nineteen.

ADELAIDE WAS SUPPOSEDLY helping Nathan sleep, but ironically, she dozed off herself. Nathan could tell by the movement of her hand in his hair—she'd been pleating a strand, sometimes untangling knots. But then her fingers only lay on his head, unmoving, and he almost wanted to tell her: hey, why did you stop? Keep going.

When Nathan looked up, he saw the confirmation: Adelaide's head fell back against the wall and her chest moved lightly in time with her soft breaths. Eyes closed, lashes pointing downward at the chalky black bags beneath them.

She looked worried even in her sleep. Nathan didn't want to disturb her, so he cautiously held her hand and pulled it out of his hair, placing it on her lap instead.

Except she shifted then, tensing as she blinked. Her hand patted around her thigh first, then down on the floor. "Nate?" she murmured. She was probably still half asleep. More urgently: "N-Nate?"

"I'm here," Nathan said. If he was a jackass he'd add: not dead yet, don't worry.

Adelaide straightened. Her worried expression turned into a disoriented frown, and it took her a minute to land back onto reality. "I'm- I'm sorry. Bad dream."

"Lie on the bed. Have you even been sleeping at all?"

Shaking her head, Adelaide mumbled, "No. How was I supposed to sleep with everything happening?"

"But you expect me to sleep?"

"You're the younger one."

Nathan made a face. Every time. The hell did that have to do with anything? "It's only one year."

"When did you turn eighteen?"

Nathan had turned eighteen only a few days before he'd gotten kidnapped. "Recently," he mumbled.

"I'm closer to twenty. So that's almost two years." Adelaide's smile was tinged with triumph. "Hah."

Arching a brow, Nathan smiled. Pretty graceful transition from a bad dream. He'd guess his coping mechanism rubbed off on her, and now they were both laughing and smiling whilst crippling on the inside, fearing the moment papers would slip under the door but refusing to let it conquer.

If Nathan had to analyze it, he'd say it was just craving a grip on their lives again. To stop fearing all the time. Worrying. Anticipating. Except that was exactly what they were doing, masked by artificial amusement.

Adelaide's shuddering sigh popped the bubble. The dreadful terror became apparent again; it weighed Nathan down even more. "I'm scared," she said like it was a surprise, eyes on the space beneath the door. "I don't wanna see Act Six. I don't want to read the script."

Nathan didn't have to agree because he obviously felt the same. When he looked at Adelaide's side-profile, he noticed how her acne had gotten much worse. Skin tired, cheeks hollow. All this time he'd been drowning in his own pain that he'd never taken the time to think of how horrible it was for her: watching a younger boy suffer, feeling like a bitch, not being able to do anything about it.

Peace. Right now was peaceful—but Nathan would call it preparation. Preparation for chaos and downfall. The stroke before a slap, the sinister smile before betrayal.

Act Six slipped in beneath the door.

It'd always been terrifying, but never as much as now. Both Adelaide and Nathan stared at the papers but none made a move to grab them. They shared looks. Adelaide was already on the verge of crying. Nathan's heart hammered.

For a minute, they didn't dare check the script. Nathan broke the trance; with a quivering breath, he started pulling himself up, but a throb oscillated from his first vertebra to the last. Adelaide must've noticed because she gestured him to stay and mumbled, "I'll get them."

Adelaide pulled the script from beneath the door, but this time didn't immediately leaf through. She didn't even look at them. Instead, she trudged back and silently sat beside Nathan, handing him his copy.

The first thing Nathan noticed was that the copy itself felt lighter: usually it was several papers. Now it was only two, including the makeup and extras one. He squinted at Adelaide's—hers seemed the same.

"I literally can't make myself read it," Adelaide mumbled, chuckling and sniffling at the same time. But then she did it: eyes on her copy, reading. Nathan watched. Waited. For a reaction, a word maybe.

Adelaide dropped her copy. Then she covered her mouth with her palm, eyes impossibly wide and tearful, and cried in a discontinuous choked way.

This made Nathan's system fail. He didn't even bother looking at his own copy and quickly leant over, peeking at Adelaide's script with squinty eyes, only to find one sentence only:

Luna hangs herself.

"Hell," Nathan mumbled, desperately staring at the line again, trying to figure out if he'd misread it. But no. He hadn't. Once the idea settled, he looked at Adelaide and found her (understandably) still weeping.

Even with the pain, Nathan shifted his weight to his knees and leant towards Adelaide. "Adelaide?" he quickly tried. "Adelaide, don't worry, I promise he won't make you actually hang yourself. I swear. He wants you alive. He's your mom's friend, remember? It's me he wants to kill. You're his heroine. He wouldn't watch you die—"

"Then why does it say I have to hang myself!" Adelaide shouted, then quickly lowered her voice again, both hands tugging her hair back. Her nose turned red, eyes already puffy. "In my mom's suicide letter, she told me I shouldn't do what she did. She . . . She told me I should never kill myself and now that's exactly what's gonna happen! I'm gonna disappoint her even in her g-grave and—"

"Adelaide," Nathan said, urgently gripping her arms, "listen to me. You. Won't. Die. He might make you pretend you're about to hang yourself, but he won't make you actually do it. Think about it: you're Luna's daughter, the woman he kept beating me up for. He never touched you, never even yelled at you. He doesn't want you to die. Trust me, if one of us is gonna survive, it's you."

Adelaide calmed down, but tears were still inching down her cheeks. She must've realized that logically the Director wouldn't kill her. It wasn't what he wanted.

Suddenly, Nathan realized he hadn't checked his copy. So, with a hopeless sigh, he did. And he found one line too: Dolion reads Luna's suicide letter. Still sniffling, Adelaide peeked at it.

"I'm not gonna die," she said, her voice low. Barely a whisper.

Nathan nodded. "You're not gonna die."

With her sleeve, Adelaide wiped off her cheeks and the tip of her nose. So now that Nathan was done comforting her, he needed someone to comfort him because he felt like something was clawing at his throat.

"Nate . . ." Adelaide gave Nathan a look. Palms flat against the floor, she pushed herself until she was sitting straighter. Then she sighed and shook her head, hand against her face like she was disappointed. "Gosh, I'm so dumb. I'm so dumb and useless. I'm sorry, you're . . . you're probably terrified now and I was making you worry about me. I just- I don't know what to tell you."

The problem was that there wasn't anything to tell. Nathan could comfort Adelaide with a truth, logic, but in his case logic meant doom. "You don't have to say anything," Nathan said, eyes on the floor. "We already concluded what's gonna happen to me. It's not a surprise. When we finish this act, he's probably gonna kill me, and my dad if he's out there."

"Don't think like that, Nate. Please." Leaning closer, Adelaide placed a hand over Nathan's. "Come on, it's just one more act. You can survive it like you've survived the others, r-right? You can do it. Be positive, please."

Easier for you to say, Nathan thought. He said, "Yeah. Maybe."

Like that they sat in silence. Doing nothing, saying nothing. The only time Nathan moved was when his gut squeezed hard, and he stumbled to the bin and retched out whatever water was left in his body.

He only realized Adelaide had hurried to his side when he finally leant back, hands slipping off the edge of the bin. At least it relieved the stomach ache a little. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, suddenly feeling like the temperature dropped. "I don't know what happened."

"Gosh, don't be sorry." Adelaide glanced at him, probably noticing that he'd started shivering. "Maybe you should change now for the act. You're getting cold, aren't you? Besides, your pants got blood on them. You'll feel better when you change."

Feel better when you change. Yeah, right. So much better. But he nodded nonetheless as Adelaide opened the drawer and took his clothes out of the bag, then handed them to him.

It was an arduous thing, standing up alone. But Nathan did. Then he trudged to the bathroom and placed the clothes on top of the cabinet, staring at them. Thinking of how tired he was to change, or how much it hurt at this point to raise his arms.

In the space behind the door, he pulled his pants down, but the bending hurt so much he winced and stopped several times. And by the time he managed to have his blood-soaked pants pooled at his ankles, he could barely find it in him to pull his new trousers up.

But he did, because he wasn't about to make Adelaide help him wear pants. As soon as he was done with that, he leant against the wall, grunting, and held the sweater. He tried. He really did. Tried putting his arms through the sleeves but he couldn't raise them far enough without his shoulders throbbing like the solid bones were dislocating, or like the muscles were tearing.

"Nate? Everything alright? You've been in there for a while."

"I need help."

Silence. Nathan had left the bathroom door a little ajar so he wouldn't panic. It creaked, probably Adelaide pushing it further open. Footsteps behind him then Adelaide beside him. The pity in her eyes, in the downward tug of her mouth, made Nathan hate himself right now.

Taking the sweater from his hand, Adelaide wordlessly helped him into it, minding how hard it was for him to stretch. "Why didn't you tell me you needed help before?" she asked as soon as she was done. "I would've helped you, no question. And don't tell me it's embarrassing, because it's not. You're like a child to me."

Nathan didn't say anything. Pride, maybe. Not wanting to acknowledge that at this point his body was half dead. His eyes had been downcast, but when Adelaide's stare lingered he raised his head.

"I know," he said. "Can we get out of the bathroom? I'm starting to feel claustrophobic."

•••

It was the last time they'd sit like this, Adelaide on the stool and Nathan on the floor beside her. The last time he'd fiddle with a lipstick, twisting it in and out, like a curious kitten. The last time they'd cover the bruises.

Nathan wondered if the Director had hurt his dad. Physically. All the times they'd heard him breathless through the earpiece, had he been beating him up? Or was tormenting him by tormenting his son enough? Nathan desperately hoped it was the second option.

Beside him, Adelaide wasn't really doing anything. There was no makeup to apply this time. The only reason they were sitting here was familiarity. Maybe distraction too. With an elbow balanced against the edge of the dresser, Adelaide sighed and aimlessly watched Nathan fiddle with the lipstick.

"How long do we have?"

"Around ten minutes," Nathan said. After they'd changed, the Director had told them that this time they only had one hour to prepare. There wasn't any preparation really, so they'd been free.

"Alright." Adelaide cleared her throat, hands on her knees, then twisted her torso towards Nathan. "I need to tell you . . . things. You know, since we can't . . . we don't know what's gonna happen." Slipping off the stool, she offered her hands to Nathan and helped him up to his feet. Nathan felt like she'd gotten used to his pain threshold by now; the force she exerted to pull was oddly precise. Tender but strong.

"This is gonna be seriously cheesy. Like, seriously. And you're probably gonna tell me shut up, but I have to," Adelaide continued, her voice already straining. Nathan knew what she meant: a farewell, a last talk. "I just wanna tell you that- that as horrible as everything's been . . . I'm happy—No, like, I'm grateful . . . Gosh, this is hard."

Hand on her hip and the other on her face: she laughed and cried. Nathan nodded, his chest already constricting.

Adelaide mumbled something to herself, something like: get yourself together, girl. Then she sighed shakily. "Despite everything, I'm glad I met you, Nate," she said. "I don't know if we're gonna survive or not, but I know that either ways, I got to spend time with an incredible boy. I learnt a lot from you, mostly how to lie. But like, white lies—wait, I'm not calling you a liar. I mean it in a good way."

Nathan laughed. A little wretched, a little similar to a cry, but he laughed. Adelaide forced a smile and continued, "You're great. Seriously. And you're just . . ." With a shaky hand, she pinched his cheek lightly. "You're so cute, you know that? I'm sorry for every time I called you weird. I wasn't used to you, but now I am and I love you just the way you are. I'll never forget all the facts you told me. I'll never forget how you smile when you're scared or stressed. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you, I'm sorry I couldn't even"—her voice cracked—"comfort you or take away the pain and . . . "

"Is that what you think?" Nathan shook his head frantically. "God, no. You're great. You helped me a lot. How were you supposed to take the pain away anyway? You're not in control of the situation. You took care of me and that's enough. It helped so much, you don't even know. I'm bad with words but my point is, I really appreciate you, okay?"

Adelaide nodded. Her eyes glossed with tears, but Nathan tried not to let it affect him because he didn't want to cry. "If we . . . I'm sure we are. When we survive this," she said, "we're gonna stay friends, right? Like, we're gonna stay in touch and see each other?"

Nathan wished this could happen. His heart squeezed, throat tight. "Yeah. Yeah, of course."

"But we live in different countries. So maybe you'll come to Fr—"

"Never stepping foot in France ever again."

"Oh . . . Understandable. Maybe I'll come over, y-yeah?"

"Yeah, good. Great."

Adelaide gave him a wistful look—like she knew her words were a fantasy—then mumbled, "Come here," with a quaking voice. She pulled him closer, arms going around him.

Moving along with her, Nathan buried his face in her shoulder. Adelaide's curly hair kinda tickled the side of his neck, but he didn't mind. The silence was the connection. No words needed anymore.

Chains rattled, and everything shattered again. Nathan froze first. They pulled apart but Adelaide held his hand. Assurance. Heart in his throat, blood pulsing at his neck, Nathan turned towards the door.

"The last act," the Director said. "The moment we've been waiting for. You must be thrilled, my actors."

The door remained closed. Nathan's legs felt weak, like any moment and they'd buckle under him. The only thing keeping him grounded was Adelaide's warm hand encasing his.

"Now," the Director continued, "since it's the last act, we have some changes. My heroine, when I open the door, you stay inside. I want my villain to come to the stage first. Alone."

_________

a/n: Hope you enjoyed! last few chapters :)

thanks for reading/voting/commenting❤️