Chapter 82: Make It Ring Together
Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Make It Ring Together
Chapter 82: Make It Ring Together
"You are going to buy me some snacks."
Daphne Whitlock stared at Cory.
For a second, she had expected something worse. He had a personal alarm in one hand, the pull tab looped around his finger, and the expression on his small face made it clear that he understood exactly what it could do to her.
One pull would bring neighbors running.
One pull would turn her bedroom into a question she could not answer.
Yet his demand was only for snacks.
The relief arrived first.
Then, to Daphne’s annoyance, disappointment followed behind it.
"You want snacks?" she asked.
Cory kept the alarm raised. "I want snacks from the store, and I want you to go get them."
Daphne glanced at the yellow device again.
"You are serious about this."
"I am very serious."
She had no room to argue.
Daphne left the bedroom, grabbed her car keys, and headed for the door before Cory could decide he wanted something else. The speed of her retreat left her feeling ridiculous, but she did not slow down.
The door shut behind her.
Cory listened until her footsteps faded down the hallway.
Then he lowered the alarm and looked at it with growing approval.
It really was useful.
Daphne had left the apartment so quickly that she had barely remembered to bring her keys. A few minutes ago, she had been looming over him in her bedroom with that familiar look on her face, one that always made him wonder whether he needed to prepare an escape route.
Now she was out buying him snacks.
Cyrus had spent too long assuming he had to deal with Daphne alone.
That had been his mistake.
The personal alarm was not a weapon. It would not help him overpower her, erase the footage, or stop her from showing up outside his apartment with food and a smile that asked for too much.
It would make noise.
Sometimes, noise was enough.
At the nearby convenience store, Daphne wandered through the snack aisle with the posture of someone who had taken a hard hit to the head and was still waiting to feel the pain.
She wore a mask from the glove compartment, partly because she had not bothered to change out of her house clothes and partly because she did not want anyone recognizing her while she stood in front of the chips looking as though her entire life had become an emergency.
Cyrus had seemed almost resigned around her for days.
He complained. He glared. He tried to avoid her.
Still, he had always ended up giving in when she pressed hard enough.
Daphne had started treating that as a certainty.
She had forgotten that he could fight back.
She could not reveal that he could transform. She could not actually report a nonexistent missing-child case. She could not hand the police a grainy hallway video and expect them to accept a story about a student becoming someone else.
The photographs she had pretended to take were not proof either. She had only made the shutter sound to intimidate him. Even if she had taken a real picture, it would not give her anything useful unless Cyrus was in Cory’s form at the exact moment she needed it.
The camera footage had been leverage because Cyrus believed she might use it.
The alarm was leverage because Daphne knew she could not survive the questions it would bring.
If Cory pulled it in her bedroom, the entire floor would hear. People would see a small white-haired boy inside her apartment. They would ask why he had been there, why he had felt unsafe, and why Daphne had been alone with him behind a closed door.
She could not think of a single explanation that would save her.
The worst part was that, beneath the panic, another thought tried to surface.
If Cory kept ordering her around in that small, stubborn voice, would it really be so bad to listen?
Daphne shut that thought down before it could turn into anything uglier.
She bought too much.
Chips, cookies, candy, crackers, gummy bears, bottled tea, chocolate, popcorn, and a few things that looked like they might survive in Cyrus’s apartment without needing a refrigerator. Her arms were full by the time she reached the register.
The cashier gave her a strange look.
Daphne ignored it.
By the time she drove back to the apartment building, the bag on the passenger seat had become heavier than it had any right to be.
She carried it upstairs with none of the confidence she had left with.
Her life had become embarrassing.
Cyrus had spent the morning at Faye’s house, playing games and eating breakfast while Daphne waited around apartment 202 like someone with no self-respect. Now he was sitting in her bedroom with a personal alarm, ordering her to buy snacks.
The balance had shifted so fast it made her dizzy.
Inside apartment 202, Cory had moved from the bed to the small couch near Daphne’s desk.
He had settled into the corner with the alarm resting across his lap, studying the room while she was gone.
A camera sat on top of a cabinet near the far wall.
The discovery made him pause.
Daphne had a camera in her own apartment.
His first thought was that it must be for him.
That would have been absurd. He knew that. Daphne had only started suspecting the connection between Cyrus and Cory recently. She could not have installed it in advance just to record him.
Still, finding a camera in the room ruined his own plan.
He had considered bringing a small camera here at some point, hiding it somewhere she would not notice, and collecting proof whenever Daphne tried something again. The idea had been simple. If she wanted to keep evidence against him, he could build evidence against her.
Now it looked like Daphne had already thought of that kind of thing.
Cyrus stared at the camera for a few seconds, then lifted one hand and gave it the middle finger.
He did not care whether anyone saw it.
The gesture made him feel better.
He had no intention of asking Daphne to delete whatever footage she had. She would erase one copy in front of him, smile like she had done him a favor, and keep several more hidden somewhere he could not reach.
Humans had backups.
He had learned that much.
The sensible arrangement was simpler.
Daphne had her footage.
He had the alarm.
That meant neither of them could act too freely without dragging the other one down with them.
Cyrus leaned back into the couch.
If Daphne did try reporting him, he would not wait around for the police to arrive. He would get across the balcony, shift down if he needed to, and make sure anyone who found them heard exactly why he had pulled the alarm.
Daphne did not have direct proof that Cory was Cyrus.
She only had a theory, a few hallway recordings, and too much confidence.
He was not helpless anymore.
Once he had snacks, he would go back to his own apartment and remind her to keep her distance. Then he would make her cover the cost of his Frostborn suppressants.
That would be fair.
She had made his life harder. She could pay for the medicine that kept his body from becoming another problem.
Cyrus felt an unfamiliar sense of victory.
The camera did not solve his evidence problem, but the alarm had opened another route.
The apartment door clicked.
Cory did not move from the couch.
Daphne knocked once on her own bedroom door before turning the handle.
"Did you leave already?" she asked.
Cory looked up at her.
"You seem like you wanted me to stay."
The smaller form made his voice sound softer than he intended, which was irritating. He had tried to keep the words low and threatening. Instead, they came out with a childish edge that made Daphne’s mouth twitch.
She was trying very hard not to react.
The effort was visible.
Daphne set the grocery bag on the coffee table in front of him.
"I bought a lot," she said. "You can pick what you want."
Cory held up the alarm while he tugged the top of the bag open.
The smell of chips and chocolate reached him immediately.
Daphne watched every movement of his hand.
Cyrus inspected the contents, then gave a small nod.
The selection was acceptable.
He climbed down from the couch, looked up at Daphne, and realized again how tall she was from this angle.
He shook the alarm once.
"You should behave yourself. I am leaving now."
Cory bent and grabbed the plastic bag.
It was wider than he was.
The weight pulled against his arm, and he had to drag it across the floor instead of carrying it. He had only made it halfway to the bedroom door when an uneasy feeling made him glance back.
Daphne had moved closer.
She was only two steps away.
That was enough.
Cory backed up with the bag scraping behind him.
"You said you would refund the rent," he added. "Do not forget about that."
"I will not forget," Daphne said.
Her answer sounded strained.
Cyrus narrowed his eyes.
She had almost picked him up again. He could tell. Another second and her hands would have been around his waist, with the alarm only inches away from being pulled.
She had been too slow.
Daphne stood with her hands at her sides, jaw tense.
Cory kept the pull tab looped around one finger.
"Good," he said. "Then I will see you later."
Before he could leave, Daphne spoke again.
"There are more games on my computer," she said. "You could stay and try one."
Cory stopped.
He had spent nights in internet cafés before, mostly because they were cheap places to sit when he did not want to return home yet. He had watched other people play computer games, but he had never had a real chance to try them himself.
The offer caught his interest.
Daphne noticed.
Her expression brightened with immediate hope.
Cyrus looked down at the personal alarm in his hand.
With it nearby, he could stay in her apartment without having to act like prey.
At least, that was what he told himself.
He had already played games with Miles all morning. His hands were tired, and the thought of staying longer in Daphne’s bedroom made the snacks feel less appealing.
"Another time, maybe," he said.
Daphne’s smile faded.
Cory dragged the bag toward the door.
The alarm had a second trigger built into its side button. He had tested it before coming over. Even if Daphne grabbed one arm, he could press it with the other.
That made him feel much safer than he had any right to.
Cyrus reached the hallway, pulled the door open, and disappeared into apartment 203 with his snacks.
Daphne remained alone in the bedroom.
The silence felt larger after he left.
Her good mood had lasted barely a day.
She had finally discovered Cory’s connection to Cyrus. She had learned that the transformation was real. She had found a way to keep him from running without needing to tell anyone what she knew.
Then one small yellow alarm had turned her into someone sent out for chips and candy.
Daphne exhaled through her nose.
"I only wanted some quiet time with him," she muttered. "Why does everything become difficult?"
The answer sat on the cabinet across from her.
She looked at the camera.
Had Cory done anything while she was gone?
Daphne crossed to the desk, woke the monitor, and pulled up the recording. She fast-forwarded through the first part, then stopped when Cory appeared on the screen.
He had stood directly in front of the camera.
Then he had raised his hand and given it the middle finger.
Daphne’s fingers curled against the edge of the desk.
The insult was childish.
That did not stop it from working.
She replayed the gesture once, then closed the footage.
This could not continue.
Cory had found something that gave him confidence, and Daphne could already see what would happen next. He would carry the alarm everywhere. He would hold it between them whenever she came close. He would use it to make demands, then walk away with that smug little expression he probably thought she could not see through his bangs.
Daphne pressed a hand over her face.
A plan began forming beneath the irritation.
She needed to make the alarm useless.
Not by taking it away.
Cory would never forgive that, and he would become harder to approach than he already was.
No, she needed to change what the alarm meant to him.
She needed to make him hesitate before he pulled it.
The thought settled in her mind with a quiet, dangerous certainty.