Chapter 3
"We can't sit around waiting for him to carve us up," I said. "If being Snow White guarantees we end up in a coffin, why not switch parts?"
"You're saying we kill him?" Angela sucked in a sharp breath and covered her mouth. "That's Shawn. He's the richest guy in the country. You don't just stab someone like that and do a couple years. You vanish."
"Prison beats being stuffed and displayed," Melanie snapped, something feral flickering in her eyes. "If we're screwed either way, I'd rather drag him down with us. So talk. How do we do it?"
I drew in a steady breath and forced myself to walk back through the details of our first four lives. "Shawn's unhinged, yes.
"But he has a fatal flaw. He's insanely arrogant, and he's obsessed with ritual."
"Every single time he kills, it has to follow a script. Specific setting. Specific lines. Specific props.
"The poisoned apple. The mirror. The crystal coffin.
"If we sabotage his script, or slip something deadly into it that he didn't plan for, he'll unravel. He'll make a mistake."
"But…" I paused, my mind racing. "There's something we need to understand first."
"What?" Melanie asked.
"Why he's so fixated on finding Snow White."
I pointed at the crystal coffin positioned like a centerpiece in the grand living room. "If he just wanted to murder someone, he could grab any model from a nightclub.
"Why obsess over the Law family? Why repeat this whole theatrical setup every lifetime?
"That coffin isn't just decoration."
I walked over and pressed my palm against the cold, flawless surface.
In our previous lives, we had been too busy screaming and begging to really look at it.
This time, I swallowed the panic, switched on my phone's flashlight, and leaned close.
Through the crystal, I could see beneath the velvet lining.
The base wasn't smooth.
Under the plush fabric, there were faint outlines of intricate metal tubing and etched measurement lines.
At the headrest, almost invisible, were two tiny probe ports.
"What is that?" I murmured.
Melanie stepped beside me. She had studied engineering before life pulled her in another direction, but technical instincts do not disappear.
"That's not a coffin," she said quietly. "That looks like a medical pod."
"A medical pod?" Chloe repeated, her voice thinning.
"Yes. Look here." Melanie traced the shape of the concealed fixtures through the crystal. "This port connects to an IV line. That one is for cardiac monitoring. He hid it well, but it's obvious if you know what you're seeing."
A memory hit me so hard I almost staggered.
In the first life, when Shawn cut open my chest, he had murmured, "Your heart's racing. Is this the one I've been searching for?"
In the second life, when he filled Angela's veins with formaldehyde, he whispered, "Beauty should be permanent."
Every fragment snapped together.
"He isn't looking for a bride," I said slowly, my throat dry. "He's looking for a donor."
Angela stared at me. "A donor?"
"Yes. There's someone he wants to bring back. Or something he's trying to keep alive.
"This coffin is a screening device. It tests compatibility."
"Melanie's skin. Angela's blood. Chloe's eyes, maybe. And me." My hand pressed unconsciously against my chest. "I'm the heart.
"He didn't lure us here to stage some twisted fairy tale. He brought us here to run diagnostics."
If that was true, then Shawn was worse than a serial killer.
He was a man trying to outplay death itself.
"So what does that make us?" Angela's voice shook. "Just a walking parts warehouse?"
"No." I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms. "If he's collecting components, then whatever he's building is somewhere on the Cole estate.
"The thing he's trying to resurrect, that's his real weakness. That's the only leverage we have.
"Tonight, we go to the Cole estate."
"To do what, exactly? Hand ourselves over with a bow on top?" Chloe demanded.
"We find out what that half-finished nightmare actually is," I said, holding her gaze. "And then we destroy it.
"Take away his Snow White, and this so-called prince won't know how to function."