I always thought I was an ordinary high school student—until a third eye opened at the back of my head. This eye has no blind spots. It sees through people, and it caught my scumbag father cheat with my vicious tutor in the act. They didn’t just want to kill my dying mother—they wanted to stage an “accident” and sacrifice me, all to cash in a expensive insurance payout and buy a house for their bastard son. Cute. They really thought I was a pushover? So I flipped the script and started the hunt. But when I finally stood over their corpses, thinking I could reunite with my mom at last, I uncovered a truth that froze my blood. I’m not a human at all. “Clara Croft, are you hiding? Daddy’s coming to find you!” Walter Croft’s gentle voice drifted in from outside the bedroom door. I clamped a hand over my mouth, crammed into the huge closet in the master bedroom, not daring to breathe. Today was my fourteenth birthday. Dad had taken half a day off specially, saying he wanted to play my favorite game—hide and seek. Just as I waited, giddy, for him to pull the closet door open, a tearing, stabbing pain shot through the back of my skull. Then a strange new field of vision unfolded in my mind. I could see straight through the closet’s thick wooden door—clear as day, I saw everything outside. At the back of my head, a third eye had opened. Walter wasn’t looking for me at all. He yanked his tie loose, desperate, and pulled my young, pretty private math tutor, Evelyn Hayes, into his arms. The two of them tumbled straight onto the big bed where my mom slept. “You devil, your daughter’s still home!” Evelyn scolded coyly, giving him a push—but her eyes were pure seduction. “What’s there to worry about? That girl’s clueless. She’s probably crammed in some corner right now, holding her breath.” Walter sneered, his hand already sliding under Evelyn’s skirt. My whole body went cold. My stomach churned. My mom was lying in the ICU, hovering between life and death, and my so-called wonderful father—the one who normally preached morality and never even raised his voice at me—was rolling around in her bed with another woman. I bit down hard on my lip, forcing back the urge to burst out and claw those two hypocritical faces apart. The third eye recorded it all like an HD camera, no blind spots. When they were finished, Evelyn lay against Walter’s chest, tracing little circles with her finger. “When is your wife actually going to die? Didn’t the doctor say it’d be any day now? This baby in my belly can’t wait. You really want your son born as a bastard?” A flash of cruelty crossed Walter’s eyes. “Soon. I’ve already paid off the people at the hospital. Cutting her meds is a matter of days. As for that little dead weight, Clara…” He paused, and his tone turned so cold it sent ice through me. “I took out a high-value accidental death policy on her, I’m the beneficiary. Next week I’ll take her for a drive on the mountain roads. The brakes just have to ‘fail’ a little. We lose the burden, and the payout’s enough to buy our son a big downtown apartment in cash.” Evelyn’s eyes lit up. She smacked a kiss on him. “Babe, you’re so smart! Then we’ll send the mother and daughter off together. At least they’ll have company on the way down.” I crouched in the dark closet, shaking like a leaf. Not from fear. From excitement. A bloodthirsty kind of excitement. You want to kill me? Fine. Let’s see who dies first.
I pretended nothing had happened. By the time I climbed out of the closet, the two of them were dressed together. Walter patted my head, all tenderness. “Clara, you’re so good at this. Daddy looked forever and couldn’t find you. Come on, let’s go see Mom at the hospital.” I nodded obediently, pulling a sweet smile across my lips. “Thanks, Dad.” At the hospital, the room reeked of disinfectant. My mom, Diane Croft, was wasted to nothing, her eyes sunk deep in their sockets—like a withered yellow rose. When she saw us, a faint light flickered in her clouded eyes. Walter instantly put on a face of tender devotion, taking my mom’s hand, his eyes going red. “Diane, how are you feeling today? Clara came to see you.” I looked at his sickening expression and sneered inside. I walked to the bedside and took my mom’s other hand, thin as a stick. Her hand was cold, without a trace of warmth. “Mom, I’m fine, don’t worry,” I said softly. She looked at me, her eyes full of longing and reluctance. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end only shook her head weakly. I couldn’t tell her about Walter and Evelyn’s plot. Her body couldn’t take a blow like that right now. When we left the hospital, Walter took a call. His face shifted, and he made an excuse about an urgent matter at the company and rushed off. I knew it. He was going to see Evelyn. I walked home alone, my mind racing. I was only fourteen. Call the police? With no evidence, who’d believe a fourteen-year-old girl? Tell them I’d grown an eye on the back of my head? They’d just lock me up as a psych case. If the law couldn’t punish them, then I’d do it myself. I got in touch with a seller on the dark web and paid a steep price for a few packets of high-dose rat poison. Back home, I dumped all of it into the single malt whiskey Walter loved. That done, I sat on the couch and quietly waited for my prey to come home. But for days, Walter didn’t touch that bottle. Evelyn was even more wary. Every time she came over, she wouldn’t drink so much as a glass of water. They seemed to have sensed something. And what I sensed was far more dangerous than that.
On the weekend, Walter suddenly suggested taking me hiking in the countryside. “Clara, school’s been stressful lately. Daddy wants to take you somewhere to relax.” He smiled, all warmth. I sneered inside. Here it comes. Mountain roads. Accident insurance. Brake failure. Only he didn’t know—this time, I was the one who’d set the trap. “Okay, thanks, Dad.” I slung my backpack on and climbed into the car, obedient. The car pulled out of the city. The roads grew emptier, the scenery on both sides more and more desolate. Walter drove faster and faster. At a sharp turn, he suddenly wrenched the wheel hard, sending the car straight toward the edge of the cliff. “Oh no! The brakes are out!” he shouted, faking panic. Just as the car was about to break through the guardrail, he shoved the driver’s door open and jumped out. My door, on the other side, had been locked from the start. Bang! The car slammed hard into a big tree at the cliff’s edge. Smoke billowed from the hood, and then flames leapt up. The fire spread fast. The temperature inside the car shot up. I beat at the window, putting on a show of terror, screaming my lungs out: “Dad! Help me! Dad!” Walter stood a few yards from the car, watching me coldly. There wasn’t a trace of pity in his eyes—only the giddy thrill of getting what he wanted. “Clara, don’t blame Daddy. Blame yourself for standing in your brother’s way. Get a better life next time around.” The fire swallowed the cabin completely. The smoke choked me until I couldn’t open my eyes. The heat seared my skin. Just as I thought I really was about to burn to death, a miracle happened. A faint blue glow rose over the surface of my body, sealing the flames and smoke out. I didn’t feel any pain. Even my breathing came easier. What was going on? Was I not made of flesh and blood after all? Before I could think it through, the car suddenly went up in a violent explosion. Everything went black, and I lost consciousness.
When I woke again, I was in a hospital bed. The harsh fluorescent light made my head spin. “A miracle! It’s nothing short of a miracle! A fire that size, and this child only has a few surface burns!” The doctor’s astonished voice rang in my ears. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Walter standing by the bed, his face white as paper. When he saw me wake, he looked like he’d seen a ghost and jerked back a step. A police officer came over with the routine questions. “Sweetheart, do you remember how the crash happened?” I looked at Walter, the corner of my mouth curling into a sneer too faint to catch. He swallowed nervously, his eyes full of pleading. “Officer, I… I can’t remember clearly. I only remember the car suddenly went out of control, and then it caught fire. My dad got hurt trying to save me.” I put on a weak, frail act, tears rolling down my cheeks. The officer comforted me a little, then turned to Walter. “Mr. Croft, you’re lucky your daughter survived. But we’ll be investigating the cause further, so please stay available to cooperate.” After the officer left, only Walter and I remained in the room. The air was dead silent. “What… what exactly do you want?” Walter’s voice trembled. The way he looked at me was the way you’d look at a monster. I put the tears away and fixed him with an icy stare. “Walter, did you really think your plan was airtight? When you jumped out of the car, I saw every bit of it.” His legs went weak; he nearly dropped to the floor. “Clara, Daddy was wrong! Daddy lost my mind for a moment! Won’t you forgive me?” He threw himself at the bedside, begging, a mess of snot and tears. “Forgive you? Sure.” I sneered. “I want you to change the beneficiary on that accident policy to my name. Right now. And I want a supplementary card with no limit. Otherwise, I tell the police exactly how you tried to murder your own daughter.” Walter nodded over and over like a man granted a pardon. “Yes! Yes! Daddy will do whatever you say!” The moment I had the money and the insurance, the first thing I did was go to a flower shop and buy a big bunch of the brightest yellow roses. Then I went to my mom’s hospital room. I pushed the door open and froze. The room was thick with the scent of roses. In the vase by my mom’s bed, there was already a fresh bunch of yellow roses. “Mom, did someone come to see you?” I asked, startled. When she saw me, panic flashed in her eyes. She struggled upright and grabbed my hand, her voice urgent. “Clara, listen to me. You’re in danger right now. Go! Get away from here!” I was completely lost. “Mom, what are you talking about? I’ve already got Walter under control. He wouldn’t dare hurt me.” She shook her head, tears spilling over. With trembling hands, she fished a silver fidget spinner out from under her pillow and pressed it into my palm. “Take this! Spin it counterclockwise three times and you can go back to the past. Spin it clockwise three times and you can go to the future. Remember—you only get three chances. Run! Run as far as you can!” I stared at the finely made spinner in my hand and was sure the illness had muddled her mind. “Mom, don’t scare me…” “Clara, happy birthday, my baby.” She suddenly cupped my face and pressed a cold kiss to my forehead. The next second, the heart monitor let out a piercing, drawn-out wail. A flat line. My mom was dead.
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