Page 14 of Kill, Sleep, Repeat: Vol II

The stillness in the room was suffocating, and I could feel the space between us growing. Sophie’s eyes were unfocused, as if she was locked in some quiet battle with herself. The tension in her body was unmistakable. She was trying to hold it together, but I could tellshe was losing.

I turned, meeting her eyes, and the calm was gone. “You drugged me.”

Her hands stilled, like she was trying to make her body disappear into the bed. She didn’t look away, but I could see it in her eyes—she’d been caught, but she wasn’t going to easily admit it.

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” she said, her voice almost apologetic, but I heard the lie in it. She wasn’t sorry. She was just frustrated I caught her.

"Of course you did," I said. "You just thought you could pull it off without me seeing the strings. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice when you slipped something in my drink? When you were standing there watching me sleep?"

Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but then she just closed it. She was trying to find the right lie, but I wasn’t listening to those anymore. She can’t fake it. Not with me.

“I just wanted you to get some sleep,” she finally said, like she was justifying herself, but there was a dark edge to it. "You needed it. I needed you to be…rested."

Her words hit me harder than they should. It surprised me how effortlessly the lies rolled off her tongue.

I let out a slow breath, taking a step forward. “That’s not why you drugged me, Soph. You know it, and I know it.”

Her eyes flashed, but she didn’t look away. “I just didn’t want you to be so…on edge all the time. You’re so high-strung, Mom. Always going, going, going. I thought maybe if you took a break?—”

I held up a hand, cutting her off. “This isn’t about me. You did it so you could sneak off and do whatever the hell you wanted. You did it so I wouldn’t have anything to say about it, so you could avoid hearing the truth.”

Sophie flinched, but she didn’t back down. She was digging herself deeper, trying to make it sound like she was doing thisout of some warped sense of care. But I’m not stupid. I knew exactly what she was doing.

“I just wanted to get away for a little while,” she said, her words clipped, defensive. “Without you breathing down my neck. I just?—”

“Just what?” I snapped. “Just what, Sophie? Don’t lie to me. You are walking right into something you know you shouldn’t. And maybe it’s because you’re lonely—maybe you just need a friend. But this business doesn’t lend itself kindly to friends. If you don’t want to face what we’re doing here, what you signed up for, you should have thought about that a long time ago.”

She stared at me for a beat, her face hardening. And then, in a move I didn’t expect, she spoke again, this time quieter. “I did it because you needed it. You’ve been working too hard, and you’re—” She stopped, then forced the next words out. “You’re pushing me too hard.”

I waited for the anger to rise, but something else hit me first. A flicker of something almost like admiration. The audacity of it. The way she could just twist things, make herself out to be the martyr here.

I almost laughed, but I bit it back. “You did it for me?” My tone shifted, the words sharp but with a hint of something else. “You think this is how you help me?”

She wasn’t listening anymore. She’d already found her justification, and it didn’t matter what I said now. “Yes,” she said firmly, her eyes meeting mine, as if daring me to argue. “I thought you’d be better off.”

A moment passed. I looked at her, taking it all in. She was wrong. She was so wrong. But there was something there, something I didn’t want to admit—she almost believed her lies.

I felt my jaw tighten. "That’s your answer, Sophie? You didn’t think? You didn’t think I’d see through this?"

She didn’t flinch this time. She was waitingfor me to go on, to yell, to break her down—but I didn’t. Because it didn’t matter anymore.

“You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you,” I said. “But this? This isn’t the way to go about it.”

Her expression shifted slightly. Was it doubt? Maybe. I didn’t know.

It wasn’t. It was anger. Her scoff told me that much. “But that’s not the only reason I did it…”

“Oh, wonderful. Please enlighten me.”

“I know you paid that man to follow us.”

“So?”

“So you let me kill an innocent person. And for what—to prove I could?”

“No,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I did it to teach you a lesson.”

“Of course you did.”

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