With a sweeping gesture of her arm, Daniela told him, "Please, take a look around. Let me just check on the lights, then we can begin."

Ethan didn't bother pointing out that all the candles and similar fixtures were still, in fact, very much lit. He just nodded along and watched Daniela take quick steps to cross the room to where she had set down her matchsticks prior.

While Daniela did her rounds – clockwise and counterclockwise like last time – Ethan began inspecting the more organized shelves towards the central skylight. The books showed clear signs of age, but little signs of actual aging. It was apparent that, despite what a first glance may reveal, the literature in here was treated quite well. Not a speck of dust settled on the shelves. The books were meticulously aligned, and their covers and spines had little indication of wear or misuse. Daniela took good care of these books; they were clearly an important part of her life.

Daniela took her time straightening and positioning one candelabra by a far shelf, appearing thoroughly engrossed in the act. She would nudge it forward by half an inch, only to bring it back by a fraction. Then her hands would affix to the shaft, and she would rotate it by the slightest degree at a time, until she found it satisfactory.

It gave Ethan ample time to take in the selection of books in the shelves around him. They were organized by genre, that much Ethan could tell. From genre, the books were then further subcategorized into authors, who were arranged alphabetically. Each individual title in an author's collection was subsequently organized alphabetically as well. Publications in Romanian and English were seemingly mixed together without much regard – but that in and of itself was likely intentional.

Ethan was also picking up a vague sense of the shelves being arranged by date of publication. Much of the older books of the pre-1900s were located towards the center of the room – a well-worn, but equally well-maintained copy of Pride and Prejudice caught Ethan's eye in particular. An inspection of the disorderly shelves along the perimeter revealed more recent titles, but nothing that went beyond the early 2000s. The complete Harry Potter saga must have been the most modern collection in Daniela's library, if his initial look was anything to go by.

Thankfully, there were no sparkly vampire romance novels in sight.

There were periodic glances that Ethan sent Daniela's way – in wonder of when it was that they would actually get started. Ethan was being given all the time in the world to peruse Daniela's collection while she ensured all the lights were lit – which they were – and correctly angled and positioned – whatever counted as correct, anyway.

The extra stretch of time Ethan had to check out the books led him to make another observation: the separation of the older books from the more modern publications wasn't a vague line. Arbitrary? Maybe. Maybe not. But not vague. The books that were stored away from the skylight were at least from the 60s and onwards.

Ethan turned his head this way and that – between the books both old and new. Then he looked Daniela's way. She purposefully set her matchbox down by the shelf next to the door leading out.

There was a reason to it. There had to be. If the titles by the skylight were that meticulously sorted, then the separation from the pre-60s had rationale to the sorting.

"So, what do you think?" Daniela broke the silence, approaching Ethan with quick, graceful skips.

Ethan nodded slightly. "It's, uh," He gestured to the shelves all around them, "It's a big library. Where do we start?"

With an eager clap of her hands, Daniela stepped towards the skylight. "I believe some of these classics would fit better over there." Ethan followed the trail of Daniela's finger, pointing at the bookshelf directly across the current one.

"You wanna… move the books right across?"

Ethan had been expecting them to start with the obvious – the books that were literally scattered on the floor, or piled to the high heavens on the low shelves. Not the already painstakingly arranged and categorized collections.

"Not the books, you know…" Ethan gestured to the closest shelf which looked in danger of overflowing with books, "Everywhere else?"

"That's right," Daniela affirmed with a serious nod.

Ethan licked his lips once before inquiring, "Can I ask why?"

The frustration flared across Daniela's face as she took in a sharp breath, and a cluster of flies swirled around her head. The irate curl of her lip settled ever so slightly by the time she replied, "Because it fits better that way."

There was a method to Daniela's madness somewhere, but it appeared he wasn't going to be enlightened of that so soon. Given how rapidly her mood could change, he would do better than to question someone who could rip his head off without a second glance. With a shrug, Ethan relented, "Okay. I'm sure you know best." He paused to look at the shelf in question, "What about those, where are we transferring them to?"

"Just," Daniela blew out an exasperated sigh and sat down on the closest white padded armchair, "Put them on the floor – carefully. I need to think."

Daniela sounded like the most confusing bookstore manager to work under, but it still beat playing run 'n' gun with the Moroaice – or going through an episode of Survivor with Cassandra.

"Gotcha," Ethan muttered. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater and promptly began to unload the shelf. He made it a point to lay the books down on the floor in the same order he'd picked them out. It wasn't all too farfetched to assume the consequences would be disproportionately dire if he managed to fuck up this simple – if not detailed – task.

As book after book gently sat down on the floor, Daniela was working overtime – mentally. In the glimpses Ethan got of her as he worked, he observed her wide eyes snapping from shelf to shelf. Her lips moved in the smallest fractions imaginable, like she was muttering out the arrangements and setups she had in mind for the shelves. Her hands continued to wring on her lap – seemingly scratching at the underside of her nails.

After the two times Ethan had encountered Daniela prior, he hadn't expected her to be this fidgety, odd, and wrapped up in her own mind when away from her sisters. While her uncalled-for remarks while he dressed up were a-plenty, he somehow expected her to be hitting on him far more than she was now – if her past behavior was anything to go by.

Daniela declaring that she loved him before biting into and mangling his wrist, and all the other comments about his appearance – they were rather memorable, to say the least. Nothing Ethan was eager to repeat, and certainly not that Ethan was complaining about the absence of such advances.

Ethan couldn't put his finger on it. The flirty passes, the mood swings, and the stark differences to her personality – as if molding herself to whichever sister she was with – it was just weird, for lack of better term.

But it was – so long as he didn't fuck up spectacularly – a harmless brand of weird he was currently witnessing. Humoring Daniela's need for asinine reorganization wasn't going to tire him or get him to lose a finger, anyway.

For now.

There was a discomfort and unease which filled Ethan the longer he transferred the books, and Daniela remained ominously silent. Cassandra's game had been simple and straightforward. Die or survive – there was little complexity to the gauntlet he'd been put through. There were clear threats and objectives. A start and an end.

But with Daniela? There were relatively peaceful moments – such as right now – and then the risk of saying the wrong thing and witnessing her anger shoot to the surface. He could be slowly lowering his guard one moment because all she was doing was hitting on him. Then the next he accidentally dismissed her questions, and saw her two steps away from re-breaking his ribs.

Daniela was unstable – homicidally unstable, if the dead maid was anything to go by. Ethan moved his exhausted limbs extra carefully as he got to work. If he wanted to find out more about Daniela and the ill-fated servant, then he needed to survive long enough to do so.

With the last book laid out on the floor, he cautiously made his way around to the bookshelf that was slated for transfer. "I'm gonna start moving these across like you asked. Have you figured out where you want the stuff on the floor?"

Daniela blinked several times, as if clearing the thoughts flittering about her mind. The last loose bugs buzzing about then melded back to her figure. She looked up at Ethan for a beat, then answered, "Somewhat. But…" She motioned to one book on the floor. Her voice was nearly sheepish. "Could you return Blecher to that shelf first?"

Ethan identified the book in question, with M. Blecher's name printed at the top. It was nondescript and unremarkable, with a faded beige cover. Blocky text spelled out the Romanian title, which Ethan wouldn't even attempt to pronounce.

Picking it up, Ethan turned it over in his hands and repeated, "M. Blecher. Where do you want this?"

Daniela's big eyes were watching him, or perhaps the book, closely; her head tilted in the slightest – as if listening to the book whispering its secrets to her. "Top right shelf."

Ethan maneuvered with care around the rows of books on the ground. He came to a stop by the shelf in question, pausing to give the book another look. It was a timeless saying to never judge a book by its cover, but Ethan's curiosity was piqued now by how painfully ordinary the cover was. No flashy font. No detailed illustrations. Not even fine leathercrafting for the old book.

"What's this one about, Dani?"

After a second of thought, Daniela gave a bit of a non-answer. "Adventures in Immediate Irreality. That is the title in English."

Ethan nodded slowly, holding Daniela's gaze before he tried poking a little more, "Is it any good?"

"Any good?" Daniela repeated with a scoff. "It is a masterpiece."

"Imagine this for me, Ethan – picture yourself living life without your skin." Daniela spoke quickly, eyes wide and expressive, "Imagine all your nerves, all of your senses exposed to the world around you painfully raw."

After all the times people – Daniela included – had tortured him, he could kind of imagine what it felt like to have his senses feel raw and abused. Maybe Cassandra picked some ideas up from that book when she flayed his arm.

"Okay." Ethan nodded. "Imagining it."

"Now imagine knowing that you're going to die – and knowing that day is coming sooner than you thought."

Ethan tapped an anxious thumb against the book's cover.

Mia's enraged face – worlds away from the woman he knew and loved – and the deafening roar of her chainsaw.

Jack's taunting cackles and his inhuman strength. The sound of Ethan's bones giving way beneath the unrelenting power of a goddamn shovel.

Marguerite's guttural snarls and her long, spindly arms – reaching out from the darkness to seize him whenever he least expected it.

The giant fucker grabbing him in the Village – tightly enough to feel his very bones threatening to pop out of their sockets.

His skin pale and clammy as shivers rocked his body – two sadistic grins in the darkness bearing down on him as his arms were torn open and his blood was drained.

The adrenaline pumping in his veins as tinnitus scarred his eardrums – the flash of his pistol whiting his vision with each frenzied ghoul he put down.

Ethan had expected his death more times than any person should. Each ordeal was as haunting as the last.

He supposed that coupling the two together – raw, naked nerves and senses, plus the certainty of incoming death – they must make for quite the literature. Cassandra definitely gave this book a read and thought to make him experience it firsthand when she played around with the meat of his forearm.

"Is that what happens to the lead in the book?" Ethan asked with a wince.

Daniela raised one shoulder in a shrug. "The protagonist and the author carry nearly the same voice in the book. But that is to be expected from Max."

Ethan glanced at the cover, finding the author's name of M. Blecher to be staring back at him. A glance at the publication date – 1936 – was telling.

Maybe Daniela knew the author in life.

"There is a certain… unfiltered way that he writes which resonates with me." Daniela's hands twisted together on her lap once more. Her lips parted and closed a number of times, as if trying and failing to start a dozen different sentences. After a moment, she cracked a smile void of humor. "Imagine being forced to view the world through one of Bela's microscopes, and you have no choice to do otherwise. Yet at the same time, you possess the body you do now, and all you feel is…"

"Detached?" Ethan offered.

At the sight of Daniela's sad smile, Ethan felt a tug at his heartstrings. Perhaps Max Blecher's work deserved a read in Ethan's free time.

Some pieces were coming together to form the oddball of an enigma that was Daniela. That sense of detachment she felt must have fueled how starkly she acted around her two sisters compared to the present.

With Bela, Daniela was mostly behaved and compliant. Daniela had assisted in keeping pressure on the gnarly wounds she and Cassandra had left him. The second time she had fed on him, she was a little rowdy, but never cruel.

With Cassandra, Daniela laughed at his pain and torment. She took all the joy in ripping his arm open as she drank to her heart's desire. In those moments, Ethan had seen Daniela as barely a few notches lower than Cassandra on the fucking psycho scale.

Alone, she was someone else entirely. Excitable and enthusiastic one moment, angry and agitated the next, and lost and painfully un-lucid even later on.

That feeling of unease and dread dissipated in the slightest as Ethan looked at Daniela under the glow of the skylight. It filled Ethan with a strange, probably misplaced sense of sympathy. If nothing else, he could relate to the sense of loss and detachment. Lord knows the fugue he'd went through when he lost Mia the first time.

Dozens of times he had stared at the walls while trying to sleep for so long that he'd all but forgotten who he was. All he could make out were the minute, indiscernible patterns on the blank white wall – an overlooked byproduct of the paint roller that had made a hundred grueling passes over the blank slate to achieve the color – the emptiness that it now had. And that texture – what depth it had, providing mountains and valleys paved in paint, ready for the tiniest microbes of dust to settle on and carve out their home.

The things those specks of dust and dead skin cells on the wall had heard and seen as well – each sharp cut of argumentative words, and every rustling of sheets beneath which he and Mia bit and nipped and kissed and loved each other from head to toe.

Ethan blinked back to the present to see Daniela still smiling sadly at him.

He couldn't imagine feeling that level of disassociation around the clock. And that only seemed to scratch the surface that was Daniela Dimitrescu.

There must have been some reason she was the way that she was – perhaps tied to her past, similar to Bela's own path of kindness and mercy. People – usually – don't just wake up one day struggling to feel like the body they inhabited was their own. Something had caused Daniela to be this way.

A knock on the door broke the brief silence that had befallen the library. Daniela answered the question before it could sprout in Ethan's head, "That must be breakfast."

Ethan tucked Blecher's Adventures in Immediate Irreality into the top right corner of the shelf. When the door didn't open, and the servant didn't let herself in, Ethan figured he'd make himself useful. With a motion for Daniela to stay put, he made for the door. "I can get that."

The crinkle at the corner of Daniela's eyes gave a happier, more genuine sheen to her smile. "Thank you, Ethan."

After crossing the room, Ethan arrived at the door and popped it open. A veiled servant stood at the entrance, balancing one fine silver meal tray in each hand.

"Hey, morning," Ethan greeted. He opened the door wider and stood to the side to allow the woman entry.

The maid remained rooted in place at the entrance. She made no move, other than to crane her head ever so slightly – and Ethan belatedly realized she was checking to see if Daniela was present.

Daniela, who only yesterday had sentenced a maid to death over some misarranged books.

Right. It was sort of like Zoria's frazzled state when Ethan first met her. Those who enter the dungeons do not come back. Those that go looking for their fellow maids meet nothing but empty husks and a brutal demise. There must be a similar stigma surrounding the library. Entering the library meant risking a graze with death over something as simple as a fucking misplaced book.

Ethan nodded slightly as he tried to look through the veil – where the woman's eyes should be. "I got it," He muttered, extending his hand out to take the tray.

"Thank you, Mr. Winters." The woman's voice was of a higher pitch, indicative of her relatively younger age – not unlike Zoria. That was contrasting her to Tatyana, whose voice was rough with both age, and trauma witnessed and experienced alike.

Rather than readily accept the second tray, Ethan stuffed a hand into his pocket. He withdrew Zoria's bracelet of charms. He looked at it for a second longer as the ringing of gunfire filled his ears, and Zoria's hollowed eyes stared blankly at him.

Holding onto it was a grim sort of thing – a memento mori, reminding Ethan of the inevitability of death in this castle. Honestly, Ethan had more than enough reminders of the fact. His growing attachment to Bela aside, he was acutely aware of the prevalence of death and despair in Castle Dimitrescu. The castle's very foundations may as well have used bones for bricks and blood for mortar.

There was no reason to keep it. It was better to stay in the hands of someone that actually knew Zoria in life. Judging by how, in spite of the veil obscuring her features, the maid visibly tensed – this was one such person that was acquainted with Zoria.

"Where…" The maid's question trailed off into the same abyss that awaited all her friends who were sent into the dungeons.

"Zoria's gone," Ethan shook his head and kept his voice soft but didn't beat around the bush.

The maid's head tilted from beneath the veil in a brief lapse of stunned silence. Ethan extended the bracelet forward in clear signal for her to take it. The maid's free hand hovered for only a second before securing the bracelet and pocketing it.

To avoid keeping Daniela waiting, Ethan took hold of the second tray in his free hand now. It was an arduous task of balancing each tray in hand, made no easier by all the fingers he'd lost in the past two weeks.

At the sight of the trays' contents, his stomach gave an audible rumble. He and Daniela were each being served a large omelet, coupled with sides of vegetables, slices of bread, and tall goblets of apple juice.

Before the maid could depart, Ethan asked, "Can I get your name?"

For a while now, Ethan had wondered in silence what the deal was with all the veils. Now, Ethan was fairly sure they were used to further dehumanize and depersonalize the maids. They weren't people to the Dimitrescu House. They were disposable assets, convertible from (wo)manpower to a midnight snack in the blink of an eye.

The only thing missing were identification numbers stitched to their uniforms – an even more detached designation to be referred to, rather than names.

They were women, young and old, who signed up for a job, and bit off far more than they could ever imagine chewing. It must have been doubly easy for the Dimitrescu sisters to kill off maids when it was a more impersonal affair – not knowing their names, lives or stories.

Knowing their names was a good first step to humanizing their nondescript appearances. The last thing Ethan wanted to do was fall into the same soulless complacency the sisters may have.

"Olga," Came the simple reply.

Ethan gave her a once over to try and note down any distinguishing marks or jewelry, similar to what he'd done for Zoria. With any luck, Olga would begin sporting Zoria's bracelet to help tell her apart from the rest. Hopefully he wouldn't soon encounter a Moroaică wearing that same bracelet.

All Ethan had to go on was that Olga was relatively tall, standing only a few inches shorter than himself, similar to the Dimitrescu sisters.

"Okay," Ethan gave a small smile, "Thanks, Olga."

"Stay safe, Mr. Winters." Olga placed a meaningful hand over her dress pocket. She performed a curt bow and then took her leave.

Turning away from the now shut door, Ethan called over, "Dani, where do you want the food?"

"Over here," Daniela replied. She got up from her chair and moved over to one of the sofas around the perimeter of the library. That signature spring in Daniela's step eased back into her gait. It appeared the brief stint of heaviness had passed over her.

Incidentally, it was Ethan's turn for a stint of heaviness to wash over him, what with the inadvertent reminder of the last maid's demise.

Her body hung from the ceiling on a meat hook, above a stainless-steel tub of blood. Another life reduced to nothing but a future bottle of wine to be filled, drop by drop. Ethan had witnessed firsthand the servant outliving her usefulness to the Dimitrescu House – he'd seen the final drops of blood shed. He'd seen her run dry until she was nothing but a humanoid-shaped bundle of linen hanging from the ceiling.

He stopped next to Daniela, in front of the coffee table and sofa by the side of the room. With care not to drop anything, he slowly set the trays down onto the table and faced Daniela, who watched him with wide, excitable eyes. With a soft giggle, she remarked, "Breakfast looks delicious." A wink was added, "Maybe Bela won't mind if I have you for dessert."

Ethan had no rehearsed scoff to send Daniela's way. No jab or flourish of banter to keep the mood up.

All he could think of was the value – or lack thereof – that the family put into people. A life had been lost over a couple hundred sheets of paper, bound in card or leather, and blotted with old, printed ink.

It was an incomprehensible thing to imagine – to wrap his head around the sheer depravity of it all, and how one arrived at the conclusion that books – not even destroyed or vandalized books, but misarranged books – were worth dying for.

Human life was valued less than a fucking misplaced book.

The words came tumbling out of Ethan's mouth of their own accord, "Do the maids usually just hand stuff over at the doorway?" He shrugged slightly, tilting his head towards the door, "Instead of, y'know, bringing the food inside and putting it down personally?"

Daniela's tattooed forehead creased into a slight frown, and her eyes settled on the trays of food to their side. She didn't need to meet his piercing glare if she kept her eyes fixed on their breakfast. Daniela clasped her hands together in front of her. "Yes."

"Why's that?" Ethan felt like a lawyer performing the world's deadliest cross examination. He knew in essence the answer to these questions – but he needed to hear it from Daniela, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, Tatyana had gotten it wrong. Maybe that maid hadn't died over something as mundane and avoidable as a misplaced book. Maybe she had crossed the Dimitrescu family in a spectacular fashion – like breaking bottles of wine from their stock.

That was a hurricane Ethan was due to be pummeled by eventually, but this was not the moment to worry about that. Right now, the only thing to worry about was the redhead before him – as sweet and flirty as she was unstable and deadly.

"I don't know," Daniela huffed, rolling her eyes. "They're worried they might make a mess if they enter."

"What are they worried about?" Ethan kept his voice soft in the attempt to delay the flip of Daniela's temper. A pregnant pause came and went, and still Daniela didn't reply. With a sigh, Ethan steeled himself for the fallout, and asked, "People get hurt if they make a mess in here, right?"

Daniela's deliberate avoidance of his gaze and her careless shrug were a clear giveaway of her answer.

"Is that what happened yesterday?" Ethan continued.

It caught Daniela's attention, evident in her eyes snapping up to meet his. Her tone took a firm turn as her posture tensed and the rowdy swarm of flies began to buzz overhead, "How did you know about that?"

The last thing this castle needed was more blood and death, so Ethan made it a point to avoid implicating Tatyana.

"The echoes really bounce off the walls in the dungeon." Ethan bobbed one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. "I heard a lot. All of the screaming."

Daniela wrung her hands together in tight, jittery motions. "I don't want to talk about it."

The evasion was grating on Ethan's nerves, despite his best attempts at keeping them in check. With a deep breath, he took a firm stance and deliberately detonated the bomb that was Daniela Dimitrescu, "Did someone really die over a fucking book? Is that all it takes to get a death sentence around here?"

"It wasn't just a book!" Daniela snapped. She pointed a shaking finger at Ethan as she took a forceful step towards him. The frantic bugs fluttering around her picked up in energy. Out of precaution – in case he needed to stay out of her reach – Ethan went one pace back in turn.

Ethan kept his hands up in a placating gesture, holding Daniela's tight glare all the while. He took his deep breaths, counted out, and released them. He couldn't afford to be losing his cool now. He had just survived Cassandra's game. He was in no condition to have round two with Daniela.

"Even if I did tell you about what happened yesterday, what difference does it make?!" Daniela drew another pace closer, sending Ethan another back. Her lips split into a snarl, "Who are you to chide me – are you my mother?"

Daniela's voice lowered by an octave as she waved a flippant hand in imitation of her mother, "Daniela, how many times do I have to tell you to stop being a child and wasting perfectly good maids?!"

"Or are you going to be like Cassie and just," Daniela raised a frustrated hand in gesture to the exit, "Will you just laugh and pretend it's all fine and normal? Or – or have you spent so much time with Bela that you would rather judge me in silence?" Daniela let out a sad, humorless laugh, and spat, "That is how she sees me, is it not? Dani is a sweetheart, but she's the crazy one! There's no hope for that one."

"What? No. Of course not." Ethan found himself frowning. "That's not how she sees you."

Daniela huffed, "Of course you would take her side. But you know what, Ethan?" She stomped forward, fists balled tightly at her sides and ready to pummel him into the ground. The swarm of flies was nearly deafening now as they fluttered about in a rage. In spite of it all, Ethan held his ground as Daniela snarled, "I will not stand here and take your judgment. You know nothing about me, Ethan Winters!"

With another breath, even deeper and heavier than the last, Ethan calmed his nerves in the face of what may be the next in his long list of near-death experiences. Under Daniela's simmering glare, he spoke up.

"I'm asking because I wanna understand what happened yesterday." Ethan began. Even as he spoke, he realized belatedly that he wasn't bullshitting – he wasn't just saying this to appease Daniela. This had been the direction he'd subconsciously been steering towards, as ineloquent and clumsy as he may have been. He was perfectly aware it was risky ground to be bringing this up to Daniela a day after the fact – but it was essential if he wanted to see the big picture. Everything he'd learned about her up until this point just didn't add up properly. There was more to Daniela than he could see.

"I just want to know why and how it all happened – to try and make sense of it all. That's kind of," He cracked a small smile, more to himself and his mundane past life than anything else. "Kind of my job back home. I take all the little pieces that don't fit, and I put them together to see the big picture. That way I can understand it. It's only when you look at a problem as a whole system that you can hope to solve it."

The defensive fury began to trickle out of Daniela's narrowed eyes the more Ethan went on. The raging swarm of bugs around her lowered in volume as some returned to Daniela's body.

"Bela doesn't think you're crazy, and I don't think so, either." Ethan gave her a half-smile, tense as it was, "I think maybe you just got a lot going on in your head, and you're having a hard time sorting through all that."

Anger melted down to suspicion in Daniela's expressive gaze. The creases by her eyes untightened. The fists at her sides grew loose. Only a loose batch of flies remained swirling in the crackling air around Daniela.

"I can't claim to know what's going on in that bug-brain of yours, but…" Ethan gestured to his own head, "I've been through a lot, Dani."

From surviving the Baker House through the skin of his teeth, clinging onto his last desperate gasps of life, to losing Mia – watching her body be shot to pieces when he couldn't do a single fucking thing to stop Chris – and even now, to wrestling with his Stockholm Syndrome and whatever it was he had with Bela – it was, quite simply, a lot.

"I know what it's like to feel lost. Detached." Ethan's lips hung open for a beat longer. "I've been there. For years." Losing Mia more than once scratched the walls of his psyche with deep scars that time would never wash out. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper as the whirlwind of the past two weeks battered his senses. "I've been there again recently. You know how it is – when it's quiet and you can finally hear yourself think, but you wish you couldn't."

Images – even more recent than his white bedroom wall – came to mind.

The crevices between each hardy slab of rough-hewn stone were deep. In his cell – his new home over the past nearly two weeks, sleep was troublesome to come by. Its inky tendrils eluded Ethan, and when they did finally constrict him – he did not go gently into the abyss of unconsciousness. Sleep was a pillowcase pulled over his head to suffocate him. It was a noose around his neck to choke the life out of him. It was a massive hammer bearing down on him to crush his bones and organs in one fell swoop.

So, Ethan spent much time gazing at each and every dark, foreboding gap in the stone wall, as miniscule as they may be. His mind had worked around the clock admiring the subtlest contours of the stone – so natural, yet handled and manmade into what it was now. How odd that was to him in those moments of sleeplessness – that nature saw fit to bring into this world such a hardy, unassailable material. Such substance was better off as foundations – supports, pillars – the backbone of structure and society itself. Yet instead, stone was fashioned into these not-so-neat slabs, imprisoning Ethan in his cage, and countless others before him.

And each groove and indecipherable concave on the abrasive stone – it was a wonder the story those could tell. Had those dreamy, imperceptible imperfections been leftovers of the stone's natural, unblemished form? Or were those imprints left by the men who'd handled the stone centuries ago. Had the microscopic bits of oil, dirt, and general muck on their hands caused the stone to wear down at a snail's pace faster than the rest of the stone, thus giving them their unique, one-of-a-kind variances in shape and geometry?

Ethan blinked to find that Daniela's brows furrowed in response to his own brief lapse in attention – and just how easy it was for him to sink into the fog of his mind. It was in that fog where he was not truly himself. In that haze, he felt more like the world around him – the stone, the walls, the very dirt beneath his feet – more than he felt like he was Ethan Winters.

Clearing his throat, Ethan added, "The stuff you got going on in your head – that's no joke. I don't know what exactly it is or where it came from. I can only guess how much it hurts you – or what it is it even does to you." Ethan licked his lips and tapped the side of his head, "I got some stuff of my own in here. One thing it taught me is that it doesn't do any good keeping it locked up all alone."

Another soft sigh, and Ethan concluded, "That's why I can't judge you, Dani – I won't."

The library was deathly still and silent, now free from the enraged frenzy of bugs. The slightest shake came into Daniela's voice as she repeated, "You won't judge me?"

Ethan shook his head and reassured, "I won't."

"Promise?"

With a gentle laugh, Ethan took the initiative of extending his pinky finger forward. "I promise."

Daniela bit down on her quivering lip as her eyes took a glassy shine to them. She brought her hand forth to curl her pinky around his. With three shakes, the promise was sealed. When Daniela drew her hand back, she crossed her arms over her chest – but looked much more like she was simply hugging herself.

"Her name was Maria." Daniela gulped and took a beat to steady her breath. Her flighty eyes finally settled on her feet. "We were… I like to think we were friends. There were several times she helped me rearrange my books. She wasn't afraid of me like the other servants were."

Ethan nodded gently in quiet support.

"But yesterday…" Daniela turned around and took a few steps away. Ethan respected the distance she placed between them, but keenly followed where Daniela's eyes fell – to specks on the red carpet that appeared darker than the rest. "One of my books…"

When Daniela trailed off again, Ethan offered, "Was it Blecher?"

Daniela shook her head, "A different one, but it was just as important. I could not find it all day, and I was so upset, but then Maria came along and she," Daniela scoffed at herself, "She pinky promised to me that she would find it, and then she did… Maria was always skilled at finding my books."

Ethan held his breath for what was to come.

"She dropped it by accident." Daniela's nails dug into her arms – tightly enough to open miniscule rips along her sleeves. Then her hands came free to join once more in front of her. Even if he couldn't see, it was an easy guess she was back to obsessively scratching at the underside of her nails – scrubbing away blood that would never wash out. Blood that only she could see. "I was so angry, and I did my best to keep it in."

With a shaky breath, Daniela added, "But then she put the book in the wrong shelf."

"Fuck," Ethan muttered, quiet enough that only he could hear it.

From where Ethan stood, he could only imagine Daniela's eyes boring into the dark stain on the carpet. Her body tremored with each word that spilled out, "You don't know what it's like, Ethan. All I could see was red." Her quaking voice took a second to recuperate. "I was so angry. I wanted to stop myself – to scream at her to get away, but I couldn't stop."

"I hit her," Daniela sniffled, her voice picking up from a whisper – as if trying to compensate for the despair that crashed down on her. "I hit her again and again and I couldn't stop. I took her down into the lower dungeons and," She brought a hand up to her face, and her voice was nearly inaudible. "I killed her."

Ethan's heart sank in his chest when Daniela turned to face him. Tears streamed down from her puffy red eyes. Her face contorted into a pained visage of sorrow as she sobbed out, "I killed my friend."

"I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to take it so far." Daniela wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand to no avail. "I just – I couldn't stop myself. No matter how hard I try, I never can."

"Dani…" Ethan was at a loss for words.

"Whenever I do it," Daniela gritted her teeth for a moment, forcing the words out syllable by syllable, "Whenever I kill people," Another hollow laugh or defeated sob – Ethan wasn't sure which. "It feels natural – like it's something I was made for. But then – but at the same time, it's as if I am watching myself do these things. Like an outsider looking in. And I can't control it. I want to scream at myself to stop, but I can't do a single thing but keep going."

Daniela scrubbed at her dripping eyes as she continued, "Then it hits me later. Sometimes hours after – sometimes days. When it hits me, I never know what to do with myself – how to live with myself." Her teary gaze went to Ethan's exposed arm and all the scars it bore, including those she herself had inflicted. She blinked in the effort to clear her vision, only to send more tears streaming down her cheeks. "And then it happens all over again, because I can't learn my lesson."

"I know I have a problem," Daniela admitted through her quivering lips. "I know I'm not good to be around. I am not blind; I see how the maids look at me." The sobs continued rocking her small frame, "It's why I stay here where I can be alone."

"Mother and Cassie don't understand. Bela tried, but now I think she's just tired of me," Daniela sniffled and wiped at her face. "I don't blame them. And now – now it's only a matter of time before I hurt you too."

Going into the library for the first time, Ethan had expected a lot of things, but not this. Not to find such remorse and humanity tucked away behind a mask of flirtations and whimsy. Not a lonely, damaged soul who desperately wanted to stop being a danger to those around her.

Ethan hardly knew the first step to going about any of this. Much like when faced with Bela's struggle to reconcile her two lives, he was woefully underqualified to help Daniela deal with the slew of issues assailing her. All he had were his words, for what little weight they carried.

"You're not gonna hurt me." Ethan kept his tone resolute. Even if he himself didn't believe it a hundred percent, he needed to sound like it – for Daniela's sake. If Daniela could believe that she wouldn't hurt him, then maybe they could make it so.

If Ethan could encourage Bela to embrace her humanity, then who was to say he couldn't attempt the same for Daniela – and land the redhead in his metaphorical corner while he was at it? If Bela and Daniela were at least leaning towards his side if shit hit the fan, it would improve his survivability.

But pragmatism aside – there was a genuine belief Ethan felt in his gut that the sisters weren't too far gone. Bela's inner turmoil, and her realization that she wouldn't forget the past even if she could – that was a good sign that could not be understated. By accepting and holding onto her past, Bela was embracing all the baggage and guilt that came with it as well. She chose to live with the maddening dichotomy of her peaceful, mundane first life, and her bloody, murderous second life. She was more human than many people in the world who'd rather shirk their guilt and all the weight of their actions.

Daniela was remorseful. Her emotions could flip faster than he could blink, and she appeared to have triggers that brought about her rage – but she could be remorseful. Add to that the fact she was surprisingly self-aware – Daniela couldn't be too far gone either. The broken women in front of him had her own humanity lurking below the surface, even if it was booby-trapped by her murderously volatile emotions.

If they could temper her reactions to those triggers, she had a shot at returning to normalcy, if that's what she wished. It certainly didn't sound like she enjoyed isolating herself to avoid hurting people. If Ethan's intuitions were right, all Daniela truly wanted was someone to share in her burden without judgment.

Cassandra was a different story. That one seemed like a sicko through and through. Maybe there was something underneath all that sadism, but Ethan wasn't about to do a deep dive into it. If he did, he'd probably just find more sadism and cruelty. For now, the bitch could go fuck herself for all he cared.

Daniela's despondency brought him back to focus. "You don't know that, Ethan – you can't know that I won't hurt you." Her eyes glimpsed at his arm. "I don't know that." Her voice grew quieter with every word as she reminded him, "I've hurt you before. I might do it again."

It was truly strange to look at Daniela as she was now, and think back to the Daniela that had ripped his arm open with her bare teeth. She was a completely different person under the influence of her sisters.

As awful as that whole incident was on his first day, the damage Daniela had inflicted had been undone easily enough. All he had to show for it were a few new scars – but what were those in comparison to all the others? Countless scars already marred his body after the Baker House, his little adventure in the Village, and the entirety of Cassandra's game. All Daniela had added was a drop in the bucket.

In ordinary circumstances, it would seem insane to forgive Daniela's misgivings against him. People ordinarily don't say 'forgive and forget' to getting a mutilated arm during half an hour of torture and bloodsucking. But there was nothing ordinary about anything in Ethan's life the past three years. Holding onto a pointless grudge against a conflicted, lost woman would only hurt him more on the inside than it would ever hurt anyone else.

He'd stumbled through the Baker House in a haze of gunfire and rage – the only emotion potent enough to overpower the dread. He hated them. He hated Jack and his fucking reading glasses. He hated Marguerite and her scratchy voice like nails on chalkboard. He hated Lucas and his shitty funhouse and all the fucking neon lights on its façade.

But that wasn't how Ethan ended his time at the Baker House.

Ethan, free my family – please.

The Bakers had not chosen to be murderous monsters. They were victims, just like Ethan was.

Even Eveline, the deranged bioweapon and root of it all – she was, in her own way, just a victim. A pawn to bigger powers at play. She only wanted a family to love her. She didn't choose to be born in the way that she was.

If Ethan could forgive the Bakers, in spite of the terror and trauma they instilled in him – then he could do the same for Daniela, who was clearly as lost and broken as they were.

"You won't hurt me, Dani." He found more confidence in his voice when he repeated the sentiment out loud.

Daniela's voice shook as she asked, "What if I do? Will you leave me too?"

Such raw vulnerability was a rare thing to see on display. To Ethan, it only felt natural to reassure her, "I told you: I'm not here to judge you." He cracked a smile and added, "I did pinky promise, didn't I?"

It startled a soft laugh from Daniela, interrupting her weeping. Her eyes crinkled at the corners to smile at him, sending more tears trickling down her face. "Don't make a girl a promise if you know you can't keep it."

The earlier feeling of sympathy had slowly morphed into what was now an odd, probably just as misplaced sense of protectiveness. With the slightest shrug, Ethan told her, "I'm keeping it." He spread his arms and took a step closer to Daniela, softly urging her, "C'mere."

Daniela needed no second nudge. She launched herself at Ethan, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his sweater. Ethan took a step back to regain his footing. Once he was on steady legs, he rubbed a hand up and down Daniela's back in broad strokes.

"Shh," Ethan hushed gently. "I got you, Dani."

It had Daniela sobbing all the more – as was usually the case whenever a poor, tired soul finally got a taste of respite. Ethan rocked Daniela back and forth in slow, soothing motions, intermittently shushing her as needed.

Ethan had expected the rest of his morning to go many different ways once he went sprinting out of his cell. Holding onto Daniela as she cried her heart out was, admittedly, not one of them. Yet strangely enough, he was okay with this. The girl in his arms was hardly the same person he encountered on his first day here – full of cruel delight and malicious intent. Daniela was a different woman entirely – strange, sweet in her own way, and utterly terrified of who she was.

Their breakfast was getting cold now, and Ethan's stomach continued to rumble – this morning's sprints and fights alike had worked up quite the appetite, after all. Ethan kept his focus on Daniela regardless, easing her through the waves of regret and sorrow that rocked her body in harsh sobs.

The day had just begun, but after a connection like this, Ethan was feeling good about his chances of not getting maimed or mauled too soon. Ethan wasn't expecting Daniela's road to normalcy to be either linear or quick, but he was here for it. The unfiltered emotions Daniela was going through couldn't be faked. If there was room for genuine remorse in her heart, then there was room for improvement down the line.

Hopefully.

It was a little surprising to see how quickly Daniela had confided in him. But at the same time, it only felt normal for someone like her, who clearly wore her heart on her sleeve – raw, exposed emotional nerve endings and all. It was as if Daniela had been waiting for a while now to be able to let all the remorse and guilt spill out – and apparently none of her family knew how to accommodate her.

Their mother seemed like she didn't even have time to remember her own name, given the recent insight from Bela. That meant she had even less time to do serious intensive parenting (or counseling, which Daniela probably needed). Cassandra was the sickest pup of the litter; Daniela murdering maids over the smallest infractions was not a thing the middle sister would bat an eye towards. Cassandra would probably give her a pat on the back for a job well done if anything, really. Bela was grappling with what Ethan could only imagine was her own brand of existential conflict – seemingly for some time now. It made sense that she didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with her sister's violent mood swings, detachment, and crippling remorse.

And, as wholly unqualified as Ethan knew he was, he figured that was where he came in. At the bare minimum, it appeared all Daniela needed was a friend to listen to her without judgment. He could do that. It was simple enough.

There were no layers to peel off or walls to break down like in the case of Bela. The eldest sister built her walls astoundingly high to guard the rich past that haunted her for longer than she let on. Ethan still felt like it was a miracle he'd even gotten over those walls. In Daniela's case, there were no walls to guard her hyperactive emotional nerves. She was an open book, issues and all.

As soon as Daniela calmed down and they had breakfast, it seemed like chances were pretty good that the rest of the day would go off without a hitch.

Now, Ethan only needed to make sure he would not drop any goddamn books for the next twenty-four hours.

A/N: Thank you all so much for taking the time to read! Do please punch those fave and follow buttons, and drop me a review to let me know how you found this chapter! I love hearing from you fellas as always!

Now, as for this chapter... you know me, there can never be easy times without a little angst rearing its head every once in a while. The confrontation over Maria was something I felt needed to happen quite early on. As it's very central to Ethan's character to be stirred up by the depravity and injustice of the stuff the Dimitrescu Family gets up to - there just wasn't any way he would've sat quietly about it, even if his physical health was put on the line (again).

As for how Daniela reacted to things, and was eventually defused - there's a lot to Dani. As you've probably seen by now, she's not really *all there* in certain ways. But at the same time, she's far more lucid and self-aware other times, and over other things. The more I wrote Daniela and planned her character, the more it made sense to me that Daniela would struggle with herself, and would harbor remorse deep down. She's surrounded by all these stories in her library. More than any of the other sisters, she has ingrained all this literature into her heart, and she has a far richer understanding of the human perspective and life than any of the others (perhaps with Bela as a close second). It felt only natural that she would be the one to realize what they're doing is wrong, but because of circumstance, nature, and all the stuff rattling in her head, Dani can't properly stop herself when it comes down to it - especially around the other sisters.

I've taken my liberties here with how Daniela's canonical delusions sort of work and operate. Ingame, we get crazy lines like Dani being in disbelief that Ethan could hurt her, because she, for some reason, thinks that Ethan loves her. Here, the delusions are a little different, while I ended up taking bits and pieces of that and used them to give Dani her complete openness as a character. She has some secrets and layers, sure - but she's honest to the point of bluntness, and curious to the point of intrusiveness. She cares, fiercely so, even if it can sometimes be misplaced. Her emotions are constantly hot and ready to be set off, because she doesn't guard herself from the world around her. The delusions and the detachment set in, perhaps as coping mechanisms to deal with everything she's done. So yeah, there's a lot to consider when I started writing Daniela, and I hope you fellas have enjoyed this extra twist on her character, with some more to come once we learn even more about her.

Max Blecher's Adventures in Immediate Irreality is a book I've only read snippets of, but what little I've seen has left a bit of an impression on me, from narration alone. I mimicked his writing style here a couple times when Ethan thinks back to his own numbness and detachment in the dead of night. Blecher's got this way of depicting scenes in microscopic detail, completely detached from the protagonist - to the point the protagonist and the author's voices kinda blend together, and you feel like you're reading from the perspective of the scenery itself, rather than the character who is in fact witnessing the scene. It's interesting stuff, and it let me stretch my writing muscles a little in the attempt to try my hand at that super-detail in narration.

Anyway, I think that's it from me for now. We've got a couple Daniela-centric chapters left before... other stuff :) I do hope you're all still enjoying this take on Daniela, as different as it may be, and as starkly as she may have been behaving in the previous chapter. Next chapter's gonna drop probably the usual time next week, if not, I'll update you fellas in the replies. I'll catch you then. Stay safe, and see you around!