Chapter 1: The Guardian Within

The day Carter Ellison told me he wanted to break up, I got into a car accident.

For a split second after he said it, I forgot to breathe. The air outside was sticky with late summer heat—the kind that pressed down, making everything feel heavier. I blinked, almost in disbelief, headlights blurring past as Carter’s words echoed in my mind. I couldn’t shake his voice, cold and sharp as the glass that would soon shatter around me. My hands shook on the steering wheel, but I kept driving—because honestly, what else was there to do?

I didn’t die.

Still, for a moment, I couldn’t believe it. The world felt too bright, the ache in my chest too real. I tasted blood and metal, heard the distant wail of sirens. But I was alive.

The one who died was the part of me—the personality inside me—that loved him.

I live inside Lillian Avery’s body. Call me Quinn.

I show up at Lillian’s worst, most painful moments.

The first time I came out, she was eight years old, kidnapped and stuffed into a suffocating, cramped trunk.

That night, one of the kidnappers threatened, “If we don’t get the ransom, we’ll cut her up and dump her in the river.”

I opened my eyes inside her body.

Unlike the timid, weak, always-crying Lillian, I’m calm, strong, and unflinching.

I told the softly sobbing Lillian, “Hey, don’t worry.”

Her whimpering stopped. Then, panicked, she asked in her mind, “Who... who’s speaking?”

I answered gently, “It’s me. I’m inside you. You can call me Quinn.”

During the days we waited for the ransom, she talked to me every day:

“Quinn, are you... another me?”

“Are you someone I made up?”

“Do you really exist?”

“Luckily, I have you with me, Quinn. With you here, I’m not afraid anymore.”

I taught her how to rub the ropes off her wrists, and when the kidnappers weren’t looking, how to stretch out from the trunk and leave clues behind.

A passerby called the police. She was rescued and sent home.

I was supposed to disappear.

But when she got home, it felt like no one was happy to see her.

Her father was always busy, hadn’t sent a single message during her week-long disappearance, and of course, never got any ransom note.

Her stepmother clutched her hand, tears streaming, “It’s good you’re back, it’s good you’re safe.” Then turned away and muttered under her breath, “Why couldn’t they just finish what they started?”

Her stepbrother patted her head, his hand sliding down her face, lingering on her waist, giving it a squeeze, and laughed, “Hey now, Lillian’s had it rough—gotten thinner, too.”

Lillian’s body trembled so hard she could barely stand. She pleaded inside her mind:

“Don’t go, okay, Quinn? Stay with me. I’m scared. Please, I’m so scared.”

So I stayed. After that, we shared control of her body.

When she felt safe and happy, she was in charge.

When she was in danger or felt disgusted, I stepped in.

I’m nothing like Lillian.

When her snake-hearted stepmother made snide remarks, I’d snap back, no mercy.

When her disgusting stepbrother tried to peek at her in the bath, I’d stab a sewing needle into the doorframe, right next to his face, and threaten, “If you try that again, this needle goes in your eye.”

When someone bullied Lillian at school, I’d grab the ringleader’s head. Dunk her in the restroom sink. Hold her there until she panicked. “Bully me again, and I’ll drown you. Understand?”

At those times, Lillian would always say inside, “Quinn, I’m so glad to have you. Let’s always be together, okay?”

I read that people with multiple personalities always try to erase each other, fighting for total control.

But Lillian and I weren’t like that. We had each other. Closer than anyone else.

Back then, I’d look in the mirror at our shared face and promise her, “Alright, we’ll always be together.”

The face in the mirror smiled—Lillian’s smile.

Like a white lily—gentle, shy, pure, trembling just a little on its stem.

In that moment, I thought: I’ll always protect that smile.

That was why I existed—my only mission.