Summer is here! FINALLY. Although I’ve been so busy with research recently I don’t know if I would have noticed except for the summer solstice tomorrow. The internship is trucking along as usual. When I began, back in Update #11, I had no idea I’d come to spend all my free time with dead people. Imagine! Obtaining the internship with the Archaeology Society was a lottery (I guess everyone wants to be underground), and back in November when I started, I could not have known it would develop into a lifestyle of mine. Going from every Thursday to most days seems like a leap, but not when you consider all I’ve learned down there. The smell of decay, the thrill of discovery, and exploring paths that have not seen warm bodies in centuries is intoxicating.

On another note: I think I have a stalker. I wasn’t worried at first—his style of clothing is colorblind hipster, so I always see him coming when he follows me round at the Sorbonne—but he moved into my building last month. Now I sleep with the Taser I got on the black market here (since they’re illegal), but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me whenever I exit my door. Sometimes, although he lives on the fourth floor, I think I hear someone in the hall. I wish to God the French employed look-holes in their door designs. If anything happens to me, you’ll know where to check.

Eventually, dear sister, I hope to send all these updates to you and catch you up on my life, instead of saving them as drafts in my inbox. Until then, I’ll wait for our reunion of minds via our twin connection.

Twin for the win,

Gelly

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

My eyes fix tight on the doorknob from the farthest corner of Angela’s studio apartment. Her bed frame, armoire, nightstand, and writing desk block the entry in my frenzied attempt to Tetris myself a barricade. Each time the building creaks, my heart seizes, like I’m watching a movie of my life, the one where I usually bellow at the woman to sprint for the exit. Rereading Angela’s email for the twentieth time only heightens my impulse to scream.

If I’d opened this UPDATES folder yesterday, nothing would have changed. I still wouldn’t have seen him. I still would have refused to call him for help. But I would have known. Days were spent with Jean-Luc. Before I learned he stalked and abducted my sister.