**Chapter 17: The Body**
**Claire**
Claire found the body.
It was her normal routine. She had made sure Camille’s needs were taken care of, that she was asleep, cleaned the foyer and sitting room, then moved to the residential quarters. But when she opened the door to Abby’s room, there was … so much blood.
Claire shivered and forced herself not to vomit, holding her hand over her mouth, keeping her eyes shut. She rocked back and forth, trying to fight back the image of Abby’s face covered in wax, her neck bloated and bruised, claw marks and … blood all over her body.
Even after a week, she couldn’t think of it without summoning the nausea, the disorienting vertigo of finding someone still. Empty. Over and over, Claire tried to imagine Abby laughing or smiling. She wanted to remember who she was, but everything melted back into a corpse, into flesh, into death. Abby was gone, and the memory of her was slipping away quickly. Abby was covered in wax, burnt, broken, snapped, beaten, ripped, and drained.