scream. It mirrored the tension in the room, the contained pressure. Cylene turned it off before it could peak. The silence it left was heavy.
“I believe you,” she said, and it was maybe the first true thing she’d said to him in months. She didn’t believe in him, not yet. But she believed in the father’s rage she saw in his eyes, the protective fury Juliet’s nightmare had unleashed. It was a tool she could use. “Now. Coffee. We have a monster to box up.”
He moved to get mugs from the cabinet—her old mugs, she noted—and for the next hour, in the sterile light of the under-cabinet LEDs, they plotted. They mapped out timelines, listed witnesses, drafted bullet points for his statement. It was a cold, clinical dissection of the life they’d all shared. Cylene felt like a surgeon, and Pedro was finally holding the retractor, seeing the damage clearly for the first time.
As the first gray light of dawn bled into the sky, staining the windows, Cylene looked at the notes scrawled on a legal pad. It was a blueprint for a counterattack.
“She’ll go nuclear when she gets served,” Pedro said, staring into his cold coffee.
“I’m counting on it.” Cylene’s voice was quiet, steady. “The more she rages, the more she confirms every accusation. Let her dig the hole. We’ll just keep handing her a bigger shovel.”
From down the hall, a soft sound. A cough. Then small footsteps. Juliet appeared in the doorway, her stuffed gorilla dangling from one hand. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but clear.
“I’m hungry,” she announced.
The ordinary words were a gift. Cylene stood, her bones aching. “Pancakes?” she asked.
“With chocolate chips,” Juliet said, shuffling forward to lean against Cylene’s leg.
“Obvious requirement,” Pedro said, a forced brightness in his voice as he stood and went to the fridge. “Chocolate chip protocol.”
Cylene looked down at her daughter, then at the USB drive sitting on the counter next to the legal pad. A tiny plastic totem of truth beside a shopping list for pancake ingredients. The two worlds—the war and the domestic—collided here, in this kitchen where Emily’s ghost still lingered in the air.
“You got it, bug,” Cylene said, smoothing Juliet’s sleep-tousled hair.
She woke screaming every night that week. The sound was a ghost in the new apartment, a small, cramped one-bedroom that smelled of fresh paint and other people’s lives. Cylene would bolt from their couch, already moving, and find Juliet sitting upright, silent tears tracking through the aftershock, the nightmare too big for sound. They’d curl together in the narrow twin bed, Cylene whispering useless reassurances until dawn crept around the blinds.
The legal machinery, however, was silent and efficient. The pitbull lawyer, a woman named Arta with a voice like ground glass, filed the copyright counter-claim and the police report for the restraining order violation. Pedro gave his statement, his words stripped bare of any lingering loyalty. He CC’d Cylene on every email to his own lawyer, a transparency that felt both strategic and penitent.
A week after the scream, Cylene sat at her rickety IKEA desk, the one she’d assembled herself with a profound sense of furious satisfaction. She was logging into the remote work portal for her afternoon shift when her phone buzzed with an unknown number. A Los Angeles area code.
She let it go to voicemail. It rang again immediately. She picked up.
“Cylene.” Emily’s voice was a distorted snarl, stripped of all its performative honey. It was the raw sound from the voice memo, unleashed. “You pathetic, scheming bitch.”
Cylene said nothing. She hit record on a second phone she kept for this purpose.
“You think you’ve won? You think a piece of paper and some edited audio will stop me?” Emily’s breath hitched, a violent, wet sound. “I will destroy you. I will take your daughter. I will make sure you never work in this town again. You’re a nobody. You hear me? A fucking nobody with a used-up cunt and a dead-end life.”
Cylene waited a beat. Let the silence stretch. Then she spoke, her voice calm, almost conversational. “Are you done? I need to clock in for my shift.”
The guttural scream that came down the line was pure, undiluted rage. It was the sound of a cornered animal, a plan disintegrating. “You’re dead! You are fucking dead!”
The line went dead. Cylene placed the phone on the desk, her hand perfectly steady. She looked at the recorded file, then emailed it directly to Arta with a two-word subject line: Exhibit B.
Outside, a garbage truck beeped its way down the alley. The sun was high. Somewhere, in a sleek office or a pampered condo, Emily was unraveling. And Cylene, the nobody in the cramped apartment with the second-hand furniture, had just clocked in.