The woman in the red studio froze, brush suspended in midair, staring at Marcus Bell with a mixture of fear and surprise. Her pale face, framed by strands of dark hair stained with paint, revealed an unexpected, almost childlike youthfulness, in contrast to the macabre atmosphere of the studio and the profane task she was performing.
"Who... who are you?" she finally asked, her voice a shaky, barely audible thread. Her dark eyes flicked nervously from Marcus to the gun still pointed at her.
Marcus kept his gun raised, but lowered his voice slightly, trying to convey a modicum of calm amid the tension of the moment. "This is Detective Bell with the police. I need you to put down your paintbrush and move away from the table, slowly."
The woman obeyed slowly, placing her brush on the table with trembling hands and taking a few steps back, keeping her hands visible. Marcus advanced cautiously, keeping his distance, but watching her closely, trying to assess the danger she represented.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Marcus asked, his tone firm but questioning.
The woman hesitated for a moment, as if weighing whether or not to answer. Then she sighed and looked down at the ground, a look of resignation. "My name is Sarah... Sarah Jenkins." Her voice was still weak and shaky. "And... I'm just... working."
"Working?" Marcus repeated sarcastically. "You call this 'working'? Painting dolls with blood, in a warehouse full of photos of desecrated little girls? Who are you working for, Sarah?"
Sarah looked up again, and this time, in her dark eyes, Marcus thought he saw a flicker of… sadness? Despair? "I work… for… Carl," she said, her voice even fainter. "Carl… asks me to."
"Carl Stargher?" Marcus asked, incredulous, "The comatose serial killer? You're saying you work for him? How is that possible?"
Sarah was silent for a long moment, biting her lower lip, as if struggling to find the right words. Then she took a deep breath and began to speak, her tone flat and monotonous, as if reciting a memorized story. "Carl… comes to me. In my dreams. For… a long time."
Since… he… got sick." She paused, and a lone tear slid down her pale cheek, leaving a glistening trail on her red-paint-stained skin. "He… needs me. To… finish his… work."
Marcus watched her silently, trying to process her confusing and disturbing words. Dreams? Oneiric communications with a comatose killer? It sounded delirious, insane. But the macabre atmosphere of the Red Workshop, the desecrated dolls, the photographs of young girls... it all fit Silas Thorne's twisted logic. And the fragility, the desperation on Sarah Jenkins's face... seemed too real to be a mere charade. Could it be that, in some inexplicable way, Sarah was connected to Silas's mind, even in his coma? Could she be yet another victim of his sick manipulation, an unwitting tool in his macabre "work"? Or... was there something even darker and more complex behind it all? The face in Sarah Jenkins's broken mirror reflected more questions than answers, plunging Marcus into a labyrinth of uncertainty even deeper than the halls of the Red Workshop.
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