Just as the odds dictated after so many detours, when the black sedan finally stopped in front of the departure terminal, the flight they had booked was already history.
On the giant screen in the lobby, their flight code blinked next to a cold and definitive "Departed", sentencing that their trip had ended for that night half an hour before they even arrived.
"Sigh... I guess we have no choice, we'll have to spend the night here," Sarah murmured while rubbing her temples, exhausted.
To Lief, however, the setback didn't seem to affect him in the slightest, he put a hand in his pants pocket and with the other took the handle of his luggage.
"It doesn't matter, Mom. Look on the bright side: we can rest in a real bed instead of sleeping on the plane. There should be several decent hotels right outside the airport perimeter."
While he spoke, his gaze drifted subtly toward the figure that was glued to his side, Fay.
Since they had gotten into the car after leaving behind the house of horrors, the girl had remained silent, huddled in a corner of the back seat.
She wasn't crying, nor trembling, she was simply watching the night landscape pass by through the glass with an unsettling stillness.
Sarah, following her son's gaze, also noticed the girl's state. Her maternal instinct activated again, and she approached her softening her voice as much as possible.
"Fay... do you have any plans for later? If you have nowhere to go or no one to call, you can come temporarily with..."
But before she could finish the offer of asylum, Fay shook her head gently.
She looked up, and Lief noticed the immediate change.
Those green eyes now reflected a deep tranquility, like the surface of a lake after a violent storm.
"Thank you, Mrs. Connor, really. But the world is very big..." said Fay with a voice that sounded strangely mature, as if she had aged ten years in a single night. "I want... I want to go see it for myself."
Having said that, she awkwardly hugged Sarah and Lief, a gesture that served as both deep gratitude and a definitive farewell.
And without adding a single word more, she turned around, dragging the small suitcase she had recovered from the house, and walked with a firm step toward the ticket counter.
"..."
Sarah opened her mouth, intending to stop her or insist, but the words transformed into a long and resigned sigh.
She could feel that Fay, after having survived her own hell and having done what she did, no longer needed anyone's protection.
Lief also watched her back until she disappeared into the crowd and kept silent.
He understood better than anyone that everyone has their own path to travel, and that there are certain dark paths that can only be traversed alone.
Shortly after, mother and son checked into a chain hotel in front of the terminal, renting two adjoining rooms to spend the night.
"Rest and try to sleep early, Lief. Tomorrow we'll have to take the first flight of the morning," his mother reminded him while handing him his room card, with her eyes almost closing from sleep.
"You too, Mom. Good night."
Upon entering his room, Lief threw the suitcase onto the bed without ceremony and headed directly to the bathroom.
He turned on the shower faucet and let the torrent of hot water fall over him, hitting his muscles and washing away down the drain not only the dust of the road, but also the accumulated tiredness of an endless day.
Too many things had happened in less than twenty-four hours: the psychological confrontation in court, the conversation with Satan on the rooftop, the blood and the screams in the old house... The images passed through his mind like fast slides, but they left no deep emotional imprint on him.
He turned off the water and got out of the shower.
The sink mirror was completely fogged up by the dense steam.
He reached out his hand to wipe the surface, but his fingers stopped millimeters from the glass.
In the clouded reflection, a figure began to slowly emerge, defining itself amidst the mist.
It wasn't his own reflection.
The person on the other side of the glass was wearing an elegant long black lace dress, and her dark hair cascaded down to her waist, framing a pale and beautiful face.
It was Airam.
"It seems you are adapting quite well to your new body..." commented Lief naturally, leaning against the edge of the sink without being surprised.
From inside the mirror, Airam revealed a sly and charming smile.
She extended her hand and the tips of her fingers gently brushed the surface of the glass from the other side, matching the position of Lief's cheek.
"Of course... it seems custom-made for me," she replied with a voice that resonated directly in Lief's mind. "I can already feel it merging with me and Maria is also very happy; now we can truly share the same world without having to take turns."
"I'm very happy for both of you," Lief smiled sincerely.
"When you get back home, I'll give you a surprise..." Airam whispered with a playful and mysterious tone.
Immediately after, her figure began to slowly fade, until only the reflection of the empty bathroom remained.
Finishing drying off, Lief wrapped himself in the white hotel robe and walked toward the bed to drop onto the mattress.
The city outside the window kept shining and there was the distant noise of planes, but the room was plunged into absolute tranquility, so silent that he could hear the constant rhythm of his own heartbeat.
He closed his eyes, letting the darkness claim him, ready to sleep.
However, just as his consciousness began to dissolve into the blackness of sleep, an alarm signal went off in his brain, snapping him out of his lethargy instantly.
It was not a noise, but the physical certainty of a presence.
An unmistakable and electric sensation of being watched.
Immediately after, he felt the mattress to his right gently give way under a new weight.
Snapping his eyes open and turning his head on the pillow, he met a silhouette that defied the logic of a locked door.
It was Fay.
There was no explanation for how or when she had managed to bypass security to slide into his room like a ghost.
She was wearing the same gray long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, but her hair was damp and plastered to her neck, a sign that she had also bathed.
"..."
She was simply there, lying next to him in the silence, staring at him with green eyes that shone in the dim light with an almost bioluminescent intensity.
"How did you get in?" asked Lief without a shred of agitation, fully aware that he had bolted the door before lying down.
But Fay offered no verbal response; instead, she brought her face closer to his slowly, very slowly.
A complex aroma invaded Lief's personal space: the aseptic fragrance of the hotel shower shampoo mixed with the unique smell of her own skin.
Her movements did not seem like an impulsive decision.
Now that the secondary personality had taken full control of the body, a new being had been born that had discarded all the ties of the past: morality, shame, and social rules were obsolete concepts to her.
She simply followed her own compass, seeking what she felt was necessary.
And the man before her, the person who had physically pulled her out of the memories of hell and had allowed her to execute her vengeance with her own hands. He was her savior and her accomplice, the first and only person with whom she had a deep intersection in her new existence.
That was why she was here.
She was using her own way to complete some kind of "confirmation" and physical "connection" that not even she herself could fully rationalize.
And Lief did not move a millimeter.
He held the girl's gaze, studying that face that seemed familiar and strange to him at the same time.
He knew that the one dominating that body now was the other personality, but in that instant, her behavior reminded him of a bird of prey chick that had just broken out of the shell, full of a dangerous curiosity for the world, exploring the creature that had liberated it in the only way it knew how.
The sensation was strange, charged with a tension that was not entirely human.
He could have easily pushed her away with a single gesture, or induced her to sleep instantly, but he decided not to do so, allowing the strange interaction to run its course.
________
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