Alexia woke up in her bed at the mansion. The house was empty.
Her telephone was abuzz with notifications from news services. Photographs of Jacob and Kassandra at a charity gala, arranged as the perfect couple, filled the screen.
Alexia swiped them away without a flicker of emotion. Her gaze fell upon the calendar. The thirty-day cooling-off period stipulated by the state for their divorce was to conclude on the morrow.
Freedom.
The thought was not a joyous one, but a cool and distant abstraction, like a theorem proven on a page.
That night was the annual Cummings Tech anniversary gala. As Jacob's wife, her attendance was non-negotiable.
The ballroom was a firmament of jewels and hushed conversations. Kassandra was glued to Jacob's arm, soaking up the fawning attention.
"He intends to leave his wife for her, you understand."
"His own son shows a preference for her."
The whispers were not phantoms; they were distinct, sharp-edged fragments of conversation that found her wherever she went. She drank, the alcohol a welcome fire in her cold veins.
Halfway through the night, they announced the grand prize for the charity raffle: a single wish, granted by Jacob Cummings himself.
The winner, of course, was Kassandra. The arrangement was insultingly obvious.
She batted her eyelashes at Jacob. "My wish," she said, her voice carrying through the silent ballroom, "is for darling Anton to call me 'Mommy'."
The air grew thick. All eyes swiveled between Alexia and Kassandra.
Anton looked at Alexia, his eyes a mixture of hope and trepidation. He was waiting for her pain.
When his gaze met only the placid, unreadable surface of her own, the light in his eyes seemed to dim, his shoulders slumping in a pantomime of disappointment. Then, with visible effort, he composed his features into a bright, false smile.
"Mommy!" he called out, running to Kassandra and kissing her cheek.
The room erupted in applause.
Alexia felt the ghost of a memory: Anton, a babe in arms, shaping the word “Mama” for the first time. The recollection was pale and without substance, like a daguerreotype faded by the sun.
Jacob took Kassandra's hand and led her to the dance floor. They were the picture of happiness.
Alexia kept drinking. The liquor burned a path to her stomach but could not touch the core of ice within her.
Her vision began to swim. A waiter, noting her unsteadiness, assisted her to a private suite upstairs to rest.
She had just collapsed onto the bed when the door opened. It was Kassandra.
"How does it feel, Alexia?" she gloated. "To lose everything?"
"I feel nothing," Alexia slurred.
Kassandra laughed. "You're lying. I can see you're dying inside. But don't worry. I have another gift for you. I thought since you lost your son, I'd give you another child."
A profound and chilling dread began to seep through the alcoholic haze. She tried to sit up.
A strange man walked into the room. Kassandra smiled, backed out, and locked the door behind her.
Alexia scrambled backward as the man advanced, his face a leering caricature, his breath a foul miasma of cheap spirits.
She fought. She clawed at his face. She managed to grab her telephone and dial Jacob's number.
The electronic pulse of the ringing tone was a metronome counting down her final seconds. Voicemail.
She dialed again. And again. Voicemail.
Despair, absolute and final, washed over her.
She seized a heavy glass carafe from the nightstand and brought it down upon the man’s head. He crumpled to the floor with a soft, final exhalation.
Alexia stumbled to the window. She was on the second floor. Without a second's hesitation, she jumped.
She landed in a thick hedge, the branches scratching her, but she was alive. She scrambled to her feet and ran, ignoring the pain.
As she rounded a corner, she heard their voices. Jacob and Anton.
"Why didn't you answer the phone, Dad?" Anton asked. "It was Mom."
Jacob’s voice was a detached, clinical instrument. “She must learn. If her attachment to us is genuine, she will engineer her own salvation. If not… then the variable was flawed from the beginning.”
Anton nodded. "You're right. It's another test."
Alexia hid in the shadows, her heart a block of solid ice. They knew. They knew she was in danger, and they had done nothing.
The last embers of what she had once called love were extinguished, leaving behind not ash, but a substance as cold and hard as obsidian.
