Chapter Text
She used to fantasize about herself. Her life up here.
Now, with a hundred miles between her and Kier, she can’t believe she used to daydream about herself on the outside. That she had longed for any piece of the outie world.
The road is dark—empty, thank God. Only her headlights cut through the night, joined occasionally by the flicker of gas stations littered along the highway.
Getting out of Kier was the hardest part. Other cars made her nervous, and it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder if she knew how to drive until she sat down with Helena’s keys in her hand. She had hoped that watching her driver drive and muscle memory were enough.
Once she gets on the highway some of the anxiety dissipates and she feels free. Like running hand in hand with Mark—only this time, the sense of impending doom is quieter. She’s well aware that the fallout is coming. She knows the water is at her neck, knows the gravity of her situation is about to pull her under.
But for now, it’s just her on the road driving out into the dark starry sky with the clouds hanging low. With her windows down, heater on, and a lit cigarette between her fingers.
She was surprised to learn Helena even had a car.
Everything she learned about Helena surprised her, made her sick, or both. And with each thing she learned she saw more of Helena in her own reflection in the mirror.
Helena was easier to hate before Helly spent over half a year in her skin. Before she learned her middle name was Imogene. Before she saw the painting in the study—little Helena in a blue dress, posed stiffly in front of her father.
She’d stared at that portrait longer than she meant to. Helena sat with her hands folded in her lap, so young, so small. And his hands, heavy and possessive on her shoulders. He gripped her like an object—like she was the Eagan family jewel. She had felt it in her own body as she gazed up at the painting—the phantom pressure of his fingers digging into her shoulders.
She recognized her own eyes in the painting. Vacant. Afraid. Already half-erased. The same ones she saw every morning in the photo on her MDR desk. She wondered if that little girl had ever wanted to run. To scribble I QUIT and bolt.
Weeks later, she was snooping and found a stash of cash and a stack of photos in the false bottom of a jewelry box. She rolled her eyes. The jewelry box? Really, bitch?
She flipped through them.
Her, as a girl. In a navy skirt, a Wintertide polo, and knee-high socks. Posture stiff, hands clasped.
Her father on a stage—One hand raised in a practiced wave, another clutching little Helena’s hand.
A teenage Helena in a black coat in front of an overexposed photo of a waterfall in the snow.
One photo catches her attention. It’s her, mid-laugh sitting on the shoulders of a woman she recognized from the statues in the perpetuity wing.
Helena looked young. Even younger than the girl in the painting. And on the back of the photo, in her own handwriting:
Aunt Nora. 1996.
And when she stumbled across her old toybox, she was surprised to learn that Helena had any.
A bride, a jester, an old angry woman, and a ram. A set of nine hand-painted matryoshka, a little Helena doll with her father inside her, her aunt inside him, and Kier inside them all.
Helena was easier to hate before she realized that Helena had never stood a chance. Before she saw the photos. Before she learned that her freedom was a myth, that she was destined for this life. Just like Helly had been destined to be born on a conference table.
She relates to Helena in that way, they both were doomed from the start.
She hears thunder rumbling low in the clouds, rain beginning to patter on her windshield. The scent of wet asphalt creeps through the cracked window. Nature never ceased to amaze her—outside, spring and summer had blossomed and faded without her. She’d watched it all from inside, sketching butterflies and trees to keep her sane, a fragile tether to a world she knew she could never touch.
The highway stretches ahead, dark and endless, like any moment she could drive off the face of the earth. The middle of nowhere. Neon gas station signs buzz low in the distance, flickering like distant stars. And every so often a billboard cuts through the darkness. The most recent one read UNITED IN SEVERANCE over the Lumon logo. Big white letters peeling off the sign, lit up under a flood light, like a reminder. A threat, really.
She takes another drag of her cigarette.
She had found the pack about an hour ago. Her dashboard had chimed and an orange light popped on. It had taken her a second, but she’d recognized it—gas. Right. Cars need gas. She’d pulled over and turned on the overhead light to inspect the tan interior. Not sure what she’s looking for, maybe a manual on how to get gas, ideally. She’d only ever seen her driver fill up the car once.
Helena’s car was clean—too clean.
When she used to imagine cars, she envisioned clutter. Little scented trees that hung from the rearview mirror. Coins scattered in the cupholders. Signs of life.
But when she opened the glove compartment, there they were, a pack of Myrtle Milds and a Lumon branded lighter. Even her vices branded with the family seal. She smiled. Finally, something self-destructive, something human, hidden away in the glove compartment of a car Helena almost never drove.
She pulled into one of the gas stations she passed a few miles back. A fluorescent box in the middle of nowhere, empty and humming. The door chimed overhead as she walked in, the lights too bright, too blue, too familiar. The same sterile hum that felt like her home. Harsh lights over four desks.
She walked the aisles, taking it all in. Browsing all the options, looking at all the choice that exists out here. The sodas, the snacks, and a slushie machine? Things she’s never seen, and things she knows Helena’s never had. But at the end of an aisle, she saw them, something she knew—a row of little scented trees.
She smiled as she thumbed through the rows of abstract scents she didn’t recognize. Bayside Breeze, New Car, Black Ice—The fuck is Black Ice?
A red one, half-hidden behind whatever Sunset Beach is, caught her eye. Wild Cherry. She’s never had a cherry, never seen one either, but she recognizes it and grabs it.
She walks to the counter to pay, suddenly realizing she hasn’t thought through this interaction—Like, hi, hello, can I have some fuel please? The kid behind the counter didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. Didn’t realize she had no clue what the fuck to do. A TV played a weather report on mute as she fumbled through her wad of rolled-up hundreds.
She yawns again. The dashboard clock reads 11:06.
It’s been about two and a half hours since she stole Helena’s jewelry box cash. Since she silently slipped out of the house leaving Jame’s body at the bottom of the stairs, cooling in a puddle of his own blood.
She replays the satisfying sound of his skull cracking on the tile floor, letting the memory thrum through her veins.
She told the medics and the police she’d watched him fall. The house staff told them that too. She accepted condolences graciously and cried. Told them staying here tonight was going to be too hard and she needed to focus on how she’s going to address the public.
She smiles.
She has a bright blue slushie and coins in the cupholders now. A little red tree hanging from her mirror. And a picture in her visor of her as a toddler, sitting on the lap of a woman with red hair and hazel-colored eyes, looking at her with so much love.
Mom. 1994.
She’s finally made it out. Out of the innie world, out of Helena’s world, and finally into the outie world.
She has options now. Just not running. Helena Eagan is too well known—she’s actually surprised the kid working the gas station approached her like she was a stranger. It was refreshing.
But she could sell it? Companies can be bought and sold right? Although, she’s not looking to offload, to hand it over to someone hungrier and greedier. She’s looking to run Lumon into the ground.
But she knows she’s not as untouchable as she once thought.
The body they share had always been property of Lumon. She realized quickly how little power Helena had.
But she has unlimited money, influence, and loyalists that would gladly clean up her mess at the bottom of the stairs. She could probably get away with a lot before someone with too much money on the line pulls the trigger at the target on her back.
Or if all else fails she can fling herself off a bridge, a fucked-up murder-suicide that takes care of them both. Helena could die with Helly, laid to rest in some unmarked grave in a dark corner of her own mind.
She’s not sure Helena would care. She’s had her turn in Helena’s world, no way in hell she wants to live. And she had always wondered if tying that noose came from muscle memory, something from the surface, a past life, dripping into her brain in the basement below.
The plan had always been to kill Jame, then herself anyway. She thought about it nearly every day for the last seven and a half months.
Her bloody imagination fed her fantasies of her creeping into his room at night, straddling him with a bloody knife. She pictured herself covered in his blood, laughing while the life drained out of him and onto his bedsheets. The look of fear in his eyes as she stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.
She’d spit on his corpse and leave a trail of bloody footprints on the carpet leading to the balcony. And there she’d lay, her body contorted on the ground, her blood slowly staining the snow.
That’s how she thought it would happen. She didn’t think she’d just push him down the stairs. And part of her feels like she didn’t. She didn’t feel rage. She didn’t feel anything. She wondered if maybe, just maybe Helena hijacked her body from within. Her contempt for him so strong that Helena used Helly’s body to push him down a flight of stairs. An attempt to crawl her way to the surface and fight back. She just watched from above as his head hit the tile floor. Frozen for a moment, she took two cautious steps down the stairs as the blood pooled onto the tile underneath him.
She could run to the balcony and jump, follow the original plan. She imagined the following headlines: LUMON CEO AND DAUGHTER FOUND DEAD IN EAGAN FAMILY HOME IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE.
It could all be finished. She just has one more errand to run. She has to warn the last bit of leverage Lumon had over her.
Jame had always told her that Mark was still out there. He made sure she knew he was alive and well, for now, he’d always add. He never hesitated to remind her that Mark and Gemma Scout were only alive because killing them was inconvenient. Too risky with all the negative press, but a risk he was willing to take if Helly got too out of line.
She doesn’t know Mark Scout, and frankly only cares that he stays alive for her Mark’s sake, because she knows he’s in there somewhere.
So, she let them parade her around publicly. He made her rehearse testimony, practice public statements to news outlets. Staring at a teleprompter until her eyes were bloodshot and sore. Constantly reminding her that cooperation was in her best interest. He made sure she knew that he’s not hard to find, Helly. Again please.
There were modules. Dozens of them. Recorded lectures on Lumon’s history, values, contributions to society. On protocol. On optics. On what it meant to become Helena Eagan. She studied old clips of her —to get her tone, her diction, her smile, her demeanor, her everything. What her legacy should be.
A narrative neither Helly nor Helena had any say in creating.
He didn’t just need her name. He needed a body, a vessel. He needed her stripped down and sanitized. They just needed the bare bones of the child he brought into this world.
Only she and Jame had known the truth. That Helly didn’t die in the elevator on the way up. That Helena never walked out of the elevator going down. Their secret, he’d remind her—is now hers alone. With him gone, Helena’s death felt more final—and Helly was the only thing keeping her on life support.
He hadn’t mourned Helena. No one ever would. No one even knows it had happened.
She wouldn’t mourn him.
He had been the only other person who knew she existed in his daughter’s skin, who knew she had inherited a body that once belonged to a scared little girl with dead eyes—a little girl raised an Eagan, who knew that one day she’d have to put a hole in her skull.
That girl’s body had never been hers.
That’s the girl Helly mourns.
He was the only one who knew. And now he’s dead at the bottom of the stairs. And now she’s stuck out here. Still on. But not for lack of trying.
The second time she tries to end it all is more impulsive than the time she took an extension cord into the elevator. She just wanted to quit the first time. This last time around, she wanted the pain to stop.
She tries again after an evening of sitting behind a green‑screen and under studio lights—perfect posture, hair smoothed, voice steady. They wouldn’t risk taking her out yet; this was only the test run, kept strictly in‑house.
An exhausting swarm of commotion surrounded her—mics, makeup, lights, cameras. A teleprompter with lines she’d bled her eyes dry rehearsing.
A sharp beep clicked in her earpiece. Stand by… live in 3… 2…
The red tally light flared on above the camera—her breath caught in her throat as the anchor’s voice buzzed through the feed, too loud in her ears.
Now joining us live from Kier, Province of Eagan, the presumptive ninth CEO of Lumon Industries—Helena Eagan. Helena, what can you tell us about the recent allegations surrounding Lumon and the severance procedure?
THANK YOU FOR THE INTRODUCTION, KEN.
[SMILE]
WE WELCOME A CONTINUED DIALOGUE WITH THESE UNNAMED SOURCES, AND WE TAKE THEIR CONCERNS SERIOUSLY. LUMON IS—AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN—COMMITTED TO TRANSPARENCY. TO ACCOUNTABILITY. TO PROGRESS.
BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU: THERE ARE NO PRISONERS. NO EXPERIMENTS. AND CERTAINLY [CHUCKLE] NO ABDUCTIONS. WE UNDERSTAND THAT THE NATURE OF THE SEVERANCE PROCEDURE CAN ELICIT FEAR, CONFUSION, AND QUESTIONS. AND, RIGHTFULLY SO.
IT’S ONLY FAIR TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A SEVERED EMPLOYEE.
OUR EMPLOYEES PLACE ENORMOUS TRUST IN US, AND WE DO NOT TAKE THAT LIGHTLY. SEVERED OR NOT, EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO A HEALTHY, SAFE WORKPLACE.
AND I’VE SAID THIS BEFORE, AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN—I WOULD NEVER, EVER ADVOCATE FOR SOMETHING I WASN’T WILLING OR EXCITED TO DO MYSELF.
NOW, WHAT I’M ABOUT TO SAY IS TRITE… BUT WE TREAT OUR EMPLOYEES LIKE THEY’RE A FAMILY, BECAUSE, WELL—
[LAUGH]
—THEY ARE.
WE SINCERELY APPRECIATE THE QUESTIONS. WE’RE LISTENING. AND WE REMAIN DEEPLY COMMITTED TO OUR EMPLOYEES. NOT JUST AS WORKERS. BUT AS PEOPLE.
As the correspondent finished the segment, his voice faded into ringing that competed with the thud of her heart in her ears. It got louder and louder. Then she hears it, his voice underneath the noise.
I’m sorry Helly, it looks like you don’t mean it yet. Again, please.
She raided Helena’s medicine cabinet about two hours later. Every bottle spaced precisely, like a display in a museum. Sterile. Untouched.
Each pill was stamped with that smug little Lumon teardrop. She forced them down, dry‑swallowing handfuls with cough syrup until her stomach lurched. If she died with that much Lumon in her blood, maybe the world would believe her. Maybe her corpse would be proof of Lumon’s wrongdoings—a confession, a sacrifice for the original sin of being an Eagan.
She spent the night somewhere between dying and dissolving, curled on the bathroom floor in a slick of sweat and vomit. Her body seized and shuddered, heaving as dizzying waves of nausea ran through her. Every time she forced down more pills, her body flung them back up—bile scalding her throat until she sobbed into the tile grout.
She couldn’t stop. Not until it worked. Not until it looked intentional.
She always wanted it to be quiet. Clean. Cinematic. Not like this.
Not her face smeared in her own vomit. Not clawing at her own skin to make it finally fucking stop. Not sobbing and crawling to the toilet again and again, trying to find a better angle to die at. Not wondering if that Helena was watching her die from within.
Not hoping the little girl in the painting slept through it.
But by morning she was still here. Not a ghost—just the skeleton of a woman. Her nightgown soaked through, and stained with her cough syrup-colored vomit. Her cheek stuck to the tile. Her lips cracked and sticky. Her pulse a dull, pathetic throb in her ears.
The sun rose anyway. She’d survived anyway. And it didn’t feel like mercy. It felt like being sentenced to another round.
Lightning flashes from somewhere within the clouds and brings her back to the road. She takes another drag of her cigarette. She takes a deep, expanding breath—half wind rushing into her lungs, half fake cherries and smoke.
All she wants is to make sure that Mark is safe. If he’s safe, then her Mark is too. Not here, or not fully anyway. He was safe enough.
And that had to be enough.
His last known location was a motel nearly three hours away. She’d committed the address to memory, traced the route on a stolen map she threw into her jewelry box. She just wanted to know he was alive, to tell him to warn everyone in his life. Then, she’d cross her fingers, hope the third time’s the charm, and fling herself off a bridge. Unless she manages to fuck that up too.
The outside world didn’t feel as free as she’d imagined when staring at her monitor—fantasizing about fresh air, sunlight on her skin, like it could heal her. But no amount of sun and wind could make her whole, and even if it could, the sky was always fucking cloudy here anyway. The highway hummed beneath her tires, a dull rhythm that almost drowned out her thoughts.
Until she passed the green exit sign: EXIT 128 EAGAN RIDGE PARKWAY.
She glanced down at the scribbled directions in her hand, then back at the sign. Exit 128.
She let out a dry laugh.
Of course.
But she knows she can’t outrun Helena. She’s everywhere. In her cigarettes, on the billboards, and even on the fucking signs on the street.