Chapter 3
My scream ripped through the bathroom walls.
Charles tore the bathroom door open, his chest heaving.
He dropped to his knees and grabbed my arms. "Vivienne! What is it?"
I pointed a trembling finger at the shower stall. "They're in there. Silas and Lyra. They were looking at my stomach."
Charles stared at me. He stood up, grabbed the edge of the opaque shower curtain, and violently ripped it back.
The tub was empty. Not a single drop of water.
"They were just there," I insisted, struggling to stand.
Charles gripped my wrist tightly and pulled me down the hallway. We stopped in front of the guest bedroom.
The padlock I had installed hours ago rested perfectly in its groove. Untouched.
Charles unlocked it with his key and shoved the door open.
Silas and Lyra were curled under their blankets, breathing in slow, deep rhythms.
"Look at them, Vivienne," Charles whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "They haven't moved."
He turned me to face him. "The pregnancy hormones are causing acute hallucinations. You need to calm down before you hurt the baby."
I stared at the sleeping kids. Their chests rose and fell in perfect unison. Too perfect.
I walked into the kitchen. Constance was violently stirring a glass bowl at the island.
"Charles took the kids to a community cleanup," Constance said. "I made your favorite potato salad. Eat up. You look pale."
I picked up a spoon and took a bite.
A searing pain sliced the roof of my mouth.
I spat into my palm. Sitting in a puddle of my own blood was a jagged, rusted shard of a razor blade.
"What the hell is this?" I slammed my bloody hand on the counter.
Constance gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "Oh my god! The blade from that old food processor must have finally chipped off."
Before I could stop her, she snatched the bloody shard and dumped the entire bowl of salad down the garbage disposal. She flipped the switch. The grinder roared, destroying the evidence in seconds.
"Be more careful chewing, dear," she chided over the deafening noise.
That afternoon, I dragged Constance to the mall under the guise of buying maternity clothes. I slipped away to an electronics store the second she turned her back.
I bought six advanced pinhole cameras. I installed them the second I got home, burying the lenses in smoke detectors and air vents.
Then, I locked my freshly bought baby clothes and an expensive baby monitor inside a heavy, moisture-proof steel cabinet in the nursery.
It didn't matter.
By noon the next day, the steel cabinet hung wide open. The lock hadn't been picked; it was smashed open with a hammer.
Inside, every single baby onesie was shredded to ribbons. A harsh, eye-watering stench of industrial chemicals burned my nostrils.
"Silas did this," I told Charles as a patrol officer arrived to take the report.
But I had already checked my feeds. Nothing. Whoever did this knew the exact blind spots of the lenses I had installed just yesterday. A ten-year-old possessed anti-reconnaissance skills that terrified me.
"Officer, look!" Silas pointed a small, dirty finger at the mud outside the broken nursery window. "Someone with big boots walked past there!"
The cop noted the size-twelve footprint. "Looks like a vagrant broke in looking for valuables, ma'am. We've had a few instances in the neighborhood."
Silas looked over the officer's shoulder at me. A tiny, triumphant smirk played on his lips.
That night, the bedroom walls started spinning.
I gripped the edge of the mattress. Nausea hit me like a freight train. I sprinted to the master bathroom and retched into the toilet.
When I rinsed my mouth at the sink, the water tasted metallic. I spat. Bright red blood splattered against the white ceramic. My gums were actively bleeding.
Panic seized my chest. I staggered out to the kitchen toward the water dispenser I used exclusively for my prenatal vitamins.
I tore the heavy lid off and pulled out the primary water filter.
Woven tightly around the carbon cylinder was a dense clump of wiry, brown hair.
"Charles!" I screamed.
The emergency room lights were blinding.
Dr. Miller stepped in, flipping through a chart. "Your blood work shows trace amounts of anticoagulant rodenticide. Rat poison. Fortunately, the dose was minimal. Your baby is fine, but we need to pump your stomach."
Sitting in the hospital bed, I threw the plastic evidence bag containing the brown hair straight at Charles's chest.
"You still want to defend them?" I hissed. "Those two psychos poisoned my specific water tank!"
Charles looked utterly appalled. "Vivienne, listen to yourself! They are ten and eight years old. How the hell would a foster kid know how to dose rat poison?"
"Then test the hair!" I demanded, turning to Dr. Miller. "Run a DNA test on that clump. Prove to me it's not Silas's!"
Charles sighed heavily and nodded at the doctor. "Do it. Put her mind at ease."
Hours later, the toxicologist returned. He handed Charles the paper.
I snatched it from his hands, my eyes tearing across the bold ink.
My jaw dropped. I couldn't form a single word.
The DNA didn't belong to Silas. It didn't belong to Lyra.
It belonged to a Rattus norvegicus. A common brown rat.
The lab concluded the wild rat had carried the poison, crawled into my water supply, and created a perfect accidental poisoning loop.
Charles placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. He looked at the doctor with deep, performative sorrow.
"My wife has been incredibly neurotic since the pregnancy started," Charles whispered to Dr. Miller, pitching his voice just loud enough for me to hear. "She thinks the whole world is trying to hurt her."
The doctor gave me a look of profound pity.
