Author: Momo Chan

1 The day I was dragged into a rain-slicked alley and beaten until my ribs screamed was my sister’s twenty-eighth birthday. Two men in black hoodies and surgical masks tore my clothes and kicked me with a practiced, rhythmic cruelty. I curled into a ball, my fingers trembling as I reached for my phone to call Grant. He was my husband. He was supposed to be my sanctuary. Suddenly, a shadow flickered in the periphery of my blurring vision. A woman stood there. She looked exactly like me, but her eyes were tired—weathered by a decade of grief I hadn’t yet lived. “Don’t bother,” she said, her voice a hollow echo. “I’m you, ten years from now. The men behind those masks? That’s Grant and your brother, Harrison.” I gasped, a mouthful of copper-tasting blood hitting the pavement. “The footage of you being humiliated is playing on a loop in the family group chat right now,” she continued, her gaze fixed on the brick wall. “It’s Seraphina’s birthday wish. A ‘prank’ to humble the sister who has everything. Your husband, your brother, your parents—they all decided to grant it.” She paused, looking down at my broken form. “Do you want to know what the next ten years look like? Grant will hand your career-defining projects over to Seraphina. Your parents will call you a ‘dramatic liar’ until you believe it. Three years from now, you’ll be served divorce papers and kicked out of the house you paid for. You’ll end up scrubbing floors in a diner just to afford a motel room.” I wanted to scream that she was lying. But my phone buzzed in the mud. I swiped open the group thread. There it was. A video, shot from a high angle, showing me cowering like a stray dog under the boots of the two men I loved most. The tears burned, but I didn’t let them fall. I didn’t sob. Instead, I felt a cold, crystalline stillness settle over my heart. I saved the video to a hidden cloud drive, took a jagged breath, and dialed 911. “I’m at the alley on 4th and Main,” I whispered to the operator. “I’ve been mugged and assaulted. I need the police. Now.” By the time the sirens wailed in the distance, the shadow of my future self had vanished. I hauled myself up against the damp brick, my skin a map of plum-colored bruises. My blouse was rags. A female officer draped a heavy jacket over my shoulders. I didn’t play the victim. I gave her my statement and showed her the video from the group chat. Then, escorted by two officers, I walked into the private dining room of the Grand Regency Hotel. Inside, the atmosphere was golden and warm. They were singing “Happy Birthday” to Seraphina. A mountain of designer shopping bags sat in the corner—gifts from my parents, Harrison, and Grant. Since Seraphina had been “lost” for three years in her early twenties—an abduction she never fully explained—the family treated her like a fragile porcelain doll. Every birthday required twenty-eight separate gifts from each of them to “make up for the lost time.” Seraphina blew out her candles, leaning into our mother’s arms, whispering about how she finally felt safe. That’s when they noticed me standing in the doorway. Grant was the first to move. He approached with that same effortless, silver-tongued charm that had made me marry him. “Sienna, honey? What happened? Did you trip? You’re a mess—let me get you to a hospital.” I stepped back, his hand hanging uselessly in the air. My mother, a renowned Chief of Surgery, barely looked up from her wine. “It’s just superficial bruising, Grant. Don’t make a scene. Seraphina is sensitive to the smell of hospitals; it triggers her PTSD. Just go home and clean up.” My father didn’t even look at me. His voice was heavy with disappointment. “You’re late to your sister’s dinner, Sienna. Again. Is this some pathetic bid for attention? You know we owe Seraphina a lifetime of peace after what she went through.” I felt the air leave my lungs. A bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat. “It’s my birthday too, Dad. Did any of you remember that?” The room went silent. For a heartbeat, a flicker of guilt crossed Grant’s face, but it was quickly smoothed over. “We’ll celebrate yours some other time,” my mother said dismissively. “Seraphina is fragile. She shouldn’t have to share her moment with… outsiders.” In years past, that word—outsider—would have shattered me. I would have screamed, cried, and begged them to see me. But today, I simply looked at the door. “I didn’t come here alone.” Uniformed officers stepped into the candlelight. The color drained from the room. Grant’s jaw tightened. “You called the cops?” “I was assaulted,” I said, my voice steady. “Why wouldn’t I?” Harrison, my older brother, lunged toward me, his face contorted in a sneer. “Seraphina is terrified of authority figures! You’re trying to trigger her, aren’t you? You want her to spiral again. You’re a sick, jealous bitch, Sienna.” The venom in his voice was a physical weight. I stared at him, then at Grant. “Officers,” I said, pointing directly at my husband and my brother. “Those are the men who attacked me. I have the video they filmed of the assault.” Despite their frantic claims of it being a “family joke” or a “misunderstanding,” the evidence was undeniable. The police took them out in handcuffs, right past the birthday cake. My father slammed his fist onto the table. “You will go down to the precinct and drop these charges immediately, or you are no longer a part of this family. Do you understand? You will not set foot in our house again.” I was three when they sent me to live with my grandmother in the country because Seraphina was “sick” and needed their full attention. I spent eighteen years begging for scraps of their love, terrified of being exiled again. I reached into my bag, pulled out my key fobs, and slid them across the tablecloth. “Fine,” I said. “As you wish. I’m done living in a house where I never had a room anyway.” They stared at me, stunned by my defiance. Seraphina finally rose, her voice a soft, manipulative trill. “Sienna, wait. It’s my fault. I suggested the prank… I wasn’t thinking clearly. You know how my head gets when I’m overwhelmed.” I pulled my hand away before she could touch me. “They were very calm when they were kicking me, Seraphina. They seemed perfectly lucid.” I walked out without looking back. That night, I didn’t sleep. Whether the shadow woman was real or a hallucination born of trauma, her warnings felt like prophecy. I opened my laptop and went through every proprietary project I was lead architect on. I embedded subtle “signatures”—lines of code and design flourishes hidden in the metadata that only I could identify. Two weeks later, Grant was released on bail. He looked haggard, the golden boy image tarnished. He found me at a coffee shop. “I’m sorry,” he said, sliding into the booth. I didn’t look up from my latte. “I don’t accept.” Grant’s lips thinned. “I can make this right, Sienna. If you drop the suit, we can go back to the way things were. I’ll buy you that house in the Hamptons.” I raised an eye. “Call the CFO. I want every cent of my project bonuses from the last three years moved into my private account by the end of the day.” He blinked, startled. “You’ve never cared about the money before. We talked about this—that money was for the college fund. For the baby we’re going to have.” I stood up slowly. “Like you said, Grant. That was ‘before.’” The coldness in my voice hit him like a physical blow. “Three days,” I told him. “If the money isn’t there, I’m taking the assault footage to the board of directors.” He reached for my hand, then pulled back. “The firm is tight on cash right now, Sienna. We’re partners. Can’t you just—” “You had enough cash to buy Seraphina a hundred-thousand-dollar diamond tennis bracelet for her birthday,” I interrupted. Grant gasped. “That… that was meant to be for you. Eventually.” He stepped closer, dropping his voice to a seductive whisper. “Sienna, please. Once the baby comes, everything will change. I’ll put the money in a trust then. Let’s just go home. Let me hold you.” I stepped back, my hands instinctively covering my stomach. My heart hammered against my ribs. “In seven months, you would have been a father, Grant.” The blood vanished from his face. He stared at my midsection. “No… no, that’s impossible. I was… I was careful to avoid your stomach when…” I pulled the ultrasound and the hospital report from my bag and slapped them onto the table. “That last kick you gave me before you ran? You killed your own child.” Grant’s hands shook as he read the report. He looked up, his eyes rimmed with red. But then, the narcissism took back the wheel. “It was an accident, Sienna. I didn’t know. Look, we can try again once you’ve recovered. We have plenty of time for kids.” He reached for me again, and for a split second, the old Sienna—the girl who just wanted to be loved—wavered. Then, the shadow woman whispered in my ear: Think of who you become if you stay. I went cold. “Three days, Grant. Or the police get the rest of the files.” He snapped. He slammed his hand onto the table, knocking over my framed photo of us. The glass shattered, shards spraying across my shoes. I knelt down, picking up the torn remains of the only photo we had together from our wedding day. The glass had sliced right through our joined hands. “I… I can fix it,” he stammered, seeing the look on my face. “I’ll get it restored—” His phone rang. It was a high-pitched, childish chime—the special ringtone he had for Seraphina. He hesitated, then answered. “Grant? Something’s wrong with Sparky,” Seraphina sobbed over the line. “I think he’s having a seizure. I don’t know what to do, I’m panicking…” Sparky was her Pomeranian. Grant’s face instantly shifted from grief to frantic devotion. “Don’t move, Seraphina. I’m coming. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I stared at him. I took the photo and tore it clean down the middle, handing him his half. “Don’t bother with the restoration.” Grant’s patience evaporated. “Seraphina has severe clinical depression, Sienna! That dog is her lifeline. If something happens to him, she’ll break. Be a grown-up for once and wait for me at home. I’ll be back soon.” I smiled. It felt like a blade. “Last year on my birthday, she called because the dog had diarrhea. Six months ago, on our anniversary, she called because he threw up. A month ago, when I was stranded in that storm and asked you to pick me up? She said the dog was ‘anxious’ about the rain.” I took a breath. “You always say you’ll be back soon. You never are.” “I promise, this time is different,” he said, already backing toward the door. He was in such a rush he didn’t even notice he was still wearing his indoor loafers. Fifteen minutes later, Seraphina posted on Instagram. A photo of her sitting on her velvet sofa, clutching the dog, surrounded by my parents, Harrison, and Grant. The caption: Blessed to have a family that always puts me first. I zoomed in on the photo. Around the dog’s neck was a silk ribbon. Hanging from it was the vintage gold locket my grandmother had left me—the one my mother told me she had ‘lost’ years ago. It didn’t hurt anymore. The fire had finally burned everything away, leaving only ash and clarity.

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1 I saw the numbers hovering over their heads right before I was scheduled to go under the knife to save my mother’s life. It started as a flicker, then solidified into a cruel, neon reality. Above my older sister Serena’s head, the compatibility rating glowed at a staggering 80%. Above Weston, my twin brother—born only minutes after me—it pulsed at 85%. Stunned, I blinked rapidly, my heart hammering against my ribs. I made a frantic excuse and retreated to the hospital bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. When I looked into the mirror, the number above my own reflection was a dismal 60%. My blood turned to ice. I tried to tell myself it was a hallucination brought on by pre-op stress, a glitch in a brain starved of sleep. But then, through the thin partition of the vanity wall, I heard my mother’s voice—hushed, urgent, and devoid of the warmth she usually reserved for my siblings. “Keep your mouths shut about the donor results,” she hissed to Serena and Weston. “Serena’s wedding to the Price heir is weeks away. I won’t have her scarred or weakened. I won’t let a surgery ruin her future.” “And Weston,” she continued, her voice softening with maternal doting, “he’s a man. He’s the legacy. I can’t have him compromising his health for me.” Then came the needle that popped the bubble of my world. Her tone flattened when she spoke of me. “It doesn’t matter for Natalie. Her husband is already stepping out on her with that actress, and she’s getting rid of that baby anyway. Losing a kidney is the least of her problems.” The words felt like a jagged blade plunged directly into my chest. To test her—to see if she cared for me at all—I had spent weeks playing the part of a woman in a crumbling marriage. I had even let her believe I was going to terminate my pregnancy, the first grandchild of the Blackwood estate, just so I could be “healthy enough” to save her. I was the least compatible match in the family. And yet, I was the only one she was willing to sacrifice. Fine. If I’m not the match she wants, she’s not getting the kidney she needs. “Marcus,” I said into my phone, my voice trembling but certain as I leaned against the bathroom tile. “I need a car. Now. Get me away from the clinic.” “Of course, Mrs. Blackwood,” my husband’s lead assistant replied immediately. “I’ll have a driver at the north entrance in five minutes. Should I alert Hudson?” I thought of Hudson. He was currently in London, finalizing an international merger that would solidify the Blackwood name for the next century. “No,” I whispered. “Not yet.” I tucked my phone into my bag. A notification chimed. It was a message in the family group chat from my mother-in-law, Eleanor. Natalie, sweetie, have you… have you gone through with the procedure yet? I’m not trying to pressure you. I just keep thinking about you in that hospital. I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Please don’t overthink this. When I didn’t reply immediately, a notification from my banking app popped up. A wire transfer of one million dollars. A little something for you, Natalie. Buy yourself something that makes you smile. We love you. My eyes blurred with hot, stinging tears. In the seven years I’d been married to Hudson, the Blackwoods had never pressured me to produce an heir. Even now, when I told them I was choosing my mother’s life over my pregnancy, they had offered nothing but silent, agonizing support. And here was my biological mother, trading my health for my siblings’ convenience. I typed a quick message back to Eleanor: I’m keeping the baby. I’m coming home. I barely hit send before the bathroom door was nearly kicked off its hinges. “Natalie! What the hell are you doing in there?” Weston’s voice boomed, dripping with his usual entitled impatience. “The surgeon is waiting. You aren’t getting cold feet, are you?” He shoved the door open before I could reach for the lock. “You’re the only match we have. Don’t you dare screw this up for Mom.” I didn’t say a word. I swung my hand and slapped him across the face so hard my palm stung. “I am your sister, Weston. You will speak to me with respect,” I spat. He recoiled, his eyes wide with fury. Just as he raised a hand to strike back, Serena stepped in, her silk wrap fluttering as she grabbed his arm. “Natalie, honey, don’t be upset,” Serena said, her voice a saccharine trill. “Weston is just stressed. We all are. It’s almost time for your… appointment. The termination needs to happen before the transplant prep begins.” “I’m not terminating the pregnancy,” I said, stepping past them into the hallway. “And I’m not giving up a kidney.” The color drained from Serena’s face. “What? Natalie, what are you talking about? You’re the only one who can save her. Do you want to watch her die?” She began to sob, her theatrical cries drawing the attention of other patients in the ward. “She’s your mother! How can you be so heartless?” “Look at her!” a woman in a nearby waiting chair whispered loudly. “To leave her own mother to die? What a monster.” The murmurs of the crowd rose like a tide, but I looked at the numbers glowing above my siblings’ heads—80% and 85%. “I want the original lab reports from the county hospital,” I said, my voice dead calm. “I want to see your results, not the summaries you gave me.” 2 The initial tests had been done at a smaller, rural facility near my mother’s house while she was in “critical condition.” I had never questioned them. I had simply flown in, terrified, and stepped up when they told me I was the only hope. “We already told you the results!” Weston shouted, his face reddening. “You’re just looking for an excuse to be a coward!” I gave him a thin, cold smile. “The results. Or the deal is off.” I didn’t wait for an answer. I walked out of the ward, down the stairs, and into the waiting black Town Car. Marcus was there, holding the door open with a grave expression. “Ma’am, are we going to the Blackwood estate or the apartment you’ve been renting?” “The apartment first. I need to pick up something.” When my mother “fell ill,” I had moved into a cramped, two-bedroom walk-up in a gritty part of town. I told her Hudson had kicked me out after his “affair” went public. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I told her. It wasn’t pity. It was relief. If I was a social pariah with nothing left, then taking my kidney wouldn’t lead to any messy legal blowback from the Blackwood lawyers. I walked into the dusty apartment and looked at the mantle. My father’s urn sat there, next to a framed photo of him in his police uniform. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I tried to keep the peace. I tried to be the daughter you wanted me to be. But I can’t let her destroy me anymore.” I carefully tucked the urn and the photo into my bag. As I turned to leave, I heard a commotion outside. “You can’t go up there!” Marcus was shouting. “Mrs. Blackwood doesn’t want to see you!” “Mrs. Blackwood?” Weston’s voice sneered. “Natalie Whitaker got dumped months ago! Get out of our way, you pathetic rent-a-cop!” I heard a heavy thud—the sound of Marcus being shoved against the hallway wall. I stepped out of the door just as Weston and a couple of his “buddies” reached the landing. “There she is. The Golden Child,” Weston mocked, holding up his phone. He was live-streaming. “Hey guys, back again. Today’s episode: My sister, the billionaire’s ex-wife, tries to murder our mom by skipping out on her surgery.” He leaned in, his breath smelling of cheap energy drinks. “The clinic called. Your abortion appointment was ten minutes ago. If you don’t get in the car right now, I’ll make sure everyone knows exactly what kind of bitch you are.” He glanced at his phone, grinning at the comments. “Don’t worry, babe,” he said into the camera, likely to his influencer girlfriend. “I’m not the one going under the knife. I promised you that.” The 85% above his head seemed to mock me. I helped Marcus up. His forehead was scraped, bleeding slightly. “Marcus, call the police. File a report for assault.” “Assault?” Weston laughed. “You’re delusional, Nat. This is a family intervention.” Serena stepped forward then, her eyes red-rimmed. “Natalie, please… I’m begging you. I’m marrying into the Landros family. I just want Mom to be there to see me walk down the aisle. If I have to undergo surgery now, the recovery… the scars… the Landros family expects perfection.” I looked at the 80% above her head. Then I looked past them to my mother, who was sitting in the back of a beat-up SUV at the curb, a catheter bag hanging visibly from her waist, her face a mask of pale, calculated suffering. “Mom,” I called out, my voice echoing in the narrow stairwell. “Is it true? Am I really the only one who can save you?” 3 “Natalie, please,” my mother whimpered, leaning against the car door. “Just give me the kidney. I know I wasn’t always fair. I know I was hard on you. But it was because I was so sick after I had you… I was paralyzed for a year. I couldn’t help but resent the pain you caused me.” The old script. The guilt she had fed me since I was five years old. She had carried twins, but somehow, all the physical toll was blamed on me, never Weston. “I’m done,” I said. I turned to get into the car. “You’re not going anywhere!” Weston lunged, grabbing my shoulder. I stumbled, the weight of his grip bruising my skin. As I tried to steady myself, Serena’s foot shot out, tripping me. The bag slipped from my hand. The urn hit the pavement with a sickening crack. The lid popped, and a cloud of grey ash spilled onto the dirty concrete. Time stopped. I fell to my knees, frantically trying to scoop the remains back into the broken vessel, my coat getting stained with the dust of my father. “Weston! Serena!” I screamed. I stood up and leveled a blow at Weston’s face, then turned and struck Serena. The cracks of my palm against their skin were the only sounds in the sudden silence of the alley. Weston’s eyes turned murderous. “You dead-beat bitch,” he growled, raising his fist. “Natalie,” Serena hissed, her voice low and venomous. “The Landros family won’t accept a bride with a missing organ. You’re already ruined. Just go to the clinic. Get rid of the brat and give up the kidney.” She shoved me hard, sending me sprawling toward the ground again. “What do you think you’re doing?” Marcus yelled, trying to intervene, but Weston’s friends held him back. “Blackwood’s wife?” Weston laughed into his phone camera. “Look at her. Natalie, you’re an actress. You really thought you could pull off the ‘wealthy socialite’ act? Dad always said you were the one who knew how to manipulate people. He even spent his last moments alone with you just so he wouldn’t have to look at us.” He turned the phone toward me as I sat in the dirt. “Live, everyone! Watch the fall of the fake Mrs. Blackwood!” I pulled my phone from my pocket. My voice was a low, dangerous rasp. “Weston, turn off the stream. Now. Or the Blackwood family will erase you.” “Erase me? With what? Hudson’s mistress?” He laughed, checking his notifications. “Wait… what’s this?” Serena gasped, her phone lit up in her hand. “Weston… shut it down. The Blackwood Group just issued a press release.” 4 “Hudson Blackwood denies all rumors of infidelity,” Serena read, her voice trembling. “He was photographed in London… at a high-end boutique. Buying a custom-made nursery set.” The silence that followed was heavy. “Is… is the affair a lie?” Serena whispered, looking at my stomach. “Is that really the Blackwood heir?” “Don’t be stupid!” Weston snapped. “She wouldn’t risk a billionaire’s kid to give Mom a kidney. She’s playing us!” He turned to Serena. “Call your fiancé. Ask him what the word is.” Serena dialed with shaking fingers. “Caden? Caden, it’s me. I need to ask—is Hudson Blackwood still with his wife?” The voice on the other end was loud, muffled, and punctuated by the sounds of a party. “Serena? Why are you asking about Blackwood? Stay out of that circle, babe. Men like him… they keep the wife at home and the fun on the side. Everyone knows the marriage is a shell. Now hang up, I’m busy.” Serena exhaled, her confidence returning. “See? It’s a PR stunt. The marriage is dead.” Weston grinned. He pulled a small orange bottle from his pocket. “Well, if you won’t go to the clinic, we’ll just bring the clinic to you. This is an abortifacient. A friend of mine at the pharmacy hooked me up. If you won’t do it the easy way, we’ll do it the hard way. You’re giving Mom that kidney tomorrow, pregnant or not.” He began to unscrew the cap, stepping toward me. “Stop!” Serena screamed suddenly, looking at her phone. “Weston, look at the news! The Blackwood Group just filed for a temporary injunction against… us?” I looked at my mother. She was watching me, her eyes darting between her children. “Mom,” I said. “Do you know what Dad told me before he died? He told me to forgive you. He said there’s no such thing as a mother who doesn’t love her child.” I gestured to the spilled ashes on the ground. “When I got married, you skipped the ceremony to take Serena to a corporate mixer. When I was hospitalized with hyperemesis, you didn’t answer my calls because you were helping Weston edit his vlog. Look at Dad’s ashes and tell me—am I really the only match?” The alley went silent. “Natalie, you’re killing her!” Serena yelled. “If you don’t do this, she’ll die! She might as well kill herself right now!” My mother took the cue. She began to wail, throwing herself against the side of the car, her head striking the window with a dull thud. “It’s my fault! I should just die! I’m a burden to my beautiful children!” “Natalie! You did this!” Weston shouted into his phone. “Are you seeing this, guys? She’s driving our mother to suicide!” I looked at my phone. I hit the speed dial for a number I hadn’t called in weeks. “Eleanor,” I said, my voice cold as stone. “There are people in the alley. They’re trying to force me to take a pill. They’re trying to kill your grandson.”

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1 My superstar sister was on a live “Tell-All” segment for The Hot Seat, a primetime variety show with thirty million viewers. She dialed my FaceTime in front of the cameras. The first thing she said was: “Ollie, you can’t deny it—our parents totally prioritized you because you’re the son, right? I literally spent my entire childhood starving while you got everything.” I swallowed a mouthful of noodles, wiped my mouth, and stared at the screen. “When you were four, you ate an entire five-pound pot of slow-cooked brisket while Mom was at the store. You ended up in the ER at 3:00 AM getting your stomach pumped. Mom started locking the fridge after that. It wasn’t ‘favoritism,’ Piper. It was a safety measure.” “Then why did you guys never take me anywhere!” she shot back, her eyes glistening. “When you were five, we went to the City Aquarium. You climbed the railing and jumped into the penguin exhibit. Our entire family was banned for life. We’re still on their ‘Do Not Admit’ list.” “I just wanted to pet one! Is that a crime?” “You had a fishing net in your backpack, Piper.” The live stream numbers jumped to eight million. She pulled out a photo—a five-year-old version of herself kneeling outside a closed door, crying so hard her nose was running. “Look! They made me kneel outside for two hours as punishment!” I looked at the photo and stayed silent for a long beat. “…That day, you took the heavy-duty kitchen shears and started ‘trimming’ your hair from the back of your head forward. You shaved yourself bald by the time Mom found you. She didn’t lock you out to punish you. She locked herself in the bathroom because she was having a nervous breakdown and couldn’t stop crying.” “I wanted bangs!” she wailed. “You started at the nape of your neck.” The studio audience was losing it. The sound of muffled laughter was rolling through the speakers. Red-eyed, she played her final card: “What about my hamster, then? Snowy! You’re the reason Snowy died!” “You tried to give him a bath with boiling water.” “People use hot water for baths!” “He was a hamster, Piper. I spent forty minutes trying to perform CPR on a rodent. I couldn’t save him. I told you he ran away because I didn’t want you to spend the rest of your life knowing you’d accidentally boiled your best friend.” The live stream went silent for exactly three seconds. Then the chat exploded. “Ollie needs his own show. Piper needs to retire.” “The ‘Nation’s Sweetheart’ image just shattered into a million pieces.” “I bet her publicist is writing a resignation letter right now.” My name is Oliver Bennett. I’m twenty-eight, and I’m a veterinarian. Sounds unremarkable, right? Up until yesterday, it was. Last night at 9:30 PM, I was working late at the clinic, pulling thorns out of a grumpy fifteen-pound ginger tabby. The cat had a temper twice its size, and I was pinned under its glare while it swiped at the air. Mitch, my assistant, kicked the door open, shoving his phone in my face. “Ollie, your sister is trending. Big time.” “When is she not?” I muttered, not looking up. “No, this is different. She’s crying on The Hot Seat. She’s telling the whole country your parents hated her and that her childhood was a living hell.” My hand slipped. The tabby seized the opportunity to sink a claw into my forearm. I ignored the scratch and took the phone. There she was on the screen. Piper Bennett. The “Nation’s Sweetheart.” Six million followers, two hit Netflix series, three major beauty campaigns. Usually, she’s the picture of polished perfection. But right now, she was sitting across from the host, Harris, in a stunning black silk dress, her eyes rimmed with red. “My childhood… it wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was,” she whispered. Harris handed her a silk handkerchief. “Do you feel comfortable sharing that with us, Piper?” Piper took a breath, waited exactly three seconds for the dramatic tension to peak, and nodded. “I have an older brother. Growing up, everything good went to him. Everything.” I stared at the screen, my expression flat. Mitch leaned in. “Is she talking about you?” “I’m her only brother.” “My parents never let me eat my fill,” Piper continued. “They saved all the best food for him.” I set the phone down and went back to the cat. Mitch wouldn’t let it go. “Was it really like that? The ‘golden son’ treatment?” “She ate a literal pot of brisket when she was four.” “And?” “The ER. Stomach pump. It was a massacre.” Mitch’s face went blank. Before I could explain further, my phone buzzed. An unknown number with a New York area code. “Mr. Bennett? This is the production team for The Hot Seat. Piper would like to bring you in via a live video call. Would you be available—” “Now?” “Yes. We’re live.” I looked down at myself. Blue scrubs covered in cat hair. A fresh scratch on my index finger. “I’m in the middle of a procedure.” “It’ll only take a few minutes.” I looked at Mitch. He was nodding so hard I thought his head might fall off. I sighed, put the tabby back in its recovery cage, and hit ‘Accept.’ 2 The moment the connection went through, my face appeared on the massive LED screen in the studio. The blue scrubs, the messy hair, the background of stainless steel cages. Behind me, the ginger tabby let out a piercing, indignant “Meow.” The audience blinked. The live chat scrolled by at light speed. “Is that the brother?” “He’s a vet?? Hubba hubba.” “Look at the fat cat in the back.” Piper froze when she saw me. She clearly hadn’t expected me to look so… un-Hollywood. But she recovered quickly, her eyes welling up again. “Ollie.” “Hey, Piper.” “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with the whole country.” “Go ahead.” She took a shaky breath. “Our parents prioritized you, didn’t they? I never had a full meal as a kid. You got the best of everything.” Silence fell over the studio. Heartbreak emojis flooded the screen. Harris turned to the camera. “Oliver, what’s your side of the story?” I thought about it, trying to be as objective as possible. “When she was four, she waited until Mom went to the mailbox. She climbed onto the counter and ate an entire pot of slow-cooked brisket. Three pounds of prime beef intended for a dinner party. She finished the whole thing.” Someone in the audience gasped. “She started doubled over in pain at 3:00 AM. We spent the night in the ER getting her stomach pumped. That is the only reason Mom started locking the fridge.” The tide in the comments turned instantly. “Wait. Three pounds?? At four years old??” “That’s not starvation, that’s a competitive eating disorder.” Piper bit her lip. “Fine. Maybe that one time was on me. But explain why you guys never took me on vacation! You’d all go out, and I’d be left behind like an afterthought!” Her voice trembled. Harris handed her another tissue. I looked into the camera, my voice deadpan. “The first time we took you out to a major attraction was the Aquarium.” “One time! Exactly!” “Because you hopped the fence into the penguin enclosure.” A collective intake of breath echoed through the studio. “Security had to dive in to get you. You were clutching a penguin, refusing to let go. The bird was so traumatized it required ‘stress therapy’ and didn’t go back into the water for three months.” Piper’s face turned a brilliant shade of crimson. “I was five!” “You had a fishing net in your backpack.” “It was for goldfish!” “You told me right before we left, and I quote: ‘Ollie, today I am bringing a penguin home.’” The laughter in the studio was becoming impossible to suppress. Harris was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking. “The aquarium put our family photos on a permanent blacklist. All five of us. Banned for life. Including me, who did nothing but watch in horror.” The chat: “Ollie is the real victim here.” “The penguin needs a support group.” “Five years old with a premeditated fishing net heist? Icon.” Piper’s agent, Sloane, was sitting off-camera, her face turning pale. But Piper wasn’t done. She gripped the mic. “Fine! Forget the penguins! Why did you get private tutors and I didn’t? Why was I left to struggle alone?” “I never had a tutor, Piper.” “Liar! The lady with the glasses who came every Wednesday!” “That was your tutor. You had four of them.” I started counting on my fingers. “The first one was for math. Twenty minutes into the first lesson, you shredded her lesson plan to make paper airplanes and flew them out the window. She left in tears.” Piper opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “The second was for English. Every time she asked you ‘why,’ you asked her ‘why’ back forty-seven times in a row until she had a minor identity crisis. She called the next day and quit the profession.” Harris had completely abandoned his professional persona. He was howling. “The third was a literacy coach. You put a bullfrog in her purse. A zippered purse.” “It was a science experiment!” “The frog jumped out onto her face when she reached for her car keys. She ran out the front door and never came back. Last I heard, she’s an accountant now.” “And the fourth?” Harris choked out. “The fourth…” I paused. “He was a retired gym teacher. Six-four, two hundred and fifty pounds. Mom thought he’d be ‘Piper-proof.’” “And?” “He lasted one session. He walked out, looked at my mom, and said, ‘Ma’am, your daughter doesn’t need a tutor. She needs a lion tamer.’” The studio erupted. 3 The laughter lasted for nearly a minute. Piper sat there, her chest heaving, looking like she wanted to crawl into a hole or murder me—possibly both. But she was stubborn. “Okay, the tutors—” “You drove them away, Piper.” “I did not!” “You put a frog in a woman’s purse.” “That wasn’t on purpose!” “You named the frog ‘Professor Ribbit’ and told her it was her replacement.” The chat was losing its mind. “Professor Ribbit has entered the chat.” “This girl has been a menace since birth.” Piper suddenly reached behind her chair and pulled out a folder. She flipped it open and pulled out a photo. It was an old, grainy polaroid. In the picture, a little girl was kneeling outside a green door, her knees on the concrete, face streaked with tears and snot. She held it up to the lens. “Look at this!” her voice shook. “This was my childhood! They locked me outside and made me kneel! A five-year-old girl, punished for two hours in the cold!” The atmosphere shifted. Harris looked at the photo, then at me, his face turning serious. “Oliver, how do you explain this? This looks pretty harsh.” The chat went quiet. “Okay, that’s actually messed up.” “Explain this, Ollie.” I stared at the photo. I recognized that door. It was the bathroom door in our old house. It had a specific crack in the lower right corner. I remembered that day vividly. I didn’t say anything for a long time. “Oliver?” Harris prompted. I sighed. “That day… she found the heavy kitchen shears. The ones Mom used to cut through chicken bone.” Piper’s expression shifted, just a fraction. “She decided she wanted bangs. She stood in front of the mirror.” “I did want bangs!” “You started at the back of your head.” A strange, confused silence fell over the room. “The back of her head?” Harris repeated. “She cut a huge chunk out of the back, realized it looked weird, and tried to ‘even it out’ by cutting the rest. By the time Mom got home and found her, Piper was standing in a pile of her own hair. She was completely bald on top, with just one tiny, lonely tuft of bangs left in the front.” A few people in the audience started to giggle. “Mom had a total breakdown. She ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and cried for three hours. She couldn’t handle the thought of her daughter looking like a Friar Tuck for the next six months.” I looked at the photo of the little girl. “In that photo, she’s not being punished. She’s kneeling outside the bathroom door, banging on it and screaming, ‘Mommy, come out! Mommy, don’t be sad!’ Mom didn’t lock her out. Mom locked herself in because she was too overwhelmed to stand up.” The studio was silent for two seconds. Then, a roar of laughter and applause broke out. Piper’s fingers turned white as she gripped the photo. “I… I don’t remember it that way.” “You were five. Your memory is about as reliable as your aim with those scissors.” The chat: “I am the mom. The mom is me.” “Friar Tuck Piper!” “Her childhood trauma is just a series of self-inflicted disasters.” Piper bit her lip and shoved the photo back. She pulled out one more. A little girl huddled over an empty cage, sobbing. “My hamster,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “Snowy. I had him for six months. One day I came home and the cage was empty. You told me he ran away.” She looked at me through the screen. “Ollie, did you let him go because you were jealous?” The room went still. This time, it felt real. Even the chat slowed down. I looked into her eyes. She was eight when she got that hamster. A tiny, white fluff-ball she obsessed over. It was the first thing she checked on every day after school. “I didn’t let him go, Piper.” “Then where did he go?” “You came home from school and decided Snowy looked ‘dusty.’ You wanted to give him a spa day.” “…” “You boiled the kettle.” Piper’s grip on the microphone tightened. “You poured the boiling water into a bowl and put him right in.” Someone in the audience let out a soft “Oh, no.” “I got home, and you ran to me crying, saying, ‘Ollie, Snowy isn’t moving.’ I tried to cool him down with cold water. I performed… I don’t even know what to call it… tiny chest compressions for forty minutes.” I paused. “I couldn’t bring him back. You were inconsolable. I couldn’t tell you the truth—that you’d accidentally killed him. So I told you he ran away to join a hamster circus. I buried him in the garden while you were asleep.” Piper’s eyes filled with tears. Real ones this time. Not the “Nation’s Sweetheart” tears, but the tears of an eight-year-old girl losing her best friend. “But… people take hot baths,” she whispered, her voice dry. “He was a hamster, Piper.” The studio remained silent for three long seconds. Harris finally cleared his throat. “So, it seems Oliver discovered his calling as a vet quite early.” People laughed, but it was a warm, soft kind of laughter. The chat: “He did CPR on a hamster for forty minutes… my heart.” “Ollie is a saint.” “RIP Snowy.” Piper sniffed, wiped her nose, and closed the folder. Harris looked at the clock. “That’s all the time we have for the call. Oliver, thank you for joining us and… clarifying things.” “Sure.” I nodded and cut the feed. The screen went black. I put my phone down and looked at Mitch. He was standing there with his jaw dropped, a piece of jerky frozen halfway to his mouth. “Your sister… she’s kind of a lot, huh?” “Yeah.” I washed my hands and went back to the tabby’s cage to finish the check-up. My phone started vibrating in my pocket like a live wire. I didn’t answer. 4 By the time I checked my phone the next morning, the world had shifted. Nine hundred unread messages. My Instagram followers had jumped from seventeen to—I blinked—three point eight million. I’d barely posted in two years. Mitch sent me a screenshot of the trending topics. #TheTruthAboutPiper #ThePenguinPrincess #RIPSnowy #HamsterCPR #TheNaturalDisaster There was also a weirdly specific one: #IsTheFourthTutorOkay. The comment sections were a chaotic mess of hilarity and shock. “So her entire ‘tragic childhood’ was just a one-woman wrecking crew?” “The twist from ‘Golden Son’ to ‘Long-Suffering Brother’ is the plot twist of the century.” “Wait, I looked up the aquarium thing. There was an actual news report years ago: ‘Toddler Breeches Penguin Exhibit, Bird Traumatized.’ IT WAS HER.” I checked my clinic’s Yelp page. Two thousand new five-star reviews overnight. “If this man did 40 minutes of CPR on a hamster, I trust him with my labradoodle.” “Dr. Bennett, I heard you’ve been practicing emergency medicine since age eight. 10/10 would recommend.” But buried in the praise were the one-stars. “You embarrassed Piper. We’re coming for you.” “Trash brother. Making your sister look bad for clout.” The “Piper-Heads”—her hardcore fan base—were a mobilized army. They were organized, fierce, and currently doxxing my clinic’s address. Mitch leaned over. “You’re being hunted by a mob of teenage girls and middle-aged stans.” “I see that.” “Are you worried?” I petted the ginger tabby, who was finally purring. “If they show up, maybe they’ll bring their pets in for a check-up. Business is business.” I found a post by a major pop-culture blogger titled: The Bennett Family Chronicles: A History of Natural Disasters. Age 4: The Brisket Incident. Age 5: The Great Penguin Heist. Age 5: The Self-Inflicted Tonsure. Age 7: The Tutor Exodus. Age 8: The Hamster Spa Day. Conclusion: This isn’t a family dynamic; it’s a series of FEMA-level events. It had a hundred thousand retweets. Someone had already photoshopped Piper’s face onto a hurricane warning icon. I almost laughed. But then I stopped. At the end of the day, she was still my sister. 5 At noon, a black Escalade with tinted windows pulled up to the clinic. The door opened, and Piper hopped out. She was wearing a baseball cap pulled low, a mask, and an oversized hoodie. Given she was nearly five-ten, the disguise made her look like a very suspicious penguin in a sweatshirt. She burst through the door, marched past the waiting room, and slumped into the chair across from my desk. She ripped off the mask. She looked furious. “Ollie.” “Hey.” “You ruined me.” “I told the truth.” “You could have given me some cover!” “You didn’t exactly give me cover when you called me a ‘favored son’ on national TV.” She opened her mouth, then shut it. She looked at my desk—cold coffee, stacks of medical records, a clump of cat hair. “You really work in a place like this?” “It’s a clinic, Piper.” “My last endorsement deal could buy this whole block.” “Congratulations.” She slammed her hand on the desk in frustration. The tabby in the cage hissed. Piper glared at the cat. The cat glared back. To my surprise, the cat won; it hissed again, and Piper flinched. “Do you know what my hashtags are today?” she shoved her phone at me. #NaturalDisasterPiper. #PenguinPrincess. “They’re pretty accurate,” I said, handing it back. “Ollie!” “Okay, okay.” I pushed a glass of water toward her. “Drink something. Stop yelling.” She took a gulp, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel. “Sloane almost quit today.” “Sloane has been with you for five years. She’s seen worse.” She huffed and kicked her feet up onto my desk. Her designer sneakers were covered in mud. I swiped them off. She put them back. I swiped them off again. During our third round of “desk-foot-wars,” my phone buzzed. Caller ID: Mom. Piper froze. I hit speakerphone. “Oliver? Is your sister with you?” “She’s right here, Mom.” “Put her on.” Piper’s face went from indignant to terrified in zero-point-two seconds. Mom’s voice came through, eerily calm. “Piper Bennett.” “Hi, Mom…” “You told thirty million people we were ‘patriarchal’?” “I was just… exaggerating for the show—” “Do you have any idea what you put us through? Do you think the penguin incident was the end of it?” Piper and I both sat up straight. “Age six,” Mom said. “You dyed the neighbor’s Golden Retriever neon pink.” Piper’s eyes went wide. “I… I don’t remember that.” “You used three bottles of professional-grade acrylic paint. When Mrs. Gable came over to complain, the dog was crying and you were laughing.” I looked at Piper. I didn’t even know about that one. “Age seven,” Dad’s voice chimed in from the background, sounding distant but firm. “You flushed my truck keys down the toilet.” Then we heard the sound of a beer can opening. Mom continued. “Age eight—” “Mom,” Piper interrupted. “I know the hamster thing. Ollie already told everyone.” “The hamster was just the beginning of age eight. Two weeks later, you took your brother’s State Math Olympiad certificate and used it to make twenty-seven paper airplanes.” I froze. “What?” “That first-place certificate you looked for for six months? Your sister took it off the shelf after an arts-and-crafts class and launched twenty-seven ‘Ollie-planes’ off the balcony.” I turned to look at Piper. She was slowly pulling her hoodie over her face. “Twenty-seven?” I asked. A muffled voice from inside the hoodie: “It was a very large piece of parchment…” I took a deep breath. “Mom, that’s enough.” “It is not enough. I haven’t even gotten to age nine, ten, or eleven—” “Mom. It’s fine. I’ve got her.” The line went quiet for a second. “Keep her in line, Oliver. Tell her to stop making things up on television.” “I will.” I hung up. The clinic was silent. Piper peeked out from her hoodie. “Ollie?” “Yeah.” “Was that certificate… really important?” “State first-place.” She sank back into the hoodie. “…I could probably get you a new one?” “What was your highest math grade in high school, Piper?” “…A sixty-four.” “Then you stay away from my certificates.” She let out a muffled giggle. I couldn’t help it; I smiled too. Mitch was standing in the doorway, watching us. “You guys have a family dynamic that belongs in a medical journal.”

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1 After I divorced Dominic Ashford, I took the only job I could find to keep a roof over my head: a trashy, low-budget digital soap opera called The Billionaire’s Secret Septuplets. I didn’t expect much. But on the first day of filming, Dominic’s six-year-old brother, Benny, snuck onto the set. He spent the entire day huddled behind a prop crate, watching me with wide, unblinking eyes. When Dominic finally called, his voice booming through Benny’s smartwatch and demanding to know where the hell he’d disappeared to, the little guy covered the speaker with a chubby hand and whispered with deadly seriousness: “I can’t leave yet, Dom! Sloane just had her babies. All seven of them!” On the other end of the line, the silence was absolute. The day I received the divorce papers, Dominic didn’t even bother to show up. His Chief of Staff pushed the folder across the mahogany desk, informing me with a practiced, neutral expression that “Mr. Ashford has already executed his portion of the agreement.” I flipped to the final page. Dominic’s signature was a sharp, aggressive scrawl that nearly tore through the paper. He hadn’t hesitated. He’d signed with the enthusiasm of a man finally shedding a heavy winter coat in the middle of July. As I uncapped my pen, the assistant hesitated. “Ma’am, Mr. Ashford did mention… if you have any second thoughts, this document can be shredded immediately.” I didn’t look up. I pressed the nib to the paper and signed my name—Sloane Beckett—for the last time as his wife. “The marriage is over. From now on, it’s Ms. Beckett.” The assistant looked stunned. He stammered a polite acknowledgment while I turned toward the grand staircase to pack my life into two suitcases. I was halfway through folding a silk blouse when a small, messy head of hair popped around the doorframe. Benny. His bangs were a disaster, and his eyes were swimming with a terror that broke my heart. “Where are you going?” he whispered. “When are you coming home?” A lump formed in my throat. I forced a smile that felt more like a fracture. “Your brother and I are living in different houses now, Benny. I won’t be staying here anymore.” He was six. To him, divorce was a word in a movie, not a wrecking ball to his world. He stepped into the room and gripped the hem of my sweater. “Are you leaving me too? Not just Dom?” In his simple world, a family was a singular unit that breathed under one roof. I couldn’t bring myself to explain the nuances of a broken marriage, so I gave him the only truth a kid could understand. “I have to go back to work, honey. I need to earn my own way.” He stamped his foot, his face flushing red. “Don’t go! Dom has so much money in his accounts. He’ll give you all of it! Just stay!” Seeing his tear-streaked face, my resolve crumbled. I knelt, pulling him into a tight hug and kissing his forehead. “Be a good boy, Benny. You’re going to have to grow up a little bit while I’m gone. Eat your vegetables. Don’t kick the covers off at night.” My own eyes were burning. I had raised this boy. When I married Dominic three years ago, Benny was barely out of pull-ups. Dominic’s parents were always tied up in international business ventures, leaving Dominic to play both father and brother. Once I moved in, Benny became my shadow. A soft, rambling little soul who couldn’t sleep without a bedtime story and a kiss on the nose. So many nights, after I’d finally tucked him in, I’d turn around to find Dominic leaning against the doorframe. He’d usually be fresh from a gala or a board meeting—tie loosened, top buttons undone, his dark eyes fixed on me with a quiet, possessive intensity. He’d wait for me to step into the hall, then he’d pull me into his arms, kissing me all the way back to our master suite. The memory vanished as the wheels of my Uber hit the gravel. I watched the Ashford estate shrink in the rearview mirror until it disappeared behind the iron gates. I merged onto the freeway, lost in the river of traffic. It was time to stop living in someone else’s shadow. 2 I practically had to beg my old agent, Marcus, to take a meeting with me. He had a roster of hot new talent now, but he was loyal enough to put out feelers for my “comeback.” For a week, there was nothing but dead silence. “The major studios won’t even look at you for a walk-on role, Sloane,” Marcus said, his voice blunt but sympathetic. “They think your name is too tied to the Ashford brand, and honestly? They think you’re a has-been.” “What about indie stuff? Streaming? I’m not picky,” I countered. Marcus sighed, the sound of a man who hated giving bad news. “The market is brutal. Investors want a sure thing. Who’s going to gamble on an actress who hasn’t worked in three years and never quite clinched the ‘A-list’ before she vanished into a trophy marriage?” I sat there, speechless. It hurt, even though I’d expected it. The truth was, I had some savings—enough to maybe buy my way into a small production—but I’d been out of the game too long. If I tried to self-fund now, the sharks in this town would eat me alive. “I’ll audition for anything,” I insisted. “I’ll start from the bottom if I have to.” Marcus rubbed his temples and pulled a stack of stapled A4 sheets from his briefcase. “Look, there’s this new trend—vertical mini-dramas for mobile apps. They’re cheap, they’re fast, and they’re desperate for anyone who can actually act. But the scripts…” He flipped open the top page. The title was printed in a garish, bold font: The Billionaire’s Secret Septuplets: Please, Daddy, Not So Hard. Marcus read the title aloud, and the air in the office seemed to freeze. After a long beat, he looked up. “Sloane, have you ever even met a person who had seven babies at once? Do you know the physical limits of the human body?” I burst out laughing. It was so absurd, so profoundly stupid, that it broke the tension. Marcus glared at me. “You’re losing it. You’re actually thinking about taking this? Sloane, three years ago, you were one step away from a Silver Screen Award for Best Actress. If you do this… this circus… your reputation will be in the trash.” He stopped, his eyes softening. He felt sorry for me. But three years of being a “corporate wife” had sanded down my pride. I could even manage a self-deprecating shrug. “My reputation is already in the trash, Marcus. I might as well get paid to roll around in it.” Before I announced my retirement to marry Dominic, the internet had already turned on me. That year, my career had been white-hot. I was the frontrunner for the Silver Screen Award. Every tabloid was predicting I’d be the youngest woman in history to take the trophy. My team even got a “leak” from a committee member saying my name was already being engraved on the base. The night of the ceremony, every luxury brand in the city was clawing at my door to dress me in their finest haute couture. But when the presenter opened the envelope, they read a different name: Isabella Rossi. That night, I became a national punchline. The trending hashtags shifted from #SloaneWins to #SloaneTheLoser. The brand that lent me the dress even posted a catty statement about “deserving candidates” vs. “hype.” I disappeared. I let the public spit on my name. And when I resurfaced months later to announce my marriage to Dominic Ashford, the narrative flipped again. The public loved the “Heroic Billionaire rescues Fallen Starlet” story. They didn’t care that I’d quit acting; they just wanted to see me in Dior on Dominic’s arm. But the internet has a short memory. Now that the marriage was dead, I was just a woman with no job and a tainted history. 3 After leaving Marcus’s office, I wandered the streets, my mind looping over whether to take the septuplet script. I stopped in front of a massive digital billboard in Times Square. Isabella Rossi’s face was glowing down at me. She was the face of a new luxury beauty campaign, radiant and untouchable. She was the woman who had “stolen” my award three years ago. And only two weeks ago, I had learned the sickening truth. I’d overheard Dominic on a private call. Three years ago, the night before the awards, Dominic had used his massive financial leverage to pressure the committee. He hadn’t just influenced them—he had demanded they swap my name for Isabella’s. When I first heard it, I refused to believe it. Why would my husband, the man who claimed to love me, sabotage my soul’s work? I did my own digging. I hired a private investigator to look into Isabella’s past. It turned out that when she was sixteen, a driver for the Ashford family had struck her with a car. It had shattered her leg bones, ending her promising career as a prima ballerina. To bury the scandal and “compensate” her, the Ashfords had paid her way into the best acting conservatories. They’d bought her roles. They’d bought her career. And my Silver Screen Award? That was just another “repayment” Dominic made using my life as the currency. When the realization finally hit me, looking at him made me want to vomit. I spent a week kicking him out of bed, refusing his touch, until he finally snapped. “What is wrong with you lately?” he’d demanded, standing at the foot of the bed. I sat with my back to him, my heart feeling like a block of dry ice. “Maybe you should tell me what you’re hiding, Dominic.” “What are you talking about?” “The award. Isabella. You stole my life’s work and handed it to her like a party favor. You let me be the laughingstock of the industry for three years while you watched me across the dinner table. How did you do that?” The room went silent. Dominic didn’t deny it. He didn’t even look guilty. He just let out a sharp, dismissive breath. “It was a piece of cheap gold, Sloane. You’re really going to hold a grudge over a trophy?” I whipped around to face him. “If it was so cheap, why did you work so hard to steal it from me and give it to her?” He clicked on the bedside lamp. The warm light hit the cold, hard planes of his face. He looked like a stranger. “Isabella didn’t have your foundation. She needed that win to secure her career. She can’t dance anymore, Sloane. Acting is all she has left. The Ashford family owed her. We pay our debts.” “The Ashfords owed her!” I screamed, tears finally breaking through. “So why did you pay that debt with my blood? With my hard work?” Dominic frowned, genuinely annoyed by my “irrationality.” “Your hard work? Was your name on the trophy when they opened the envelope? No. You’re being hysterical.” I felt like I’d been plunged into a freezing lake. “The committee told me I’d won, Dominic. They told me.” “And you were naive enough to believe a ‘maybe’?” he snapped. “Grow up.” He saw the look on my face and softened his voice, trying to “manage” me. “Sloane, let it go. It’s ancient history. Haven’t I taken care of you? The jewelry, the penthouse, the Ashford name? I gave you the best of everything.” Money. That was his answer for everything. He’d paid a two-hundred-million-dollar “dowry” when we married—basically buying out my future. A horrifying thought struck me. “You married me because you felt guilty, didn’t you? This whole marriage was just another way to ‘fix’ the mess you made of my career.” Dominic’s expression froze. He didn’t say a word. That silence told me everything I needed to know. I started laughing, the sound jagged and ugly. “You’re so noble, Dominic. You sacrificed your own bachelorhood to play hero to the woman you ruined. Truly, a saint.” I wiped my face, my voice going flat and dead. “Stop the act, Dominic. I’m done. I want a divorce. You’re free.”

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My father exiled me to the London division five years ago. He told me that once I’d cleaned up the mess there, he’d throw me a homecoming gala that the whole city would remember. Five years later, I returned with three signed merger agreements and an eight-billion-dollar order book. The moment my plane touched down, I received a call from an unknown number. “Is this Oliver Ashford’s brother? He’s hemorrhaging on the operating table. He might not make it.” I dragged my luggage straight to the Ashford estate. My parents, my eldest sister, my youngest sister, and Seraphina Montgomery—the girl my little brother, Ollie, had adored since they were children—were all huddled around a red-eyed stranger. He was leaning into my mother’s arms, a medical IV patch still visible on the back of his hand. Everyone said he was the true Ashford heir. They told me that Ollie, the brother I had raised and cherished for nearly twenty years, was a “cuckoo in the nest.” An imposter who had stolen twenty years of another man’s life. They treated him like a debtor who had finally been caught. I asked one question: “Which hospital is Oliver in?” No one answered. I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “As long as he’s alive, I’ll play by your rules of logic,” I said, my voice echoing in the marble foyer. “But if he dies? No one sitting at this Ashford table will ever see a shred of mercy from me again.” 1 I stood in the doorway, my suitcase still cold from the airport air. My father, Arthur Ashford, sat at the head of the long mahogany table, his face a mask of granite. My mother, Eleanor, was cradling the stranger, her eyes swollen from crying. My eldest sister, Beatrice, stood by the window, her phone pressed to her ear. “Keep the media under control,” she barked. “I don’t want to see the words ‘organ donation,’ ‘accident,’ or ‘private clinic’ anywhere.” My youngest sister, Sienna, was kneeling by the sofa, offering the stranger a glass of warm water. And Seraphina was there, too. The girl Ollie used to follow around like a puppy. She was crouched in front of the stranger, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “Don’t be scared. None of this is your fault.” The stranger huddled deeper into my mother’s embrace. “If I hadn’t gotten sick, Oliver wouldn’t hate me so much.” “He’s just being radical,” Seraphina said immediately. I listened to that single sentence and felt something in me snap. I dropped my suitcase. “Where is Ollie?” Silence. Eleanor’s lips trembled. “Gabriel, you just got back. Sit down. There’s so much you don’t understand—” I looked her dead in the eye. “Address. Now.” Arthur frowned, his voice booming. “What is this attitude? This is Xavier. Your real brother. The DNA tests are conclusive. He is the Ashford bloodline.” I nodded slowly. “And where is Ollie?” Sienna jumped to her feet. “Gabriel, can you stop protecting him for one second? He’s a fraud! He stole Xavier’s life for twenty years. Now he’s just giving back a kidney to save Xavier. What’s unfair about that?” I turned my gaze to her. Twenty years old, and she spoke like she didn’t have a soul. “He is currently hemorrhaging on a surgical table.” Sienna flinched, but she doubled down. “That’s just his weak constitution. The doctors said the risk was manageable…” Slap. The sound echoed through the room. I hit her hard enough to turn her head. The living room fell into a deathly silence. I flexed my numb hand. “If I hear another word like that from you, I’ll make sure you never speak again.” The stranger—Xavier—burst into tears. “Gabriel, don’t blame Sienna. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have taken everything from Oliver…” I finally looked at him. “What did you say your name was?” “Xavier Ashford,” he whispered timidly. I smiled, though there was no warmth in it. “You better pray to whatever god you believe in that he stays alive.” Xavier turned pale. Beatrice stepped forward, her voice icy. “Gabriel, you don’t know the whole story. Oliver isn’t the sweet boy you remember. He grew jealous of Xavier. He did terrible things—allergies, pushing him down the stairs, stealing watches… we have the recordings. The evidence is all there.” “Evidence?” I looked at her. “Did you check the raw security footage? Did you trace the source files of the recordings? Did you audit the servants’ bank accounts?” She hesitated. Arthur waved a hand dismissively. “Discussing this now is pointless. Xavier was dying. The cross-match showed only Oliver was a fit. This family raised him for twenty years. It was only right that he gave something back.” I grabbed my suitcase and turned for the door. “Mercy-Crest Surgi-Center, right?” The nurse on the phone had whispered the name. I had only come to this house to confirm one thing. I wanted to see if they actually knew what they were doing. Now I knew. They knew everything. And they did it anyway. Eleanor chased after me, her voice shaking. “Gabriel, I know you love Ollie, but Xavier is your brother too. He suffered so much in the foster system…” I stopped at the door and looked back at her. “So your solution was to put your other son on a butcher’s block?” Her face went white. The rain was pouring outside. My driver held an umbrella, his hands shaking. “Sir, where to?” I pulled the door open. “Mercy-Crest. Now.” As the car pulled away, I dialed my lawyer. “Get a team to Mercy-Crest. Seal the medical records, the security footage, and the medication logs. Now.” I paused, watching the rain blur the city lights. “And call Dr. Mercer at the University Hospital. Tell him to prep an ICU bed.” “If he doesn’t make it,” I whispered into the phone, “notify the board. The Ashford empire is going into liquidation.” 2 Mercy-Crest was tucked away at the end of a secluded road in the West End. It was the kind of place where the wealthy went to hide their mistakes. By the time I arrived, Ollie was being wheeled out of the OR. His face was translucent, his lips devoid of color. He was a forest of tubes and wires. My blood ran cold. When I left five years ago, Ollie was eighteen. He had leaned against my car window, crying, trying to shove his savings into my hand. He told me London would be cold and I needed to buy extra coats. I had laughed, ruffled his hair, and handed him a membership card to his favorite bakery. “When I get back, we’re going to try the whole menu.” He had sniffled and nodded. “You better not lie to me, Gabe.” I hadn’t lied. I had the gifts. I had the contracts. I had five years of things I wanted to tell him. But his eyes were closed so tight I feared they’d never open again. A doctor blocked my path. “We need a signature for the transfer, but the costs and liability—” I snatched the pen and signed my name. “Transfer him. Now.” “He’s too unstable to move,” the doctor stammered. I looked at him, my gaze piercing. “Does this facility even have the accreditation for organ transplants? Where is the ethics committee clearance? Where is the voluntary consent form? Where is the psychological evaluation? And why does the anesthesia log start fifteen minutes after the incision time?” The nurse nearby lowered her head. I handed my phone to my assistant. “Get Dr. Mercer’s team here. Open a green lane. The lawyers will be here in thirty minutes. Secure every scrap of paper in this building.” An hour later, a real ambulance arrived. I rode in the back with him. Halfway there, Ollie drifted toward consciousness. His eyes didn’t open, but his fingers twitched. I grabbed his hand. It was ice. His lips moved, the sound so faint it barely existed. “Gabe…” My eyes burned. “I’m here, Ollie. I’m here. Don’t be scared. Big brother is back.” He seemed to hear me. A single tear rolled down his temple. After he was settled into the ICU, I stood in the hallway for a long time. Eventually, the rest of the Ashfords arrived. Arthur, Eleanor, Beatrice, Sienna, and Seraphina. Xavier was there too, sitting in a wheelchair, looking like a tragic Victorian waif. Eleanor saw me and started crying. “Gabriel, how is he?” “You have the nerve to ask?” The words pinned her to the spot. Arthur’s expression was dark. “This isn’t the time for a fight. Xavier still needs follow-up care. If they already harvested part of the tissue, the doctors said—” I let out a jagged laugh and walked right up to his face. “The boy is fighting for his life, and you’re still counting his organs for your ‘real’ son?” “Gabriel, don’t be crude,” Arthur hissed. “Xavier is very ill. Oliver has always been healthy. One kidney won’t kill him. We’ll compensate him.” “Compensate?” I nodded. “Tell me the price for one of yours, Dad. I’ll wire the money right now.” “Don’t be ridiculous!” Arthur snapped. I turned to Eleanor. “You signed the consent form, didn’t you?” Her face was ashen. “I… I’m his legal mother. The doctor said it was an emergency. Xavier was crashing. Oliver was being… difficult. He wouldn’t cooperate…” “He’s an adult,” I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous level. “If he didn’t cooperate, it means he didn’t consent.” Eleanor sobbed into her hands. “I just wanted to save Xavier. He’s suffered so much. I couldn’t lose him.” “So you decided to lose Ollie instead?” She had no answer. Seraphina finally spoke up. “Gabriel, I know you’re hurting. But Oliver has changed. I tried to talk to him before the surgery. I told him if he just did this for Xavier, everyone would finally see the good in him again.” I looked at her, remembering Ollie at sixteen. He had spent weeks knitting a scarf for her, his fingers covered in needle pricks, asking me if she’d like the color. He had loved her with every ounce of his clumsy, innocent heart. “He doesn’t need your ‘good,’ Seraphina,” I said. “He needed your trust. And you didn’t even give him that.” Her face stiffened. I turned my back on them and looked at my lawyer. “From this moment on, no one from the Ashford family is permitted to contact the patient without my express permission.” Sienna exploded. “On what grounds? He’s our family—” “The second you decided he ‘owed’ you his body, you stopped being his family.” I looked at the red mark still on her cheek. “From now on, his only next-of-kin is me.” 3 The ICU light stayed on all night. I sat in the waiting area, holding Ollie’s cracked phone, which I had recovered from the clinic. The screen was shattered, but the passcode hadn’t changed. It was my birthday. I opened his messages. Most of the ones at the top were addressed to me. None of them had been sent. Gabe, when are you coming home? Gabe, they moved me to the basement room. It’s a bit cold, but it’s okay. Gabe, Mom says Xavier is sick and I have to be the bigger person. Gabe, Seraphina won’t talk to me anymore. Gabe, why doesn’t anyone believe me? The last one was from three days ago. Gabe, I’m really scared. My thumb hovered over the screen. I couldn’t breathe. Around dawn, Mrs. Gable arrived. She had been the Ashford housekeeper for twenty years. She used to bake Ollie cookies when he scraped his knees. She stood before me, her hair much whiter than I remembered. “Master Gabriel.” I looked up. “How much do you know?” She collapsed to her knees, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what they did to Master Oliver.” I didn’t help her up. “Speak.” Between her sobs, the truth spilled out. Three months ago, Xavier was brought home. The day the DNA results came back, the house turned into a war zone. At first, they promised Ollie he would always be a son. But the shift was calculated. Xavier would complain he couldn’t sleep in the guest room because the memories of his “hard life” haunted him. So Eleanor moved Ollie out of the master suite. Ollie had stood in the hallway clutching a pillow, asking, “Mom, where do I go?” And Eleanor had said, “Just be patient, Ollie. Xavier needs to feel secure.” Then it was the clothes. Xavier said seeing Ollie’s designer wardrobe made him feel like an outsider. Arthur had the walk-in closet locked. Beatrice cut off his credit cards, saying he needed to learn “independence.” Sienna threw Ollie’s limited-edition collectibles into the trash, telling him, “You stole this life. You don’t deserve the perks.” Finally, even the guest room was gone. Xavier told them that hearing the servants call Ollie “Master” made him feel like a stranger in his own home. They moved Ollie into the servant’s quarters. In the basement. I closed my eyes. “Why didn’t he call me?” Mrs. Gable choked on her tears. “Miss Beatrice took his phone. I managed to get it back to him later, but they restricted the Wi-Fi. They told him if he bothered you while you were closing the London merger, they’d kick him out on the street immediately.” I let out a cold breath. They knew I would step in. So they gagged him first. “What about the ‘evidence’?” “It was all Master Xavier… no, it was him,” she said, spitting the name. The allergy incident? Xavier ate the almond cake himself and then planted the wrapper in Ollie’s bag. The stairs? There were no witnesses, but the maids were bribed to say they saw Ollie push him. The watch? Mrs. Gable saw a different maid slip it under Ollie’s pillow. And the recording. Ollie had said, “I never wanted you to die.” Xavier had edited it to: “Why won’t you just die?” My fingers turned ice-cold. “Do you have proof?” She looked up, clutching at hope. “The security mainframe was wiped, but the old manor system has an auto-backup in the pantry safe. I know the code. And… I took photos of the bank transfers to the other maids.” I looked at her. “Why tell me now?” She lowered her head. “I was scared. Mr. Ashford said if anyone talked, he’d ruin us. But the day they dragged Master Oliver to that clinic… he was crying for you, Gabriel. He kept calling your name.” She covered her face. “If I stayed silent, I wouldn’t be human.” I stayed quiet for a long time. Then I helped her up. “Thank you, Mrs. Gable.” As the sun began to rise, the doctor emerged. “He’s stabilized for now, but the infection risk is high. His kidney function is compromised. It’s going to be a long road.” I leaned against the wall and exhaled. Then I picked up my phone and called my CFO in London. “Halt all cash backflows to the headquarters. Effective immediately.” There was a shocked silence. “Sir, your father—” “From today, the international divisions answer only to me. And prepare the file on the headquarters’ misappropriation of the offshore reserves. We’re calling a board meeting.”

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1 The company organized a charity badminton tournament with a hundred-thousand-dollar cash prize for the winner. That was exactly what I needed to close the gap on the down payment for my first house. I played like a man possessed, clawing my way into the finals. My last opponent was a new hire, a kid named Xander Reed. “Hey, Miles, you’re a powerhouse,” Xander said, flashing a boyish, disarming grin. “You wouldn’t mind if I swapped partners for the final, would you? Just to even the scales?” My mind was already at the bank, signing the mortgage papers. I shrugged and agreed without a second thought. The next second, Lauren Prescott stepped onto the court, racquet in hand. Lauren—the woman who had rejected my request to team up just an hour earlier. She was a former Division I athlete, a state-level competitor who usually played with a cold, lethal precision. But in this casual office match, she spent the entire game “feeding” Xander—perfectly lofted shots that set him up for glory. During the final set, Xander leaped for a brutal, high-velocity smash. The shuttlecock didn’t hit the floor. It hit my right eye. The world went white, then dark. I lost all sensation except for a terrifying, hollow thud in my skull. “Oh man, I’m so sorry!” Xander stammered, his voice laced with a performative tremor. “I didn’t mean to… I was just trying that smash technique Lauren taught me…” Lauren’s voice was flat, clinical. “Injuries are a part of the game, Miles.” She didn’t move toward me. “Take a minute to clean up, then make sure you’re on time for Xander’s promotion dinner. It’s a big night for the team.” Through the searing pain, I felt something warm and thick seeping through my fingers. Blood. I finally realized it then: the match was over. I had lost. I set my racquet down on the court with a trembling hand. Suddenly, that house didn’t seem so important anymore. While I was at the urgent care clinic getting my eye patched, my phone buzzed incessantly. The department group chat was blowing up. “Where are you, Miles? We’re all at the bistro waiting for the guest of honor!” Xander followed up with a voice note, his tone sounding breathless and sweet. “Is Miles mad at me? I feel terrible… I just got caught up in the heat of the moment. But Lauren says holding back is the ultimate sign of disrespect to an opponent.” Then, a private message from Lauren: “Where are you? You’re Xander’s direct supervisor. If you don’t show up, it looks like you’re bitter. Don’t make this awkward for him.” I typed three words: On my way. Ten minutes later, I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the private dining room. Lauren, our Department Director, sat at the head of the table. Xander was tucked right next to her, their heads bowed in a private whisper. The room went dead silent when I walked in. Xander flinched, knocking over his glass of sparkling water. “Miles… your eye…” He looked like he was on the verge of tears. “It’s all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.” Lauren looked up. Her gaze was distant, almost annoyed. “Is it serious?” I shook my head. She tracked the movement, her brow furrowing slightly. “If it’s not serious, don’t be melodramatic. Xander is new; don’t put that kind of weight on his shoulders. He’s already been beating himself up all afternoon.” The air in the room turned brittle. A colleague tried to break the tension. “Miles is probably just worried about infection. It’s the eye, after all. Xander has been a wreck since the game.” Lauren cut him off, her eyes fixed on Xander with a softness I hadn’t seen in years. “Young talent is easily spooked in this industry. Miles, watch your tone next time. We don’t want to stifle him.” I nodded and took the only seat left—the drafty spot right by the service entrance. “Miles, seriously, are you okay?” someone whispered. I took a shaky breath. “It’s manageable.” It wasn’t. I needed surgery to repair a torn retina. It was scheduled for three days from now. Xander sniffed, then suddenly stood up. He walked all the way around the long table to stand over me. “Miles, please. Can I just see it? I need to know you’re okay so I can stop shaking.” “It’s fine, Xander. Leave it.” But he was already reaching out. Before I could pull back, he peeled the edge of the gauze away. The table gasped. My right eye was a swollen, dark mess of bruised purple and antibiotic ointment. Xander froze, then forced a shaky smile. “Oh, wow. I mean, it looks scary, but it’s just a surface bruise, right? Thank God. I thought I’d really done damage. I was so scared I’d lose my job.” He turned and ran out of the room, seemingly overwhelmed. The table erupted in low snickers and murmurs. “Talk about an overreaction,” one guy chuckled. “Miles, you really went for the full mummy wrap for a scratch? You nearly gave the kid a heart attack.” “Seriously, it looks like theatrical makeup. You’re really leaning into the victim role, aren’t you?” Lauren stood up, grabbing her coat to follow Xander. The room started gossiping the moment the door swung shut. “Did you see how protective she is? The ‘Ice Queen’ actually has a heart.” “I’ve never seen her that gentle with anyone. Especially not with Miles.” Bitterness surged in my throat, sharper than the pain in my eye. Lauren and I had been together for five years. Five years of secret late-night dinners and stolen weekends because she said we were “on the rise” and couldn’t afford a HR scandal. I had played the loyal subordinate perfectly. I wondered when, exactly, she had decided to take on a “pupil.” We waited thirty minutes for her to return. She never did. Instead, she posted a single message in the group chat: “Go ahead and eat without us. Xander is pretty shaken up. I’m driving him home.” 2 After the dinner, I went back to the hospital. The night nurse frowned as she changed my dressing. “It’s worse. Did you put pressure on this?” “It was… bumped,” I muttered. “Look, Miles,” she said, her voice dropping. “Badminton shuttlecocks are light, but at that speed? This wasn’t just an accident. This looks like someone was aiming for you. The eye is fragile.” I stayed silent. “Two days until the procedure. Do you have someone to take you home? You’ll be under heavy sedation.” I shook my head. Lauren wouldn’t be there. When I got home, the living room lights were on. Lauren was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through her iPad. She didn’t look up with concern; she looked up with a sneer of “here we go again.” “How long are you going to keep this up, Miles?” “Keep what up?” “The drama. You lost a game. If you wanted the hundred grand that badly, I would have just given it to you. You don’t need to bully a kid who’s been here for two weeks.” My eyes stung. I remembered the nurse’s warning: No crying. Pressure is the enemy. I tilted my head back and breathed through the urge. She walked over, looming over me. “Take that bandage off before you come into the office tomorrow. You look like a war casualty. People think he’s a monster because of your theatrics. He’s just started his career—how is he supposed to survive that reputation?” “Lauren, my eye needs—” “Enough,” she snapped. “It’s sports. You’ve been playing for years. Are you really going to act like a toddler until midnight?” The explanation died in my throat. “When did you start mentoring him? You never mentioned it.” “A friend of a friend,” she said dismissively, turning back to her files. I recognized the documents. It was the R&D project I’d spent the last three months pullng all-nighters for. My ticket to a VP title. “I’m giving this project to Xander,” she said. “What?” “He needs the win for his quarterly KPIs. And since your eye is ‘so bad,’ you should take it easy. Focus on your recovery.” It took a moment to find my voice. “No. I designed the architecture. I wrote every line of that proposal. You can’t just hand it over.” Lauren’s face darkened. “I’m the Director. I just did.” I turned toward the bedroom, grabbing a duffel bag and some pajamas. When I came back out, Lauren was on the balcony, her voice a low, melodic coo into her phone. “He’s fine, Xander. Don’t let it keep you up. Just get some sleep, okay? See you in the morning.” She saw me with the pillow and blanket under my arm, and her eyes turned to ice. “Miles, you’re not a kid anymore. We’re supposed to be moving to the next stage of our lives. Can you stop being so damn petty?” Last month, on her birthday, I’d cooked a five-course meal. She’d gotten a little tipsy and asked me to marry her. I had wept with relief, thinking our five-year marathon was finally reaching a beautiful finish line. “By the way,” she added, “the house you liked on the waterfront? Someone else put in a cash offer. It’s gone. We’ll find something else.” I didn’t say a word. I just walked into the guest room and locked the door. “Miles! What is wrong with you?” she yelled through the wood. The next morning at the stand-up meeting, Lauren bypassed me entirely. She announced Xander as the lead on the new project. “If you have technical questions, feel free to consult Miles,” she added. Xander smirked, his eyes darting past me to linger on Lauren. “Can I just come straight to you, Lauren? I don’t want to bother Miles while he’s… healing.” The room went still. No one spoke to Lauren Prescott like that in a formal meeting. To everyone’s shock, Lauren smiled. “Of course you can.” Xander’s face flushed a triumphant red. 3 After the meeting, Xander tagged me in the public Slack channel. “@Miles, I’m not familiar with these legacy data sets. Can you compile a summary and send them over by EOD?” “No,” I typed back. “If you’re the Lead, learn the architecture. Ask questions when you’ve done the reading.” Xander sat at his desk, biting his lip, looking like a kicked puppy. In the breakroom, the whispers were already starting. “Miles is being so cold. Xander is just a junior.” “He’s just bitter about the project. Classic gatekeeping.” “I mean, look at that bandage. It’s a scratch. He’s using it to justify being a jerk.” I walked past them, my face a mask. After lunch, Lauren returned from a meeting. Xander immediately scurried into her office with a stack of files. Moments later, Lauren marched to my desk and dropped the files in front of me. “Validate these numbers. I want them on my desk by noon tomorrow.” “Lauren, I told you, my eye—” “Minor trauma doesn’t affect your ability to read a spreadsheet,” she cut me off. “If you can’t do your job, we need to talk about your performance review.” It was a standard directive from a boss to a subordinate. On paper, she was within her rights. I had no choice. As the office emptied out that evening, Xander stopped by my cubicle. “Rough night, Miles? Make sure those numbers are perfect. My mentor doesn’t like mistakes.” By 10 PM, the office was a tomb. Only the lights above my desk remained on. My left eye was straining, and my right eye felt like it was being poked with hot needles. I don’t know how much time passed before the sharp, stabbing pain returned. I pressed my hand against the gauze. It came away hot and wet. Blood was streaming down my cheek, spotting my white dress shirt. Lauren stepped out of her office, coat in hand. She saw my face and gasped. “Miles—” “Oh my God!” Xander was standing at the door, two cups of coffee hitting the floor and splattering. “Miles, why are you bleeding again? Please, stop doing this to me! I said I was sorry!” Lauren’s step toward me faltered. She looked at Xander’s panicked face, then back at me. “It’s fine. Xander, go home,” she said. “Lauren, the hallway is so dark… can you walk me to the garage?” Xander pleaded, his voice trembling. Lauren didn’t hesitate. She took his arm and led him out. As they turned the corner, Xander tripped on the spilled coffee, and Lauren caught him, her hands steady on his waist. I turned back to my monitor, the red droplets blurring on the screen. When Lauren finally came back, I had cleaned myself up. She stood over me, watching me pack my bag. “What happened?” “The stitches popped,” I said. She stared at me for a few beats, her expression unreadable. “Fine. Just go home. We’ll finish this later.” She reached for my hand. But Xander appeared in the doorway again. “Lauren, I forgot to give you your late-night snack…” I pulled my hand away before she could touch me. I grabbed my bag and walked past her without a word. In the elevator, I caught my reflection in the stainless steel. White gauze, a swollen face, bloodstains on my collar. I looked pathetic. A ghost of the man I used to be. Looking at that tired, broken reflection, my good eye finally filled with tears. I was done. I had given up on the house. Now, I was giving up on Lauren. 4 The next morning, I woke up with a fever of 102. My eye was throbbing in time with my pulse. After filing for a medical leave of absence, I stepped out into the living room. Lauren was gone. The house felt like a tomb. I ate some stale cereal, swallowed a fever reducer with cold water, and fell back into a restless sleep. I was awoken by my phone vibrating violently. The project group chat was a war zone. 99+ messages. “Our competitor just published their new R&D roadmap on LinkedIn. It’s an exact mirror of the project Miles was working on.” “The data sets are identical. Even the trend charts—I recognize the formatting. Miles did those.” I sat up, the room spinning. “Everyone stay calm,” I typed. “Check the server logs. Someone needs to pull the raw data from the lab computers.” The chat went silent. Then, Xander tagged me. “Miles, how could you? You leaked our work to the competition just to spite me? That is pathetic. You’re sabotaging all of our hard work because you’re jealous.” My blood ran cold. “Xander, if you have proof, call HR. Otherwise, that’s defamation.” “You’re the only one with the encryption keys, Miles. And you were ‘working late’ alone last night right before this happened. How convenient.” I didn’t wait. I threw on a hoodie and drove to the office. My computer was already taped off. Lauren was in her office, her face a mask of fury behind a cloud of cigarette smoke—a habit she only indulged when she was truly livid. “Miles. What did they offer you?” She didn’t ask if I did it. She didn’t ask for my side. She just wanted to know my price. “It wasn’t me, Lauren.” She stood up, leaning over her desk. “You’ve been a manager for two years. You wanted a promotion? You could have just asked. Instead, you sold us out?” “Lauren, look at me. I was sick. I’ve been in agony. I didn’t—” “You’re suspended,” she snapped. “Pending a full investigation. By the end of the year, you’ll be lucky to have a job as a junior technician. Xander is more capable than you’ll ever be. From now on, you report to him.” I took a long, slow breath. The cord had finally snapped. I reached down, unclipped my security badge, and placed it on her desk. As I walked out, the entire office stared. Xander was standing by the water cooler, a smirk playing on his lips. “Losing with dignity is an art, Miles,” he whispered as I passed. “A man who loses his career and his character… well, he doesn’t deserve to stand next to someone like Lauren.” He didn’t knock. He just walked right into her office—a place I’d had to earn the right to enter over half a decade. I went to my desk and took only one thing: a small ceramic doll I’d kept in the corner. I had bought it for Lauren years ago, but she’d left it on my desk, saying it didn’t fit her “aesthetic.” I went home and called a moving company. By sunset, everything I owned was packed and headed to my parents’ place in another state. I turned off the light I had kept burning for her for five years, and I didn’t look back.

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I was the “pretty prop” of the team—the useless ornamental piece in a high-stakes, lethal simulation. To survive, I spent every waking second desperate to please my teammates. I ate the smallest rations, did the grunt work no one else wanted, and allowed myself to be used as live bait whenever the situation turned south. But they never liked me. Their hearts were reserved for the team’s darling, Lulu. On the ninety-ninth time they abandoned me to face certain death while they rushed to protect her, something inside me finally snapped. The weight of the world felt too heavy, and I was simply… done. I stepped off the edge of the abyss, plummeting into the dark. I didn’t want a miracle; I just wanted the silence of the end. But a monster from the deep caught me. “Are you… are you the bride… the one they sent for me…?” 1 Left behind. Again. I dragged my battered body toward the edge of the ravine, my breath hitching in my chest with every staggered step. It wasn’t just a cliff; it was a jagged, bottomless scar in the earth, choked with a thick, swirling mist that echoed with the guttural cries of things that shouldn’t exist. I didn’t care about the noises anymore. I didn’t care about the shadows. I only cared about the edge. “Warning: Toxicity levels have exceeded 87%. Vitality is dropping. Estimated time of survival: Seven days.” The System’s cold, mechanical voice pulsed inside my skull. I shook my head, a dry, hollow laugh escaping my cracked lips. “I’m not making it to seven days, System,” I whispered. “I’m checking out early.” Death wasn’t a threat anymore. It was a promotion. It was the only way to finally be free of them. I lifted my foot, stepping into the void. For a heartbeat, the wind roared, lashing at my bloody face, cold and biting. And then, through the gale, I heard Jax’s voice. 2 “Do you have any idea how long we’ve been looking for you?” Jax stepped through the thicket, his face twisted in a mask of pure irritation as he hacked away the brush with his machete. “I told you—if we get separated, you stay put. Why do you always have to wander off and make things difficult?” He stopped about ten feet away, his arms crossed. “Your only job is to be the lure, and you can’t even do that without causing a headache. Come on. Get up. We’re heading back.” Habit took over for a second. I almost forced a smile, almost tried to explain that if I hadn’t “wandered off,” the pack of shadow-hounds would have torn me to ribbons while they were busy shielding Lulu. But then I realized I didn’t have to explain anything. I had spent two years playing the part of the devoted servant. To them, I was just the jealous, petty shadow of Lulu, constantly “competing” for a shred of their attention. Every time the floor gave way, I was the one they let fall. Fine. I’d fall all the way this time. “I’m not going back,” I said. I didn’t smile. I didn’t plead. My voice was as flat as the horizon. “The System says I’m dying anyway. I’m resigning from the team. I’m choosing to end it here.” 3 Jax froze, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. He looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. Then, his lip curled into a familiar sneer. “God, you’re such a drama queen,” he spat, looking away in disgust. “Is this your new way of getting attention? Everyone’s dealing with the mist, Rowan. We’re all fine, but suddenly you’re ‘dying’? Do you really think we’re that stupid?” He took a step toward me, his face darkening. “Look, we forgot you for a second today. I get it. But stop throwing a tantrum. How long are you going to keep trying to compete with Lulu? It’s pathetic.” When I didn’t move, he reached out to grab my arm, his hand like a vice. I stepped back, dancing on the very lip of the precipice. “I said I’m not going back, Jax.” His expression shifted from annoyance to pure rage. “Fine! You want to die? Go ahead! Go tell the Captain. If Gideon says you can quit, then I don’t give a damn where you rot—” I didn’t wait for him to finish. I simply leaned back. Gravity took me. The world rushed upward, the sky shrinking into a narrow ribbon of grey. Jax’s sudden, panicked scream echoed through the canyon, but I didn’t listen. I closed my eyes, the roar of the wind in my ears sounding like a lullaby. Finally. Darkness. 4 I don’t know how long I was out. When I woke, I wasn’t on cold stone. I was lying on something shifting—thick, pulsing vines that moved like a bed of snakes. Cold, slick tendrils began to coil around my ankles, slowly creeping up my legs, binding me to the earth. In the gloom ahead, a massive, twisted ancient tree loomed, its bark looking like distorted faces frozen in a scream. The sheer aura of predatory power coming from it made my heart hammer against my ribs. “Bride…” A voice, raspy and young, like someone who hadn’t spoken in centuries, drifted from the shadows. It was a low, abyssal hum that made my skin crawl. “Is it… the bride? Sent from above…?” I shivered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. I hadn’t died. I had landed in the heart of a nightmare’s nest. “So beautiful…” the voice whispered. “I like it…” The vines suddenly jerked, dragging me across the mulch toward the massive trunk. The monster—whatever it was—nuzzled its tendrils against my cheek, humming with a terrifying, rhythmic excitement. “Pretty wife… so soft… so much better than the others… I want to eat you… I want to keep you…” 5 My eyes snapped wide. Tears, hot and uncontrollable, began to flood down my face. Two years in this hellish game, and I had been treated like garbage by the humans I called “family.” I had been mocked, ignored, and discarded. And now, at the very end, the only thing in this entire world that actually wanted me… was a monster. My chest heaved. I let out a broken, jagged sob, turning my head away in shame. “Thank you,” I choked out. “If you’re going to eat me… please, just make it fast. I’m so tired of hurting.” The massive tree seemed to flinch. The movement of the vines stopped. “No… no crying…” the voice rasped, sounding genuinely distressed. A delicate, purple flower sprouted from one of the vines, brushing against my cheek to wipe away a tear. “Don’t eat… won’t eat you… Wife… please, don’t cry…” The vines began to shift again, but this time they weren’t binding me. They were lifting me, carrying me with a strange, clumsy tenderness toward the light far above. “Sending you… back…” Before I could process what was happening, the vines thrust me upward through a hidden crevice. I stumbled onto the solid ground of the forest floor, gasping for air. I scrambled back to the edge, looking down into the mist, my heart aching with a weird, misplaced grief. But then, a whip cracked through the air, wrapping around my waist like a serpent and yanking me backward. It was the Frost-Bolt Whip. It was Gideon. 6 Gideon retracted the whip with a flick of his wrist. He didn’t look at me as I sprawled on the dirt; he just glanced at Jax. “So this is the ‘suicide’ you were screaming about?” Nearby, Rhett leaned against a tree, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. “Wow. Our little porcelain doll is actually playing the martyr now. How dramatic.” Jax was still panting, his face red with a mix of leftover fear and rising fury. He stared at me, his eyes burning with accusation. “You played me,” he growled, stepping over and hauling me up by my collar. “You knew there was a ledge down there. You knew it wasn’t a real drop! You staged the whole thing just to make me look like a fool, didn’t you? All that talk about ‘not having many days left’—you’re just desperate for us to pay attention to you again.” He squeezed my throat, my feet dangling off the ground. I clawed at his hand, gasping. “I… I didn’t… lie…” Jax let out a harsh, cold laugh. “Still acting?” Rhett sighed, checking his nails. “Put him down, Jax. Let Lulu check him. We don’t want him claiming we ‘abused’ him later.” As if on cue, Lulu stepped out from behind a tree, skipping slightly, her wide eyes full of forced innocence. 6 (cont.) “Rowan is perfectly fine!” Lulu chirped, her voice like sugar-coated poison. “I just used my ‘Aura Scan’ skill. His vitals are stable, and there isn’t a trace of toxin in his system. Jax, don’t be mad at him. It’s our fault for being so protective of me today. Rowan just felt left out, so he made up a story. He’s just scared.” Lulu closed her eyes, clasping her hands in prayer. A soft, white halo shimmered above her head. “Oh, may the Heavens forgive your lies, Rowan.” Looking at her—the picture of pure, unadulterated “goodness”—Jax’s anger seemed to evaporate into a weary sigh. He dropped me like a piece of trash. “You disgust me,” Jax muttered, turning his back on me. I curled into a ball on the dirt, clutching my chest where the hidden poison was already beginning to liquefy my insides. Despite the agony, I started to laugh. It was a small, broken sound. I looked up at Lulu, my eyes cold. “The one who needs to pray for forgiveness isn’t me, Lulu. It’s you.” 7 When we first entered this game, things weren’t like this. We were a team. Then, I awakened a passive skill: Allure. Because of my appearance, the game gave me a natural buff that made NPCs and creatures more likely to be well-disposed toward me. But in Lulu’s mouth, that skill became a weapon. The day our former Captain, Shaw, died, she stood before the team, sobbing. “Rowan’s skill… it’s not just for monsters. He can manipulate people into loving him. Captain Shaw didn’t die for the mission—he died because Rowan charmed him into throwing his life away.” In that moment, everything changed. They started looking at me with suspicion, then resentment, then hatred. Every time we faced a boss, I was the one pushed to the front to “charm” the beast while they stood back. I would burn through my mental energy, keeping the monster at bay while they swooped in for the kill and then walked away from me as if I were a plague-bearer. Lulu’s lies built a wall between us, stone by stone, until I was the villain in their story—the manipulative, “pretty” little snake. No matter how much I tried to help, the narrative was already written. 8 “Say whatever you want,” I said, trembling as I forced myself to stand. “I’m leaving the team. Where I go and how I die is none of your business anymore.” Lulu’s lip quivered, and she looked at Gideon with watery eyes. Gideon immediately stepped into my path. “What is your problem?” he asked, his voice like ice. He looked at my hand clutching my chest and scoffed. “A cheap trick. Only Jax was stupid enough to fall for it. Let me be clear: if you keep acting this out, you’d better actually die. Otherwise, this performance is going to have a very ugly ending.” I didn’t answer. I just tried to walk around him. Gideon’s hand twitched, reaching for me, but he stopped himself—as if he were afraid that touching my skin would somehow “infect” him with my supposed filth. Instead, he used his whip to bar my way. “Fine,” Gideon said, tossing a small injector of anti-toxin at my feet. “If you’re done with the drama, pick that up and get in line. You can leave the team after we finish this sector. Until then, you will fulfill your obligations as a member.” His eyes were dead. “Rowan, my patience is gone. Stop acting like a spoiled child.” 9 Once, I would have scrambled for that injector. I would have thanked him with tears in my eyes, desperate for even a crumb of his approval. But now, I just looked at the silver tube rolling in the dirt. I felt nothing but a vast, empty silence. According to the rules of The Weeping Woods, once the toxicity level hits 60%, standard injectors are useless. They might dull the pain for a minute, but the rot is already in the bone. “I don’t need it,” I said. I looked up at him, matching his coldness with a blank stare of my own. “Keep it for yourself.” Gideon froze. For a split second, I saw something flicker in his eyes—a tiny, sharp spark of confusion. Maybe even a hint of alarm. 10 He recovered instantly. “Suit yourself. We don’t have enough resources to waste on dead weight anyway.” He turned to the others. “Move out. Rhett, watch him.” “With pleasure,” Rhett drawled. He reached down, picked up the anti-toxin I had rejected, and tucked it into Lulu’s pocket. “This is better off with our Lulu anyway. She’s the one actually doing work.” Lulu looked at me with faux-concern. “But… shouldn’t he…?” “Forget him,” Rhett said, giving me a rough shove in the small of my back. “Move it, little actor.” I stumbled, nearly falling over my own feet. Behind me, I heard Rhett’s lazy chuckle. “Ha. Look at that. Still faking the limp.” I didn’t argue. I just stared at the path ahead, my heart throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. Suddenly, a purple petal drifted from the canopy above, brushing softly against my cheek like a ghost’s kiss. I caught it in my palm and looked back. In the distance, hidden by the fog, a massive wall of vines was blooming with vibrant, violet flowers. 11 The hours that followed were a blur of agony. Because Rhett was “babysitting” me, I couldn’t even try to end it. Every time I lagged, he’d make a comment about my “performance” or my “pathological need for attention.” He didn’t realize that I wasn’t looking for attention. I was looking for an exit. By the third day, the toxicity hit 93%. I collapsed into the mud, my lungs burning as I gasped for air that felt like liquid lead. The others barely glanced back. “Damn it, the mist is getting thicker,” Jax complained, wiping sweat from his brow. “How much further to the Heart of the Woods?” He looked at Lulu, his voice instantly softening. “You okay, Lu? Want to take five?” Lulu nodded, pouting about how tired her legs were. The team immediately called for a break. “Here,” Jax said, tossing a dry protein bar at me before hurrying back to Lulu’s side. “Oh! We have beef jerky today! And lemon drops!” Lulu cheered. She glanced over at me, a small, triumphant glint in her eyes. I leaned against a mossy trunk, the smell of food making my stomach turn. While they were busy laughing and sharing their “premium” rations, I dragged myself into the shadows and disappeared. 12 Deep in the woods, I found a black pond. The water was as still as a mirror, dark as obsidian. I took off my boots and waded in, inch by inch. As the cold water rose to my waist, I heard a sound—a boy’s clear, bright laughter. I blinked, and the world shifted. The mist evaporated, the water turned crystal clear, and the sound of birdsong filled the air. A teenage boy sat by the water’s edge, smiling at the fish. “Hello there, little ones,” he whispered. I realized with a jolt that this was a phantom memory—a lingering echo of a world that existed before the game took over. I tried to reach out to him, but the vision shattered. The sky turned black. The pond surged, turning a sickly, visceral red. Pale, severed limbs bobbed to the surface. I scrambled back, falling into the mud. A shadow coalesced behind me, wrapping its cool, dark arms around my shoulders. I heard that same raspy voice I’d heard at the bottom of the ravine. “Don’t die in the cold water,” the shadow whispered. “Die in my arms instead… Wife.” 13 The Heart of the Woods. According to the lore our team had collected, the original guardian of this forest was a sixteen-year-old boy named Silas. Legend said he had tried to stop poachers from killing the sacred deer. In their rage, they had drowned him in this very pond and dismembered his body. His left eye and lower half were thrown into the water. His upper body was buried beneath the Great Tree. Since then, the mountain had been swallowed by mist. To appease his spirit, the local villagers used to sacrifice a “bride” every year, throwing them into the ravine. But the curse never broke. 14 “Are you… the Guardian?” I asked, my voice trembling. The shadow hummed, a shower of dead leaves falling from his form. “I… forgot. I have been here so long. So lonely. Until you fell.” He buried his face in the crook of my neck. “For the first time, I want something. I want to keep you.” He squeezed me tighter. “Stay with me. Let the vines grow over us. In the spring, I will grow the most beautiful flowers around your head. In the summer, I will shade you with my leaves. In the autumn, I will bring you the sweetest berries. And in the winter… I will wrap myself around you so tight that you will never feel the cold.” I listened to him, and for the first time in years, a strange warmth filled the hollow space in my chest. “That sounds… actually quite nice,” I whispered, a genuine smile touching my lips. We were both monsters, in a way. Both discarded. If the end meant sleeping beneath a great tree, protected from the world, it wasn’t a bad way to go. “Take me now, then,” I said. Silas didn’t answer. A sudden gust of wind blew through the clearing, carrying Jax’s distant, angry shouting. The shadow dissolved into a pile of dry leaves, vanishing before the team could find me.

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1 It all started with those four words Cormac sent right before he vanished into the deep: “I want to go home.” For five years, Elena took over his mantle as a deep-sea salvage expert, scouring those same dark waters for any trace of him. She searched until her own luck ran out. As her husband and the executor of her estate, the lawyer sat me down after the accident. “Mrs. Rhodes revised her will fourteen times,” he said, his voice as dry as the parchment in his hands. “The final version has one specific directive.” He looked at me with a mix of pity and professional detachment. “She left her entire estate to you, Brooks. But she requested—no, she mandated—that she be buried in the same plot as Cormac Prescott.” At the funeral, the air was thick with the scent of lilies and hushed scandals. People whispered as they passed the two caskets. “What a tragedy,” a woman murmured. “They were so perfectly matched. Soulmates, really.” Elena’s parents didn’t even try to hide their resentment. Her mother’s face was a mask of grief and fury as she hissed at me, “If it weren’t for you and that ridiculous engagement, they would have been together years ago. None of this would have happened.” I stared at the twin headstones. I thought about those fourteen revisions. The only thing she never changed was the requirement to be buried with him. In the final version, she had mentioned me exactly once—a footnote at the very beginning. I realized then that no matter how hard I ran to catch up to them, I was never written into their ending. I was just the static between their frequencies. After the service, my car hydroplaned on the rain-slicked highway. As the world spun into a blur of metal and glass, I didn’t feel afraid. I felt a strange, hollow sense of relief. Then, I woke up. The air was salty, humid, and smelled of expensive sunblock. I was standing on a pier. Walking a few paces ahead of me were Elena and Cormac. I took a long, shaky breath. This was the island trip—the one right before Cormac’s “disappearance” in my previous life. Cormac noticed I’d slowed down. He turned back, waving a hand with that effortless, boyish charm that always made me feel small. “Hey, Brooks! Move it or lose it!” Elena stood beside him. She was wearing the cerulean beach dress I’d picked out for her, but standing next to Cormac in his blue-and-white linen shirt, they looked like a curated set. A matching pair. I silently zipped up my windbreaker, hiding the pale yellow shirt I wore underneath—a color that felt suddenly, jarringly out of place. “Come on,” Cormac teased, his voice full of that playful energy Elena loved. “The zoo closes at five, and I want to see the lions!” Elena gave him a fond, indulgent smile. When she looked at me, her expression shifted into a silent, impatient urge to keep up. She had completely forgotten. This trip was supposed to be our getaway—the one we’d talked about for a year. I’d spent months pulling double shifts to clear a week of vacation, booked the flights the second they went on sale, and fought for the reservation at the resort. But six hours into the trip, Cormac had “accidentally” shown up at the same hotel. Our romantic getaway had instantly become a trio. When I finally caught up to them, Elena reached out and ruffled my hair, a gesture that felt more like she was petting a golden retriever than greeting a fiancé. “You’re so lethargic today. What’s up?” “Nothing,” I said, my voice flat. “Just the sun.” She didn’t push. She immediately turned back to Cormac to discuss the itinerary. They both loved “optimized” living—every vacation was a series of tactical strikes on tourist attractions. Listening to them debate the best route to the exhibit, I suddenly spoke up. “I’m going back to the hotel.” Elena didn’t even look up from the map. “Brooks, don’t mess with the schedule. We’ve only got three hours.” She caught herself and blinked, finally looking at me. I usually followed her lead without question. I was the “easygoing” one, the one who didn’t mind if my plans were overwritten by Cormac’s “better” ideas. But the weight of a lifetime of being second-best was pressing down on my chest. I turned to walk away. Elena grabbed my wrist, her grip firm. “What is wrong with you today? We agreed yesterday that Cormac’s plan was better. It’s more efficient.” My arm felt trapped in her hold. A familiar sense of powerlessness washed over me. In Elena’s world, Cormac’s way was the gold standard. Whether it was choosing a career path, buying groceries, or planning a wedding, “Cormac suggested” was the final word. Elena’s tone sharpened as she kept prodding me for an explanation. I didn’t want to argue. I just pulled off my sun-shirt. “I have a UV allergy,” I said. “Can I go now?” My arms and neck, which I’d neglected to coat in sunblock while worrying about their luggage, were covered in angry, raised red welts. Elena’s grip loosened instantly. Cormac let out a dramatic gasp. “Man, I didn’t know it was that bad! Why didn’t you say something?” I forced a thin smile. In my last life, I hadn’t been allergic. But after two hours of chasing Cormac’s “optimized” walking tour in the midday heat, my body was literally rejecting this life. “We came all this way,” Cormac said, his voice dropping into a dejected pout. “This sucks.” Elena frowned, her eyes darting between Cormac’s disappointment and my ruined skin. Suddenly, she pulled me toward the taxi stand. “Cormac, go to the zoo. I’ll take him back to the room and get him settled.” I was stunned. “I can take a cab by myself, Elena.” She gave a soft, dismissive laugh. “Don’t be silly. I’d worry too much.” As we drove away, leaving Cormac standing on the curb, a surreal feeling settled over me. For the first time in my memory, I wasn’t the one being left behind. Back at the hotel, Elena went out to find a pharmacy. I followed her to the door, wanting to offer a genuine thank you for choosing me for once. But through the cracked door, I heard her on the phone. Her voice was that low, intimate honey-tone she usually reserved for me in our early days. “Don’t worry about him, Cor. Just keep going. You’ve been looking forward to the big cat exhibit for weeks. Don’t let this ruin your mood.” She turned and saw me. She didn’t look guilty, just slightly surprised. “Why aren’t you resting?” I looked down at my feet, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh bubbling up in my throat. Why did I think anything had changed? “Go find Cormac,” I said. “I’m fine now.” She tightened her grip on the bag of ointment she’d just bought. “Brooks, don’t start. I’m your fiancée. I’m here, aren’t I?” “I’m serious, Elena. Go.” She studied me for a long beat, searching for the usual flash of hurt or anger. Finding none, she set the medicine on the nightstand. “Okay. Make sure you use the cream.” I nodded. “I’ll bring you back some fresh coconut water,” she added, her voice lighter now that the obligation was lifted. That night, she didn’t come back to the room. I turned on the local cable channel and saw them. It was a “Couple’s Challenge” hosted by the island’s tourism board at the beach pier. They were tearing through the obstacles with terrifying synchronicity. At the final stage, the host’s voice boomed over the speakers: “And for the grand prize, our leaders just need to share a three-minute kiss!” I felt my heart contract. On the screen, Elena and Cormac shared a look. It was electric. I couldn’t tell who moved first, but in a heartbeat, they were locked together. It wasn’t a staged kiss for a prize. It was desperate, hungry, and lingering. The crowd went wild. The host was gushing, “This pair is incredible! They look like they’re enjoying the process more than the prize!” I snapped the TV off. The black screen reflected my pale, ghostly face. When they finally returned, they saw the TV was warm. Cormac looked frantic, his words tripping over each other. “Brooks, man, that show… it was so physical. We knew you weren’t up for it with the rash, so we didn’t want to make you feel bad by asking.” Elena just nodded, her face calm. “You wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway. You don’t really get the competitive side of things.” She’d used that line on me a thousand times. You wouldn’t get it. She used it to explain why I wasn’t invited to their late-night “brainstorming” sessions, why she only went skydiving with him, why their inside jokes felt like a wall I couldn’t climb. “Whatever you say,” I replied quietly. Elena sighed and pulled a small shell bracelet from her pocket. “Stop being moody. We did the whole thing just to get you this. I know you like the local crafts.” Cormac beamed. “Yeah! We both thought it was totally your style.” The shells were beautiful, sure. But it was a participation trophy. The actual grand prize for that contest was a five-course candlelight dinner and a night in the honeymoon suite. They didn’t mention that. Elena ran her fingers through my hair, leaning in close. “I just want you to be happy, Brooks. To get everything you want.” Her voice was so sincere, so reminiscent of the woman I’d fallen in love with three years ago. Back then, she didn’t think I was “simple.” Back then, she loved my slow pace. On her twenty-fifth birthday, she’d given me a hand-polished pearl bracelet she’d made herself. She’d made a wish: To give Brooks a hundred more gifts. But then she started asking Cormac what I liked. Slowly, every gift for me came with a “thank you” gift for Cormac. Then the gifts were the same. Then, eventually, the gifts stopped coming to me at all. Until our wedding day in the last life. Cormac had promised me a “wedding gift” I’d never forget. I waited for it all morning, only to find out the gift was his “disappearance”—a deep-sea dive he took because he “couldn’t bear” to see us wed. From that day on, Elena blamed me for his death. I never received another gift from her. But every year on Cormac’s birthday, she’d bring a beautifully wrapped package to his cenotaph. Now, as she whispered in my ear, asking what else I wanted, I reached down and unclasped the shell bracelet. “I want to break up,” I said. The room went tomb-quiet. Cormac was the first to find his voice, his tone trembling. “Are you mad at me, Brooks? It was just a game. We didn’t mean anything by the kiss.” I didn’t look at him. Elena opened her mouth to speak, but Cormac suddenly burst into tears and ran out of the room. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her eyes darting toward me, and then she bolted after him. I followed them at a distance, my footsteps silent on the carpeted hall. I found them on the balcony. Elena was holding him, his face buried in her neck, completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing right there. “It’s my fault,” Cormac sobbed. “I shouldn’t have pushed her to enter. Brooks saw… he knows. He’ll never forgive us.” Elena stroked his back, her voice a soothing murmur. “It’s okay. He’s just sensitive. Give him a few days, I’ll talk him around.” “But what about the wedding? What if he leaves?” Elena paused. “I’m going to marry him, Cormac. But you’re the one I belong to. He’s… he’s steady. He’s simple. He’s not going anywhere. He doesn’t have the heart to leave us.” I felt my breath hitch. Suddenly, a memory from the first timeline clicked into place—a piece of a puzzle I’d been too blind to see. At our wedding rehearsal dinner in the previous life, everyone had been drinking heavily. Elena had walked Cormac to his car while the rest of the wedding party trailed behind. I’d been standing in the shadows when I heard one of her bridesmaids laugh. “I can’t believe she’s actually going through with it. Brooks is such a downgrade from Cormac. He’s so… bland.” Another friend had chimed in, “Well, you marry the boring ones for stability, right? He’s a ‘safe harbor.’ Besides, the guy is so oblivious, she could do anything and he’d just smile and say thank you.” I had stood there, frozen. I’d seen Elena turn around, her face a mask of shock, and she’d actually slapped the girl. But the damage was done. I spent the next five years trying to be less “bland.” I changed my clothes, my hobbies, my hair. I tried to mirror Cormac. The first time Elena saw the “new” me, she had frozen. She’d smiled, but it was a brittle, pained thing. “You look… different. It’s good to try new styles, I guess.” I’d ignored the itching of the expensive wool suits and the heavy watches, thinking I was winning. But after Cormac died, she’d snapped. She’d thrown a heavy glass ashtray at my head, screaming, “Do you think you can replace him? Do you have any idea how pathetic you look trying to mimic a dead man?” The scar on my hairline still throbbed in phantom pain. Everyone had hated me. Elena’s parents blamed me for their “surrogate son’s” death. My own parents thought I was the interloper who broke up a perfect pair. Elena’s friends treated me like a ghost at my own table. And yet, Cormac had chosen to dive. Elena had chosen to propose to me. I was just the tool they used to punish each other. I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone. I called my father. “Dad,” I said, “I’m calling off the wedding.” My father didn’t ask if I was okay. He barked, “Do you have any idea how that makes Cormac look? People will think he’s a homewrecker! Think about the family’s reputation!” I was stunned. “What about my happiness, Dad?” “You’ve always been the resilient one, Brooks. You’ll get over it in a week. Cormac is sensitive. He can’t handle this kind of drama.” I hung up. Everyone assumed I didn’t care because I didn’t scream. But I remembered everything. I remembered being the “easy” child who was ignored while Cormac (our neighbor and my parents’ favorite) was celebrated. I remembered the look of hollow longing on Elena’s face as we said our vows. I walked to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket off the island. On the way, I called a realtor. I wanted to sell the house—the one we’d bought together for our future. But since the deed hadn’t been finalized, I needed to file for a title search. I spent hours at the County Clerk’s office. When I finally got to the window and handed over my paperwork, the clerk frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rhodes. You don’t have the standing to request this.” I blinked. “I don’t understand. I paid half the down payment.” The clerk shook her head and pushed the papers back. “The property is not registered in your name, sir.” I stepped out of line, my mind a white void. I called a friend in real estate to dig deeper. While I waited, Elena’s texts started flooding in. I ignored them. Finally, the call came. “Brooks… the house. It’s not in your name. Or Elena’s.” My heart plummeted. “Then whose is it?”

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1 It wasn’t until they saw the pregnant women and toddlers of the village torn open, their insides spilled across the frozen dirt, that the hunters finally believed me. The wolves hadn’t just stayed in the woods. They had come for us. As the men stood staring at the tufts of wolf fur matted with raw human flesh, these hardened survivors—men I had known my whole life—completely shattered. “Chief! You told us she was just being a jealous bitch!” one of them wailed, his voice cracking with a primal agony. “You said she made up the wolf sightings just to keep you from clearing the perimeter spikes! You said she wanted to ruin your moonlit hike with Serena! Now my wife is dead, and the wolves… they tore the baby right out of her!” Garrett Miller stood there, his entire body convulsing. He couldn’t even grip his hunting bow; it clattered onto the ice at his feet. I looked at the village entrance, now stained a deep, pulsing crimson, and I closed my eyes. In my previous life, during that brutal winter of the Great Hunt, Garrett—the man I called my husband and the leader of this ridge—had dismantled our only defense. He had pulled the iron wolf-stakes from the main trail just so his “golden girl,” his childhood sweetheart Serena, could walk to the overlook without scratching her delicate ankles. He had taken every able-bodied hunter to stand guard for her, leaving the village a buffet. In that life, I was the one who set our own house on fire. I used the blaze and my own scorched flesh to drive the pack back, saving what was left of the town. But Serena, startled by a stray rabbit during her romantic moon-gaze, tripped and fell down a ravine, scarring her beautiful face. When Garrett returned, he didn’t see a hero. He saw a monster. While I lay unconscious, my body covered in third-degree burns from saving his people, he systematically cut the tendons in my wrists and ankles. He dragged me to the edge of a wolf den in the deep woods and threw me in like trash. “You were so jealous of Serena’s beauty that you set that fire to lure the beasts and disfigure her,” he had hissed, his eyes cold as the permafrost. “If you love wolves so much, go ahead and feed them.” But the universe granted me a cruel mercy. I woke up. I was back at the beginning of that night. This time, if he wanted to tear down the walls for his mistress, I would let him. I wouldn’t be the shield anymore. The sound of a distant howl pierced through my consciousness, dragging me out of a nightmare filled with the scent of copper and wet fur. In my past life, the heavy doors of the community hall had been breached. The wolves had poured in, turning the sanctuary into a slaughterhouse. I had crawled to Garrett’s feet, begging him to help, only for him to sever my nerves and leave me for the pack. All because Serena had cried, claiming I had “lured” the wolves in to hurt her. I opened my eyes. I was back in our cabin. The hearth was still warm. I grabbed a torch from the wall and reached for my boot. Tucked inside was a short, serrated hunting knife. In my last life, I only remembered it was there as I was dying. This time, it felt like an extension of my own hand. I slipped a longer blade into my coat—one I’d hidden earlier that day. God hadn’t brought me back to be a martyr. He’d brought me back to survive. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! I hammered an old brass pot with all my might. The village dogs started barking first, a frantic, rhythmic alarm. One by one, cabin doors swung open. “What the hell is going on?” “It’s the middle of the night, Cassidy! Put that damn thing away!” “Are you losing your mind?” My mother-in-law, Evelyn Miller, stormed out of her room, her coat draped haphazardly over her shoulders, her face twisted in a sneer. “What is wrong with you? People are trying to sleep!” I ignored her, holding my torch high toward the main trailhead—the artery that led from the mountains directly into our village. The light flickered over a gap in the snow. The iron wolf-stakes, the ones meant to impale anything charging down that path, were gone. A clean, empty strip of snow remained. That path led straight to the Starlight Pavilion. It was also the fastest route for a hungry pack. Sarah, the blacksmith’s wife, clutched her toddler to her chest. Her knees buckled, and she sank into the slush. “Where are the spikes? Who pulled the perimeter?” Silence fell over the women. From the dark treeline, another howl echoed. This one was closer. Much closer. The women huddled at the edge of the clearing, their faces pale under the orange torchlight. “Where are the men? Where’s Jackson?” Sarah whimpered. “I just had the baby. He said he was on patrol tonight!” I caught a scent on the wind—a cloying, sugary sweetness. It was sickly, metallic. It wasn’t perfume. I recognized it from the moment I died at the mouth of the wolf den. Back then, I hadn’t understood it. Later, an old trapper told me about “Apex Lure”—a pheromone mix that smelled sweet to humans but acted like a dinner bell for predators when mixed with fresh blood. I looked at the gap in the defenses and let out a cold, hollow laugh. “Garrett cleared the path,” I said, my voice cutting through the wind. “Serena wanted to see the moon from the pavilion tonight, and he didn’t want her tripping on the spikes. He took the entire patrol, the crossbows, and the lamp oil to play bodyguard for her while she looks at the stars.” Sarah’s mouth hung open. She looked down at her child, her fingers trembling. “He pulled the spikes? For her?” Evelyn lunged at me, grabbing my arm. “Don’t you dare lie about my son! You’re just bitter because he’s actually showing Serena some affection for once!” I looked down at her hand, then back at her. “Believe what you want, Evelyn. The wolves will be here in a minute to settle the argument.” Her grip loosened just a fraction. She turned toward the mountain and began screaming into the dark. “That little tramp! I knew she was trouble, dragging Garrett around like a lost puppy! She’s going to get us all killed!” Maddie, Garrett’s younger sister, ran out with only one boot on. She was barely fifteen. In my last life, she died under the community hall altar, her face half-gone. “Cassidy, is it true? Did he really take everyone?” I looked at her. “Yes.” She bit her lip, her eyes wide with terror. At the edge of the woods, a dozen pairs of glowing green eyes emerged from the shadows. Someone screamed. “Wolves! Run!” “To the Town Hall! The doors are the thickest there!” I grabbed Sarah by the shoulder. “Don’t just run!” I raised my voice, commanding the panic. “Elders and children inside first! Younger women, start moving the heavy tables against the doors! Get every heater, every log, every drop of cooking oil we have! Line the back windows with fire! And for God’s sake, do not go back to your houses for supplies! If you’re alone, you’re dead!” The crowd was a mess of sobbing women and wailing children. I slammed my brass pot onto the ground with a deafening crack. “Listen to me if you want to live!” The chill in my voice finally cut through their hysteria. They moved. Pregnant women were ushered in; grandfathers were hauled over shoulders. I led a group of women to barricade the main entrance with heavy oak dressers and water barrels. We lined the back windows with basins of burning oil. When the first green eyes approached the glass, the heat pushed them back—for now. I knew this wouldn’t be enough. In my last life, they hammered at the doors for hours until the wood splintered. But this time, I was going to buy us every second I could. Once the bolt was thrown, the air in the hall became thick with the smell of fear. Women were praying, muffling their children’s cries. Evelyn gripped my arm so hard she left bruises. “You have to go out there,” she hissed. I looked at her, incredulous. “You’re the Chief’s wife! Go find him! He’ll come back for you!” I peeled her fingers off me, one by one. “Three months ago, he brought Serena back to this ridge. Since then, every time I open my mouth, he calls me a ‘jealous shrew.’ You think he’s going to listen to me now?” Evelyn stammered, then puffed out her chest. “You have to try! You married into this family! You eat our food! You’re going to let us all die while you sit here safe?” I looked at her, the irony tasting like ash. “Funny, Evelyn. Two days ago, when I brought extra grain to the hall, you called me wasteful. Yesterday, when I begged Garrett not to pull the spikes, you told the whole town I was ‘cursing the ridge.’ And now, suddenly, I’m the Chief’s wife again?” She flinched. “Stop bringing up the past! Garrett is just… enchanted by her. He still cares about you.” I adjusted the knife at my hip. “Save that speech for the wolves.” A scratching sound started at the door. Scritch. Scritch. The room went silent. Every heart stopped. I turned to Maddie. “You’re fast, and you know the side trails. Go to the overlook. But do not go into the pavilion.” Maddie froze. I pressed a tuft of bloody wolf fur into her hand—something I’d snatched from the snow earlier. “Show this to Garrett. Tell him the perimeter is breached and the pack is in the village. If he doesn’t believe you, come back immediately. Do not argue with him. Do not plead.” Maddie’s eyes welled up. “He loves me, Cassidy. He’ll come back.” I looked at her with a pity she didn’t yet understand. “Just remember: don’t kneel, don’t beg, and don’t die for a man who isn’t there.” She nodded and slipped out the high back window, her slight frame disappearing into the white void of the storm. A moment later, the scratching at the door stopped. Then came the first heavy, bone-jarring thud. 2 The first hit was so hard a portrait of the town’s founders fell off the wall and shattered. A mother pressed her infant’s face into her chest, her own shoulders heaving with silent sobs. I pointed to the women who looked the most composed. “You, watch the back windows. Keep those oil basins high. Sarah, get the kids behind the stage. Block them in with the pews. Mrs. Gable, pour the oil three feet from the door. Not all of it—wait until they get through the first layer of wood.” Someone whispered, “Cassidy, can we really hold them off?” I didn’t lie. “Not all night.” The silence that followed was suffocating. “That’s why I’m going to the neighboring settlement for help,” I said. Evelyn immediately shrieked, “You can’t leave us!” I turned on her. “I thought you wanted me to go find your son?” She shut her mouth. I grabbed a backup crossbow from the wall and tucked the long knife into my belt. “Maddie went to the overlook. I’m going to Miller’s Creek. If either of us makes it, you have a chance.” Sarah grabbed my hand, her eyes red. “Cassidy… please.” I squeezed her hand and climbed toward the window. Fifteen minutes later, there was a thud at the back window. “She’s back!” “Did she bring them?” “Help her up!” Maddie tumbled back inside, covered in slush, one boot missing. Her left cheek was swollen, a dark purple handprint clearly visible against her pale skin. The cheering died instantly. Maddie looked up, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry…” She buried her face in her hands. “He won’t come.” Evelyn staggered back. “That’s impossible.” Sarah grabbed Maddie’s shoulders. “Why? Why won’t he come? His own family is in here!” Maddie shook as she spoke. “He said… he said I was in on the ‘prank.’ He said Cassidy told me to lie to him just to ruin Serena’s night.” She opened her hand to show the bloody fur. “I showed him this. Serena laughed. She said Cassidy probably killed a dog just to get the fur to trick him. She told Garrett that I was being ‘manipulated’ by a jealous wife.” Maddie’s voice turned into a sob. “Garrett hit me. He told me to go home and tell Cassidy that she’s pathetic.” The room felt like it had lost all oxygen. “He said the overlook is ‘tactically sound,’” Maddie choked out. “He said he has sentinels on the ridge and if there were real wolves, they would have fired the red signal flares by now.” I closed my eyes. The flares. In my last life, I found out too late. Garrett had confiscated all the signal flares and took them to the pavilion because Serena “hated the smell of sulfur” and didn’t want the “noisy tubes” near the village. The door bolt splintered. A shard of oak sliced Sarah’s cheek. “The door is giving!” someone screamed. I turned to Mrs. Gable. “Light it!” She tossed a torch into the oil. A wall of fire erupted just inside the door. The snarling on the other side turned into yelps of pain as the wolves backed off. But I knew the oil wouldn’t last. I slung the crossbow over my shoulder. “I’m going to Miller’s Creek.” Sarah nodded, her jaw set. Evelyn’s lips trembled, but when I looked at her, she finally looked away. “If you try to stop me again,” I told her, “you can go find your son yourself.” I climbed out the back window. Behind the hall, an old mare was tethered in the shed. In my last life, I hadn’t taken her. I had tried to run to the overlook on foot, only for Garrett’s men to catch me and break my limbs. Not this time. I swung onto the horse and kicked her into a gallop. We charged into the black, snowy night, heading for the only people who might still have their humanity. 3 The mare’s hooves had barely hit the main fork in the road when a tripwire snapped taut beneath the snow. The horse shrieked as her legs were swept out from under her. I was launched into the air, my forehead slamming into the frozen ground. Warm blood began to trickle down my brow, stinging my eyes. A group of men stepped out from behind the pines. Leading them was Jackson, Garrett’s right-hand man. He held a hunting rifle, looking down at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. “The Chief was right,” Jackson said. “He knew you’d try to run to the neighbors to spread your lies.” I pushed myself up, dizzy. “Jackson! The pack is in the village! Your wife and your newborn son are barricaded in the Town Hall! Get back there now!” Jackson’s face flickered. The mention of his son hit a nerve. “Jackson,” a younger hunter whispered, “maybe we should check?” Jackson’s grip on the rifle tightened. “Your son is exactly one month old today,” I hissed. “He’s wearing that little cedar charm you carved for him. The one with the ‘J’ on it.” Panic finally flared in Jackson’s eyes. But then, the man behind him held up a signal flare tube. “Jackson, look. The overlook sentinels just checked in. No red smoke. The Chief said she’d use the baby to manipulate you.” I stared at the flare tube. It was pristine. The seal hadn’t been broken. “It’s a lie,” I whispered. “Look at the tube, Jackson. If they had fired a flare, there would be carbon scoring on the rim. You’ve been a hunter for fifteen years—you really can’t see that it hasn’t been fired?” The hunter holding the tube instinctively looked at the tip. Jackson, embarrassed and angry, kicked out at me. I rolled, but his heavy boot caught me in the ribs. I gasped, the air leaving my lungs. My fingers brushed the snow, searching for my knife. “I’m not lying!” I wheezed. “The fire barricade won’t hold forever! If you don’t go back, you won’t even have a body to bury!” Jackson grabbed me by the hair, hauling me up. “Shut up!” His eyes were bloodshot. He was terrified, and that terror was turning into rage. “The Chief has been hunting since he was ten. You think he wouldn’t know if a pack was down? He saved my life three times. I trust him. I don’t trust a wife who can’t handle her husband looking at another woman.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Garrett saved you, so you’re going to let him murder your son?” Jackson’s hand shook. “Jackson, come on,” the other hunter urged. “The Chief said if she makes a scene at the next settlement, it’ll ruin Serena’s reputation. We have to bring her in.” I laughed, a wet, bloody sound. “You men are fascinating. Your families are screaming for help behind a wooden door, and here you are, protecting the ‘reputation’ of a mistress.” Jackson’s face turned purple. He pressed the barrel of his rifle against my forehead. “The Chief said if you caused trouble, we should bring you to the overlook so you can watch Serena be ‘honored’ by the village.” I looked down at the snow. “Go back, Jackson. Maybe you’ll get there in time to find a piece of your son’s blanket.” “You bitch!” He raised his hand to strike me again. I reached for the long knife in my coat, but the other hunter tackled me, pinning my arms. “She’s armed, Jackson!” They stripped the long blade from me and tossed it into the woods. Jackson didn’t find the short serrated knife hidden in my boot. It stayed pressed against my ankle—my last resort. He tied my hands behind my back with rough hemp rope, pulling it until the skin broke. “Load her up,” Jackson barked. I was tossed onto the back of a horse like a carcass. “Jackson, if the village really is…” the younger hunter started. Jackson turned and backhanded him. “You doubting the Chief now?” But Jackson’s voice was an octave lower than it had been before. He climbed onto his horse and looked at me with cold spite. “You’re going to sit in the snow and watch, Cassidy. You’re going to watch Serena sit by the Chief’s side, and you’re going to realize you’ve lost.” I turned my head toward the village. Through the wind, I heard a sickening crack. The sound of a door bolt failing. Or a bone. 4 The bonfire at the overlook was roaring. By the time the smell of roasting meat reached me, the blood on my forehead had frozen into a dark crust. Garrett was sitting by the fire, draped in a white fox-fur coat that he was currently wrapping around Serena’s shoulders. Serena huddled into him, sipping warm cider. When she saw me being dragged in, her eyes went wide and tearful. She covered her mouth with a delicate hand. “Oh, Cassidy… what happened to your face?” She leaned closer into Garrett. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t wanted to see the moon, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to ruin it.” Jackson shoved me onto my knees in the snow. My kneecaps hit a buried rock, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Garrett looked down at me, his brow furrowed in deep, performative disappointment. “Cassidy. To think you’d stoop so low as to try and provoke the neighboring settlements just for a little attention.” I spat blood onto the snow. “Garrett, the Town Hall is being breached. If you take the men back right now, you might save some of them.” Garrett stood up and walked toward me. He tilted my chin up with the toe of his boot. “Still playing the part? You’re committed, I’ll give you that.” I stared up at him. “Send one man. Just one, to look down the ridge.” Garrett hesitated for a split second. Serena immediately started coughing—a frail, racking sound that made her shoulders shake. “Garrett, please don’t fight with her because of me,” she sobbed, tears spilling over. “I know I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have asked for this. I’ll just go. If a wolf catches me on the dark trail, then at least Cassidy will be happy.” Garrett’s face hardened. He turned and delivered a stinging slap across my face. My head snapped to the side. My ears rang. “I am sick of your theatrics, Cassidy! The more you lie, the more disgusted I am by the sight of you!” I looked at him, my vision blurring. “Your mother is in that hall.” Serena grabbed his sleeve. “Garrett, your mother has the whole village with her. She’s fine. And like you said, if anything was wrong, the sentinels would have fired the red smoke.” That was all it took. Garrett’s lingering doubt vanished. “Jackson, tie her to the windward tree,” Garrett commanded. “Use the thickest rope. No one unties her tonight. Let her sit in the cold and think about how malicious she’s become.” Jackson didn’t meet my eyes. “Yes, Chief.” He dragged me to a lone pine at the edge of the cliff. The wind whipped across the ridge, biting into my skin. The rope bit into my shoulders, grinding against the bone. I looked at Garrett one last time. “You chose this spot because it’s sheltered from the wind and the sound, Garrett. The mountain blocks the screams from the valley. Do you really not know that, or do you just not want to hear them?” “Gag her,” Garrett barked. Jackson stuffed a strip of cloth into my mouth. Near the fire, two young hunters were laughing, holding their mugs. “The Chief’s wife has finally lost it. Imagine being so jealous of Serena that you’d claim there’s a wolf pack.” “Serena’s got soft feet,” another laughed. “The Chief cleared the spikes for her—so what? Nothing’s happened in this village for ten years. Cassidy’s just looking for an excuse to be the victim.” I closed my eyes and listened to the wind. They thought the disaster was miles away. They didn’t realize it was already closing its jaws around the throats of everyone they loved. In the dead of night, the wind shifted. Faint sounds began to drift up from the valley. High-pitched whistles. Screams. The sound of wood splintering. But the wind was too strong, and the bonfire was too loud. Garrett’s “Starlight Pavilion” worked exactly as intended: it was a bubble of ignorance. Only I knew that those sounds were the ends of lives. As dawn began to grey the sky, the fire died down. Serena rested her head on Garrett’s shoulder. “Garrett, I wish every day could be like this.” Garrett kissed her forehead. “It will be.” I almost laughed behind my gag. In the future. They were actually talking about a future. Jackson finally untied me when the sun broke the horizon. My wrists were blue, and my feet were numb. Garrett didn’t even look at me. “Back to the village,” he ordered. Serena leaned on his arm. “Cassidy’s been out here all night. I’m sure she’s learned her lesson, right?” I said nothing. Some lessons are only taught by corpses. The group began the hike down, laughing and sharing stories from the night before. But as we rounded the final bend into the village entrance, the laughter died. The sight waiting for them was a landscape of blackened wood, shattered furniture, and overturned basins. And the bodies. Oh, the bodies. They were everywhere—disemboweled, torn apart, and half-eaten in the snow.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “555691”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 My girlfriend’s idea was as reckless as it was “extreme.” She called it a “limit-testing survival trek”—no water, no food, just our own grit against the mountain. The rest of the group jumped at the chance, their faces lit with the kind of adrenaline only the sheltered can afford. I hesitated, my gut twisting, until Tyler clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Miller. Where’s your sense of adventure? Do it for us. What do you say?” Sydney, my girlfriend, didn’t even bother to hide her annoyance. Her voice was sharp, a jagged edge in the morning air. “Grant, why are you always the one to kill the vibe?” So, I caved. I always caved back then. On the day of the hike, Sydney insisted we lock our phones in a locker at the trailhead. “To prevent anyone from cheating with Apple Pay,” she’d said, eyes gleaming with a manic sort of purity. But later, when our throats were screaming for moisture and the sun was a hammer against our skulls, they all pulled out crumpled wads of cash. Every single one of them. They bought ice-cold bottles of water and sandwiches at the mid-way supply station while I stood there, parched and confused. When I asked how they could do it, Sydney just looked at me with a sneer that made my blood run cold. “We said we wouldn’t bring supplies, Grant. We never said we couldn’t buy them. If your brain is too slow to figure that out, that’s on you.” I collapsed from dehydration a mile later. They didn’t give me a single drop. They didn’t even call for help. They just stepped over my body and kept walking. “You need to feel the pain to learn the lesson,” Sydney had whispered, her voice devoid of mercy. “We’re doing this for your own good.” By the time a park ranger found me, my skin was a map of third-degree burns. My left arm was so badly charred from lying on the sun-baked rock that the surgeons had to take it at the elbow. But then, I opened my eyes. And I was back. Back to the day they first proposed the “survival hike.” This time, I didn’t hesitate. I looked Sydney in the eye and smiled. “Sure. I’m in.” If they wanted a lesson in suffering, I was more than happy to be the teacher. After all, it was for their own good, wasn’t it? As soon as the words left my mouth, Tyler Hudson—my “best friend”—gave me a look of mock concern. “Now remember, Grant, no food, no water. Total self-reliance. We’re all responsible for our own survival out there.” I looked at him, feigning confusion. “Self-reliance? But none of us are bringing anything, right? Even if I wanted to ask for help, nobody would have anything to give.” The moment the words hit the air, Sydney, her brother Mason Blackwood, and her best friend Becca Reed all burst into laughter. They nodded frantically, exchanging looks I now understood with sickening clarity. “Exactly! See, Tyler? Grant’s way ahead of you. He doesn’t need your reminders.” Tyler gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes—a dark, knowing thing. “Right. My mistake.” Sydney pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “Since we’re all in, sign this.” It was the same liability waiver from the first time. A “Gentleman’s Agreement,” they called it. It stated that as a competent adult, I took full legal responsibility for my own safety. Back then, I’d been confused. It’s just a hike, Sydney. Why the legal drama? But they’d pressured me until I signed my life away. Now, I looked at the familiar lines of text and gently pushed the paper back toward her. Sydney’s expression soured instantly. “What? Are you backing out already?” I raised an eyebrow, my voice calm. “Not at all. But if the five of us are doing this as a group, shouldn’t everyone sign? Everyone gets a copy. Your safety is your responsibility, and mine is mine. I shouldn’t be held liable if one of you trips and falls.” Becca laughed, a shrill, mocking sound. “We’re going to be perfectly fine, Grant. You should worry about yourself.” I tilted my head, studying her. “You sound so confident. It’s almost like you have a secret way to cheat that you haven’t told me about.” The laughter died. Panic flitted across their faces like a shadow. Becca’s mouth stayed open, but no sound came out. Sydney shot her a warning glare. “Grant has a point,” Sydney said, her voice tight. “It’s a group activity. We should all sign.” Mason ran to a nearby print shop and returned with four more copies. Sydney, Mason, Tyler, and Becca all signed their names with a flourish. I tucked a signed copy into my backpack and turned to leave. “Eat up and hydrate tonight, buddy,” Tyler called out, his voice dripping with false camaraderie. “You won’t be tasting a drop of anything tomorrow.” I nodded. “Thanks. You guys do the same.” The sound of their collective snickering followed me all the way to my car. In my previous life, the day of the hike was a furnace—104 degrees in the shade. The sun didn’t just shine; it punished. My throat had felt like it was lined with sandpaper, and every swallow felt like a blade. When we hit the supply station, they had turned their backs on me to buy Gatorade and sandwiches. “I thought the rule was no food or drink?” I had gasped, my vision blurring. Tyler had just smirked. “We said we wouldn’t bring anything. We never said we wouldn’t eat.” “But our phones… we locked them up,” I’d stuttered. And then, like a choreographed magic trick, they pulled out their wallets. “Cash, Grant. Did you seriously not bring cash? Man, I guess you’ll just have to watch us.” I’d thought it was a joke. A cruel, hazing-style prank. Until Sydney walked over to me, unscrewed a cap, and held the bottle to my lips. When I reached for it, she yanked it away, her face a mask of mockery. “You didn’t actually think I’d let you cheat, did you? We made a deal. Self-reliance, remember?” The betrayal had hurt more than the thirst. When I tried to ask the shop owner for help, they literally dragged me out of the store. When the owner looked suspicious, Sydney threw her arms around me, muffling my mouth with a fake, loving embrace. Tyler had waved at the owner, his voice like honey. “He’s just being a drama queen! We’re messing with him—I bought two bottles, see?” He shoved a bottle into my hand, and the owner, satisfied, went back inside. As soon as we were around the bend, Sydney ripped the bottle from my hand and poured the water onto the dusty earth. “You said you’d do it on your own. Don’t be a cheater.” I had lunged for the bottle, but only caught the empty plastic. Their laughter rang in my ears as the heat began to melt my consciousness. I took a deep breath, forcing the memory back into the dark. I opened my laptop and went to a forum I’d bookmarked—a place where people did things for the right price. I sent an anonymous message. [Need four wallets lifted. Can you do it?] The reply was instant. [Five grand. Half now, half when it’s done. Give me the time and place.] After the arrangements were made, I checked our group chat. Sydney and the others were posting “hype” emojis about tomorrow. I smiled to myself and typed: I’m really looking forward to this. The chat exploded with laughing emojis. I silenced my phone, packed a hidden wad of cash in my sock, and went to sleep. The next morning, we met at the trailhead of Black Ridge—a brutal, isolated path that saw more vultures than hikers. At the locker, Sydney pulled out her phone and waved it like a trophy. “Phones in the locker, everyone. We don’t want anyone tempted to use Apple Pay when the going gets tough!” Tyler laughed, tossing his phone in. “I wonder who’s going to crack first. Not me.” Mason and Becca followed suit, grinning like kids in on a secret. Behind them, a man in a nondescript baseball cap moved through the small crowd near the trailhead. I stepped up to Sydney and handed over my phone. While everyone was focused on my “compliance,” the man in the cap brushed past them. His hands moved with the practiced fluidness of a shadow. Sydney didn’t feel a thing. She locked the door and smiled at me. “I thought you might put up a fight.” I shrugged. “I’m a man of my word.” We started the ascent. Tyler raised his voice, loud enough for the trees to hear. “Man, it’s getting hot already. What if someone gets thirsty?” Mason chuckled. “Don’t worry, Tyler. Some of us are prepared for anything.” I looked at them, my expression innocent. “Prepared? I thought the whole point was that we brought nothing.” Mason took a patronizing tone. “What we’re prepared with is none of your business, Grant. It’s survival of the fittest out here. Everyone for themselves.” Sydney added, her voice cold as ice, “Exactly. This is a personal test. I’m not helping you today, Grant. No matter what happens, don’t try to guilt-trip me just because I’m your girlfriend.” In my last life, she’d said those exact words. And she’d meant them. She’d walked right past my unconscious body. Stop acting, she’d said then. Your acting is terrible. I told you, no water. I’m doing this to build your character. I pulled myself back to the present and nodded seriously. “You’re right, Sydney. And I won’t help you, either. No matter what happens, don’t try to use our relationship to guilt-trip me.” Sydney threw her head back and laughed. “Me? Needing your help? Focus on surviving the next hour, Grant.” Mason and Becca joined in, their laughter echoing off the canyon walls. As we climbed, the sun moved into its zenith, a white-hot eye staring us down. My throat began to constrict, the air feeling like fire in my lungs. Sydney, leading the pack, pointed ahead. “Look! The supply station!” Tyler and Mason cheered. “Finally! My throat is killing me.” I looked at them, feigning bewilderment. “So what? I thought the challenge was to climb without food or drink?” Becca rolled her eyes. “Grant, are you deaf? We said we wouldn’t bring supplies. We never said we couldn’t buy them at the station.” My voice went even more confused. “But our phones are at the bottom. How are you going to buy anything?” Tyler smirked. “I guess some people just don’t know how to plan ahead.” They shared a look of triumph as Sydney stepped onto the porch of the small wooden shack. I followed them inside. The smell of air conditioning and cold sugar was intoxicating. They went straight for the coolers. “What are you doing?” I asked, standing in the center of the shop. “You don’t have your phones.” Sydney pulled a face. “Who needs a phone when you have cash?” Tyler grinned at me, tapping his pocket. “We all brought cash, Grant. It’s called being prepared. Man… you look like you’re dying. You didn’t bring any, did you? Sydney, can I buy him a water?” Sydney’s eyes went hard. “A rule is a rule, Tyler. Are you trying to help him cheat?” Tyler shrugged at me. “Sorry, buddy. Looks like you’re just going to have to watch us.” I turned to Sydney. “Isn’t buying things a violation? That’s why we locked the phones away, right?” They answered in unison, their voices dripping with contempt. “Who said buying is a violation? We said digital payments were the violation! This is a test of survival without technology. If you had cash, you could buy something too. Nobody’s stopping you.” Mason sighed, shaking his head. “Sydney, your boyfriend is a total moron. He has zero adaptability.” Sydney grabbed a bottle of Fuji water and waved it in front of my face. “Since you didn’t bring money, you’re just going to have to stay thirsty. Don’t look at me for help. We’re on our own.” I nodded slowly and sat down on a wooden bench. “On our own. I can live with that.” They laughed, turning their backs on me. Tyler leaned into Sydney, his voice a stage whisper. “Watch. In five minutes, he’s going to be on his knees begging us. ‘Sydney, baby, please, I’m your boyfriend…’ it’s going to be pathetic.” Sydney made a gagging sound. “Ugh, I can’t stand it when he acts weak. If he begs, I’m ignoring him.” “And me? What am I, a saint? I’m not giving him a drop,” Tyler added. I watched them walk to the counter, their faces glowing with smug satisfaction. “Separate checks, please,” Sydney told the owner. “We’re all about self-reliance today. No cheating.” They glanced back at me one last time, their hands diving into their pockets. Sydney’s hand fumbled. Her expression shifted from triumph to confusion. She patted her other pocket. Then her back pockets. Her face went pale. “My money… where is it?” She turned her pockets inside out. Nothing but a crumpled tissue. Mason rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, Syd. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached. Fine, I’ll cover you.” He looked at me, a cruel glint in his eye. “She’s family, so it doesn’t count as cheating.” He reached into his pocket. His hand froze. His jaw dropped. “What the…” Tyler and Becca started franticly patting themselves down. High-pitched gasps filled the small shop. “My wallet! It’s gone!” “Mine too! Everything’s gone!” I sat there, chin in my hand, watching the panic set in. In my last life, they had looked so powerful when they pulled out that cash. In this life, they looked like cornered animals. As their expressions twisted into masks of desperation, I stood up. I walked to the shelf, picked up a cold bottle of water and a protein bar, and walked to the counter. Under their stunned gazes, I reached into my sock, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to the owner. “Keep the change,” I said.

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