Author: Momo Chan

The glory of the World Championship win had barely settled when a man I once refused to sign stormed up to me, eyes burning with hatred. Surrounded by reporters, he angrily accused me of match-fixing. “If you hadn’t taken dirty money and undercut me, I’d be holding that trophy!” he shouted, yanking up his sweatpants to reveal a carbon-fiber prosthetic leg. The reporters erupted. Flashbulbs exploded as they shouted, “You belong in prison!” I raised my hands. “This is a misunderstanding.” “A misunderstanding?” He threw a medical report at me. “Two years ago today, in that playoff game—were you or were you not Kieran?” My stomach dropped. My name is Kieran, and I was involved—but as the head coach. I never stepped on the court. He took my silence as guilt. “You ruined my life!” he screamed. “I’ll make you pay!” The cruel irony: that day, I wasn’t even at the arena. An obsessed fan had drugged me, filmed me unconscious, and blackmailed me. But what stunned me most was his “witness.” “My girlfriend saw everything!” he yelled. “I won’t let you walk away with that trophy!” I looked at the woman beside him, clinging to his arm. My blood ran cold. It was her—the same fan who had ruined me two years ago. 1 When the woman finally got a good look at my face, a flash of pure panic and guilt crossed her eyes. Unfortunately, the crippled player completely missed her silent freak-out. He just pulled her forward, playing directly to the cameras. “I have been with my girl for seven years. Her biggest dream in the world was to see me win a championship.” “She dressed up that day, sitting in the bleachers with so much hope, just to watch me play. And what happened? Kieran maliciously stepped under my feet while I was shooting a three-pointer. My ankle shattered so badly they had to amputate. He killed my entire career in a split second!” He even held up a hospital billing statement. Under the ‘Guarantor for Medical Expenses’ section, my name was printed in black and white. Kieran. But that was because I was the coach of the opposing team. Naturally, I stepped up to cover the injured player’s medical bills out of basic human decency. I reached out, trying to pat his shoulder. “Bro, hold on a second. I am incredibly sorry about what happened to you, but you have the wrong guy.” “The wrong guy? You think you can just write off my ruined life as a misunderstanding?!” Tears streamed down his face. He looked completely unhinged as he roared at me. “My name is Silas! The Silas whose life you completely destroyed!” “If a monster like you gets to be crowned a World Champion, I would rather die right here to prove my innocence!” The media crowd gasped collectively. Every single camera lens pivoted directly to my face. The reporters were practically foaming at the mouth with righteous indignation. “Kieran, you know exactly how vital a player’s legs are. What exactly possessed you to do something so sick?” “Nobody would joke about losing a limb! Have you no conscience? Are you really going to stand there and deny it?” How the hell was I supposed to confess to something I never did? I had been dragged through hell that day too. I was just a clean-cut, hardworking coach back then. And that woman completely violated my boundaries. She drugged me, recorded my most vulnerable, humiliating moments on camera, and used the footage to try and force me into a relationship with her. God only knows how much money and sanity it cost me to finally bury that nightmare. I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my voice level. “I remember you. You were a prospect I rejected during the draft trials. You can’t just accuse me of ruining your life because I bruised your ego.” “I was merely the coach during that minor league game. I never subbed in. I never stepped on the court. I physically could not have fouled you.” Let alone the fact that I wasn’t even in the building. I waved my hand, gesturing for my legal team to step in and handle this circus. But before I could even turn my head, Silas lunged forward and snatched my World Championship trophy right off the podium. This was the holy grail my teammates and I had bled and sweat for over three years. It was the ultimate proof of our international dominance. As the team captain, I was supposed to be the one lifting it to the rafters. If Silas hadn’t hijacked the press conference to smear my name, my boys and I would be popping champagne right now. Instead, Silas held the heavy gold trophy high above his head. Pure malice spilled out of his eyes. My posture instantly turned lethal. “What do you think you are doing? Put that down and think very carefully about your next move.” Silas ground his teeth. “Kieran, you destroyed my life. If you do not confess to the whole world right now and show them the ugly freak you really are, you are not leaving this stage!” Seeing that he was entirely prepared to burn everything to the ground, I stopped moving. “Do you have any idea that slandering me on global television will land you in a federal prison?” “And the trophy you are holding represents the glory of an entire nation! Do not let your petty, delusional vendetta ruin this!” Silas just let out a disdainful snort. “You think I would come up here to expose you without hard proof?” “Look closely, everyone! This is the raw broadcast footage from that exact day. World Champion? Please. He is a career-ending thug!” He uploaded a video file directly to the event’s public feed. The reporters and the millions of fans watching the live stream immediately pulled it up. My eyebrows knit together in sheer confusion. What the hell was going on? The player in the video who viciously undercut him looked exactly like me. The footage Silas provided even had a verified timestamp. It was definitively from that minor league game. Realizing the massive severity of the situation, the tournament organizers routed the video to the jumbotron above us. Everyone watched as a player wearing my exact face deliberately slid his foot under Silas while he was airborne for a three-pointer. Silas came down hard, his ankle snapping in a sickening way as he collapsed in agony. The entire arena exploded into chaos. Fans from all over the world stared at the stage in absolute horror. “I can’t believe their World Champion is a dirty player. What an absolute disgrace!” My die-hard fans tried to scream in my defense, but the supporters of the team we had just defeated mercilessly attacked them. “Your idol is a literal criminal! This whole championship is tainted. We demand a complete rematch!” People started hurling cups of soda and half-eaten hotdogs at my supporters in the stands. The reporters didn’t hesitate. They shoved their microphones practically down my throat. “Kieran, are you still going to lie to our faces?” “Whether you took a bribe or did it out of spite, you intentionally maimed Silas and forced him into an amputation! That is an indisputable fact!” “A degenerate like you belongs behind bars. How dare you even touch that trophy? It is a desecration to the sport!” I tried to speak, but my voice was completely drowned out by the tidal wave of accusations. We had bled for our country. Now, our crowning achievement was being dragged through the mud. My fans in the audience were being shoved and bullied. My teammates, who had been crying tears of joy just ten minutes ago, now stood with their heads bowed, looking utterly lost and completely humiliated. Meanwhile, Silas soaked up the sympathy of the press, offering the cameras a tragically broken smile. “I used to be a kid with big dreams. I never thought the world could be this cruel. The woman I love was sitting right there in the crowd, and all she got to see was my most pathetic, broken moment.” “If life was fair, I would be the one holding this trophy today. But Kieran, that disgusting thief, stole everything from me!” Silas clutched the trophy my team had earned, weeping and playing the victim, acting like it rightfully belonged to him. That gold was forged from our blood, sweat, and sleepless nights. Why the hell should I let him tarnish it with his baseless, psychotic lies? I took a deep breath, forcing my heart rate down. I had no idea how my face ended up in that game footage. But there was one thing I knew with absolute, terrifying certainty. A human being cannot physically exist in two places at once. The day I was drugged and dragged into that hotel room, the lobby security cameras and the vile video Sloane filmed on her phone both had rock-solid timestamps. They were my unbreakable alibis. I just wondered if Silas would be able to handle the truth when I shoved it down his throat. I glared at him with ice in my veins. “We live in an era where deepfakes are practically flawless. Are you absolutely certain the guy in that video is me?” Silas gritted his teeth. “Who else could it be?! Everyone can see it perfectly. That is your face! You are just too much of a coward to admit it until the coffin is nailed shut!” Right on cue, his girlfriend Sloane stepped into the spotlight. “My boyfriend’s dream was always to win the World Championship. He was a generational talent. Before I met him, he had never lost a single game.” “Kieran was obviously insanely jealous of his natural gifts! That is why he refused to sign him, and that is exactly why he took a cheap shot and crippled him when they finally faced off!” She puffed out her chest, speaking with absolute, unwavering conviction, painting a vivid picture of the tragedy she supposedly witnessed that day. I would never be able to scrub Sloane’s sickening face out of my memory. I was the one who survived a nightmare because of her. Back then, I was just a regular coach grinding my way up. But my looks caught Sloane’s attention, and she developed a completely unhinged obsession with me. She tried to buy me with money. She tried to pressure me using her family’s connections. Nothing worked. I refused to cave. So she resorted to the lowest, most despicable tactic imaginable. She slipped a drug into my drink. She was in that hotel room. She took complete advantage of my paralyzed state to film an explicit, non-consensual video. The entire horrific ordeal was documented on her phone. I couldn’t even stomach the thought of watching it a second time. She was only bold enough to publicly slander me right now because she assumed I had permanently deleted that traumatic footage the second our legal battle ended. But the truth was, just in case this psychopath ever returned. I had kept a heavily encrypted backup. I stared dead into Sloane’s heavily plastic-surgeried face, a wave of pure revulsion rolling off me. “You claim I was on the court undercutting Silas that day. Then let me ask you something. Who was the guy passed out in the penthouse suite of the Grand Plaza Hotel that exact same afternoon?” Sloane violently flinched. She snapped her head toward me. “What, are you going to start spreading slut-shaming rumors about me now? Is this how a World Champion behaves?!” Silas clenched his fists. He immediately pulled Sloane behind his back, puffing up like a righteous savior. “I thought you were just an overly competitive thug who played dirty because you were terrified of losing to me. But at least I thought you had some backbone! Dragging an innocent woman’s reputation through the mud? You are not even a real man!” The reporters eagerly typed away, practically salivating. They were already painting me as a mob-connected enforcer who intentionally crippled rookies. Now, they were slapping a ‘misogynist’ label on me, condemning me for throwing a woman under the bus to save my own skin. I kept my tone dangerously calm. “I grew up in a working-class neighborhood. I am not some mobster intentionally breaking people’s legs.” Sloane pointed a manicured finger right at my nose. “That is exactly why you took the dirty money! You did a hit job to eliminate a player who actually had real talent!” “I saw the whole thing from the bleachers. Do not even try to lie your way out of this! Whether it is his leg or that championship trophy, you owe my boyfriend your life. You do not deserve any of it!” I had pushed through three years of brutal injuries. Three years of sleepless, agonizing training camps. And she had the sheer audacity to say I didn’t deserve it? I took a step back, putting distance between myself and Sloane. “A single video clip proves absolutely nothing. I am calling the police right now to pull my geolocation data and hotel records from that day.” “First of all, I was the head coach. There is zero possibility I subbed into the game. Second, I was never even inside that arena!” I locked eyes with Sloane, my gaze utterly lethal. “Where I was, and exactly what I was doing that day, is something you know very, very intimately, Sloane. Do not push me to the point of no return.” It was a highly explicit, deeply violating video involving both of us. Even though I didn’t grow up rich, my parents raised me to be a gentleman. I truly did not want to destroy a woman’s dignity on international television. But Silas didn’t care. At that exact moment, he hoisted the trophy high into the air and violently slammed it down onto the hard stage floor. A deafening crack echoed through the stadium. The honor my teammates and I had bled for over three years, a multimillion-dollar international trophy representing the pride of our entire nation, shattered into a dozen jagged pieces. I saw red. “Silas, have you completely lost your mind?! That is a national treasure!” More importantly, the sentimental value of that trophy was something a hundred thousand Silases could never afford to repay. Silas just pointed a venomous finger right at my face. “Let me make this crystal clear. I would rather smash this trophy to dust than let a piece of trash like you ever hold it again!” “Who knows if you are going to bribe the cops and the media to fabricate some fake alibi later!” He turned to the completely stunned crowd, speaking with fanatical devotion. “I swear on my actual life, Kieran is the one who took my leg. That video is one hundred percent authentic.” “If he can genuinely prove he didn’t do it, I will take a knife and end my own life right here on this stage! Are you all satisfied now?!” Betting his own life on the line. That was all it took for the scales of public trust to permanently tip in his favor. The tournament officials looked at us with deep apprehension. The gold medals that were supposed to be draped around our necks were quietly packed away. My fans, who had been fiercely fighting back just moments ago, went completely still. They squatted in the stands, quietly weeping as they absorbed the humiliation. A few of my teammates broke down sobbing, dropping to their knees and pounding their fists against the stage floor in sheer, helpless agony. The rookie I had personally mentored looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot and completely shattered. “Captain… did you really do those things?” “Please tell me it is a lie. You are not that kind of person, right?” Looking into his completely broken eyes, I knew he was hanging on by a thread. I was the leader of this franchise. I was the idol my fans looked up to. I represented the country. If I didn’t completely annihilate these lies and clear my name right here, right now, the people who loved and trusted me would suffer a permanent psychological collapse. And all of this nightmare was meticulously orchestrated by Silas and Sloane. Silas, you really wanted to play this game? You better pray you can survive the fallout. I pulled out my phone and unlocked the heavily encrypted hidden folder in my gallery. “We actually do not need to wait for the police. I have a video right here that explicitly proves I was nowhere near that basketball court.” I already had the media control booth’s email from the press briefing. I attached the file and hit send. “Put it on the jumbotron. The raw, real-time footage from that afternoon is more than enough to clear my name!”

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I used to be the ex-boyfriend of the survivor base’s ultimate leader. Because of my terrible attitude and spoiled nature, I was despised by everyone and eventually thrown right into a horde of zombies. After miraculously surviving and escaping, I discovered a terrifying truth. My world was actually a post-apocalyptic novel, and I was nothing more than a pathetic, tragic villain meant to die early. To keep myself alive, I decided to completely abandon the main plotline and live a quiet, peaceful life on my own. That was my plan, at least. But one day, the leader of the base suddenly tracked me down. His eyes were completely bloodshot, and the first words out of his mouth were breathless and broken. “I thought I would never see you again.” 1 “Felix, you are being completely unreasonable again.” Kieran’s cold, detached voice rang out right behind me. I jolted, stiffly turning around to meet his gaze. His eyes held nothing but impatience and anger. That familiar, indulgent love he used to reserve only for me was entirely gone. Normally, I was at least a little intimidated by him. I do not know what got into me this time, but my temper snapped, and I screamed right back at his face. “Yes! I am being unreasonable! What exactly are you going to do about it?” Kieran clearly did not expect such a fiery outburst from me. A second later, his rage spiked. His intimidating aura crashed down over me like a tidal wave, completely crushing my brief moment of bravery. His face darkened so much it looked like a storm cloud ready to burst. “Felix, have I been too lenient with you?” My anger was still there, but my courage had officially checked out. I am not an idiot. I can tell the difference between Kieran being annoyed and Kieran being genuinely furious. When he truly loses his temper, he becomes terrifying. “Dinner is ready, so I am leaving.” I dropped that single sentence and bolted. Nothing matters more than eating in the apocalypse. As long as I mentioned food, Kieran would not keep picking a fight. Sure enough, I had not walked far before that chilling pressure behind me vanished, replaced only by his muffled, frustrated sigh. We only had a little argument. Did he really need to be that fiercely intimidating? My nose stung slightly, and I cursed him in my head. What a petty jerk. 2 On the way back to our quarters, people on the street shot me dirty, hostile glares. I glared right back, fierce and unyielding. The people in the base absolutely hated me. Ordinary folks worked the fields to earn their keep. Those with combat abilities risked their lives outside the walls killing zombies. I was the only one living like a delicate parasite, clinging tightly to Kieran for survival. I never thought there was anything wrong with that. It was a mutual agreement between two consenting adults. What right did anyone else have to judge us? But people still constantly harassed me, claiming they were acting on behalf of the base and trying to “save” Kieran from my toxic influence. My first major fallout with Kieran happened because I got into a physical fight. Someone was talking trash about me behind my back, and I happened to overhear it. I had zero combat power, so it was a completely one-sided beatdown. I looked incredibly pathetic by the end of it. But the part that infuriated me the most was Kieran. He did not check on my injuries first. Instead, he walked over and apologized to the guy who beat me up. I gave him the silent treatment for three days after that. He eventually went on a scavenging run and brought back a box of rare chocolate to beg for my forgiveness. Lately, our arguments had become far more frequent. At first, Kieran would at least pretend to coax me out of my bad moods. As time went on, the bastard stopped trying entirely. He refused to say a single comforting word, always using meal times as a cheap excuse to break the ice. Eat, eat, eat! I hoped he would choke on his food. Kieran had just brutally scolded me in front of the entire base again, stripping away every ounce of my dignity. I was supposed to be his boyfriend, yet he never once defended me. He just stood there and allowed them to humiliate me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I marched right up to Kieran and demanded a breakup. He stayed completely silent, staring down at me with those pitch-black, bottomless eyes. After a long agonizing moment, he let out a dark sneer. “Felix, what exactly gives you the delusion that you can survive out there without me?” All my righteous anger instantly deflated. He was right. I did not know how to kill zombies, and I was terrified of scavenging for supplies. My food, water, and shelter all depended entirely on him. Kieran and I actually met before the apocalypse ruined the world. Back then, he was just a nameless, poor kid. I still have no idea where he got the audacity to think he was worthy of courting someone from my social class. But he was incredibly handsome. In a crowd of utterly average faces, his sharp, striking looks were a breath of fresh air. Having him around was good for my eyes. Relying entirely on his pretty face, I decided to give him a chance. After we got together, Kieran was completely obedient. If I told him to walk east, he would never dare look west. I can confidently say that my current terrible temper is at least fifty percent his fault! I just did not understand how things had devolved into this nightmare. The base residents held a deep, venomous grudge against me, acting as if I had dragged their majestic, awe-inspiring leader into the gutter. The pure contempt in their eyes made my blood boil. If it were not for this godforsaken apocalypse, people with their low status would not even be qualified to tie my shoes! And Kieran was no longer my shield. He stopped prioritizing my feelings, and whenever I got into a shouting match, he blamed me without even asking what happened! It is true what they say. The moment a man gains power and status, his heart completely changes. 3 To vent my bitter frustration, I waited until Kieran was sound asleep in the middle of the night. Then, I planted my foot firmly against his sculpted abs and kicked him right off the bed. While he was still inhaling sharply on the floor, trying to process the pain, I moved like lightning. I grabbed the heavy quilt, threw it entirely over his head, and delivered several blind punches to his skull. Finally, I bolted out of the bedroom like a frightened rabbit, locked the door from the outside, and casually made myself comfortable on the living room sofa. Kieran violently twisted the doorknob a few times. He started pounding on the wood. His hoarse, deeply agitated voice seeped through the door. “Felix, what the hell are you throwing a tantrum over now?” I completely ignored him. A few minutes later, his voice dropped into a terrifying, bone-chilling octave. “Fine, Felix. If you have any guts at all, do not ever come back into this room.” I curled up tighter on the sofa and sniffled. Why should I listen to you? I will go wherever I please! When daylight finally broke, the harsh sunlight pierced my eyes, making me scowl. After the apocalypse, the flora, fauna, and even the sun’s rays had mutated to become incredibly harsh and burning. If Kieran did not specifically hunt down high-grade sunscreen for me during his supply runs, my skin would have peeled off a long time ago. I pulled the soft blanket up to my chin, happily dozing off again before my brain caught up with reality. Wait, a blanket? I snapped my eyes open, a smug grin spreading across my face. Oh, Kieran. Even when we are in a bitter cold war, you still obediently sneak out to tuck me in. Feeling like I had finally scored a victory, my mood skyrocketed. I decided I might actually give him a decent smile when he came back. Kieran had specifically warned me to never leave our housing sector. I did not have any friends in the base anyway, so I usually spent my entire day locked safely indoors. But I never expected trouble to come knocking directly on my front door. Looking at the fierce, vicious men blocking my entryway, my stomach dropped. Usually, when Kieran was around, I would confidently hurl insults right back at them. But when he was gone, I absolutely never dared to provoke them. These men chopped off zombie heads without blinking. My neck was significantly softer than a rotting corpse’s. The burly man in the front crossed his arms. “Felix, we are not trying to make things difficult for you. But lounging around being utterly useless every single day is getting a bit ridiculous, do you not think?” I swallowed hard, desperately trying to maintain my usual arrogant, superior facade. “Did Kieran not make it clear to you? I belong to him. He contributes more than enough for the both of us. Do you really dare go against his orders?” The men erupted into cruel, mocking laughter. “You really still think you are some precious treasure? Commander Kieran already has a new lover. A smart person would take the hint, pack up quietly, and leave with some shred of dignity. You better start thinking about your own survival.” I felt like I had been struck by lightning. I stood completely frozen. A new lover? Kieran found someone else? Why did I not know about this? A tidal wave of absolute terror consumed me. In that moment of panic, I did not even stop to question if their words were true. The thugs kept talking. “Honestly, you are the most pathetic waste of space in this entire base. Even the street walkers know how to use their bodies to please a man and earn their keep. But you? You hide behind the Commander’s protection, parading around like you own the place. A whore should at least have the self-awareness of a whore. Since you clearly do not know how to serve a man, you are coming outside the walls to scavenge with us.” My eyes widened in sheer horror. I had spent all this time perfectly sheltered under Kieran’s wings, completely oblivious to the real, lethal dangers of the apocalypse. I was still acting like the spoiled rich kid I used to be. I fought tooth and nail, refusing to go with them. But my scrawny arms were no match for grown, battle-hardened men. I was brutally dragged and tossed into the back of their armored truck. The vehicle violently rumbled out of my familiar, safe haven. Separated by a single concrete wall, one side was humanity, and the other was absolute hell. I finally witnessed the true, unfiltered apocalypse. The putrid, rotting stench in the air was so thick I could barely breathe. In that moment of nausea, I finally understood why Kieran always scrubbed himself raw in the shower before he even tried to touch me. The last time I had faced a zombie up close was at the very beginning of the outbreak. Back then, the infection rate was low, and society was still desperately holding onto a shred of order. Kieran had grabbed my hand and fought his way out of our university campus, dragging me through unspeakable horrors until we reached this city and built the survivor base. Sitting in the truck, I desperately missed his warmth. He loved me so deeply back then. Could he really betray me for someone else? Or perhaps he truly did love me once, but my terrible behavior finally pushed him past his breaking point, and he simply decided I was not worth loving anymore? 4 The truck screeched to a halt in a desolate, ruined city. The streets looked completely dead and abandoned. Was there actually anything left to scavenge here? I eyed the men suspiciously as they prepared to disembark. I desperately wanted to stay in the vehicle, but I was too terrified to remain alone. If a horde swarmed the truck, these men would absolutely never come back to save me. After weighing my terrible options, I shakily followed them out. We entered a massive, crumbling department store. The shelves were completely barren and coated in a thick layer of grey dust. It looked like the place had been picked clean years ago. Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the concrete floor beneath my feet. By the time I realized what was happening, the men were already sprinting toward the exit at top speed. My brain short-circuited. Pure instinct took over, and my legs carried me after them. The men piled into the truck, slammed the doors, and the engine roared to life. They were not waiting for me! They intentionally brought me out here to dispose of me! The realization hit me like a physical blow. Uncontrollable, suffocating terror gripped my throat. “Do not leave! Wait! Please do not leave me behind!” I sprinted after the tires with everything I had, but the truck left me entirely in the dust. They were gone. And I was completely surrounded by the undead. As the rotting, foul-smelling corpses dragged their feet closer and closer, I accepted my fate and squeezed my eyes shut. The ruined city was blanketed by a thick, oppressive layer of grey clouds. Amidst the gloom, a gust of wind carrying the stench of blood and decay swept through the street. A large, reinforced cargo truck slowly pulled to a stop nearby. The noise attracted a few straggling zombies on the road. Before the monsters could even lunge, a group of people hopped out of the truck, wielding heavy blades. With terrifying efficiency, they severed the rotting heads from their bodies. Startled by the commotion, I peeked through the narrow crack of the rusted dumpster I was currently hiding inside. Their combat movements were brutally efficient. The three men in the group barely even blinked, decapitating zombies with single, fluid strikes. After clearing the immediate area, the group began packing up, preparing to leave. Panic surged through my chest. I did not care if they were saints or murderers. This city had been dead for years, and who knows when I would ever see living humans again. I scrambled out of the filthy dumpster and sprinted awkwardly toward them. Hearing footsteps, they instantly assumed I was a running mutant. One of the men whipped out a machete and swung it directly at my skull. I shrieked, dropping to my knees and covering my head. “Please do not kill me! I am human! I am a good person!” The sharp blade halted a millimeter above my scalp. A few strands of my severed hair fluttered to the asphalt. I sat completely paralyzed on the ground, a cold sweat drenching my back. The man stared down at me, his face an absolute mask of ice, and slowly lowered his weapon. 5 Another man strolled over, crouching down to inspect me with wide, amused eyes. “Well, look at that! A living, breathing human in this hellhole!” A second later, his cheerful expression twisted in absolute horror. He violently stumbled backward. “Holy crap! What is that smell?! You are going to suffocate me!” My face burned bright red. I lowered my head in deep shame. “I am so, so sorry.” A young woman with short, practical hair stepped up to me. “Can you tell me why you are completely alone out here?” She scratched her head, looking puzzled. “Or rather, how are you even alive right now?” The dam finally broke. The memory of those bastards tossing me into a zombie horde flooded my mind, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. By all logic, I should have been ripped to shreds within two seconds. But for some inexplicable reason, the surrounding zombie horde suddenly scattered into the alleys. Clutching my painfully racing heart, I had frantically crawled into this dumpster and stayed paralyzed in the filth for two entire days. I fully believed I would either be eaten alive or starve to death in the dark. I never expected to be saved. Through choked sobs, I briefly explained how my squad had maliciously abandoned me to die. The short-haired girl’s eyes softened with instant sympathy and outrage. My eyes were red and swollen, tears pooling pitifully in my lashes. I looked exactly like a tragic, helpless victim who had been cruelly betrayed. I had absolutely zero leverage or survival skills. Playing the pathetic, harmless victim was my only strategy to win their sympathy. Thankfully, my fragile appearance and tragic story successfully lowered their guards. “Can you please take me with you? I promise I will not be a burden. I can do anything you ask, just please do not leave me in this place.” The girl turned her head, looking at the three men for permission. The guy who had complained about my smell gave a lazy, indifferent shrug. “Might as well bring him. Look at how scrawny he is. It is not like he is going to eat much of our rations.” I immediately nodded frantically. “Yes! Exactly! I barely eat anything at all!” The other two men remained silent, which in the apocalypse essentially meant yes. Just like that, I climbed into the back of their cargo truck and finally left that city of nightmares behind. I had narrowly escaped death, and I should have been overjoyed. But a heavy, suffocating dread settled in my chest instead. During those two terrifying days huddled in the dumpster, a flood of bizarre, cinematic visions had violently forced their way into my brain. Every single vision was about Kieran. The Kieran in my mind felt terrifyingly unfamiliar. He did not look like the man who sighed helplessly at my tantrums, nor the man who scolded me with a stern face. He radiated a bone-chilling, absolute frost. He barely looked like a man with a beating heart. In those visions, I was completely absent. He stood entirely alone, ruling with an iron fist, slaughtering his enemies, expanding his territory, and ultimately ascending to become the absolute sovereign of the wasteland. At the very end of those flashing memories, a line of glowing text appeared in my mind. Commander Kieran was no longer the underdog a piece of trash like Felix could humiliate. He was the sole hope of humanity, destined to lead the survivors and ensure the fire of civilization never extinguished. Reading that sentence and piecing all the memories together, the horrific truth became crystal clear. This world was a published novel. Kieran was the unstoppable protagonist. And I was just a petty, malicious early-game villain who bullied him when he was weak. A worthless cannon fodder destined to be torn apart by zombies at the very beginning of the story.

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My unemployed best friend recently moved into my place. She claimed she did not want to be a freeloader and insisted on doing the chores. I never expected that after just one day, she would treat my Tiffany necklace as literal trash and toss it out. For the sake of our years of friendship, I bit my tongue. But a few days later, my insanely expensive designer clothes vanished without a trace. Her excuse was totally unapologetic. She said the clothes looked out of season, assumed I did not want them, and dropped them in a charity donation bin. Since she was supposedly doing a good deed, I let it slide. I simply warned her to never touch my things again. That was until I walked out carrying my limited edition Hermes Birkin, and a friend gently pointed out that the stitching looked a bit off. I rushed home, tore through my closet, and realized every single authentic bag I owned had been swapped for a cheap replica. Suddenly, I remembered her mentioning a luxury resale app. I immediately typed in her phone number to search. Her bio hit me right in the face. It read: “Turning trash into treasure. Hustling my way to the top.” What a hustle indeed. Without missing a beat, I reported her seller account, getting all her transactions permanently frozen by the platform. Blissfully unaware of her impending doom, she booked a VIP table that very night. She popped champagne with ten gorgeous male promoters to celebrate. But when the bill arrived, her card declined. She was backed into a corner and forced to borrow cash from some very dangerous street lenders right on the spot. 1 Sitting on the floor by my display cabinet that afternoon, I tapped into Stella’s Instagram page. My jaw practically unhinged at the sight of her casually holding a seventy thousand dollar Gucci bag. Her makeup was flawless. Her cocktail dress screamed old money. She was lounging in a Michelin star restaurant, serving up effortless poses for the camera. I zoomed in on that Gucci bag sitting perfectly in the frame, examining the hardware over and over again. My fingers actually trembled as I scrolled down. Every single photo dump was flooded with the same ridiculous tags. #OldMoneyAesthetic #RichWifeEnergy #DayInTheLife Stella paired every single outfit with a different bag. We were talking pieces ranging from ten to a hundred grand. No exceptions. Strictly top tier luxury. Compared to those wannabe influencers who split the bill for a staged photoshoot, her daily high end splurges and endless rotation of designer pieces made her wealth look incredibly authentic. The reality was that half a month ago, Stella could barely afford a decent meal. After college, she took a safe corporate desk job while I refused to settle for mediocrity. I chose the startup route. The early days were brutal. I worked from dawn until midnight and barely scraped by. The last two years finally brought my big break in the import business. Every time I closed a massive overseas deal, I rewarded myself by taking a small fraction of the profits to buy a luxury bag. My collection grew from a couple of pieces to dozens. I was overflowing with a sense of achievement, watching my life finally fall into place. Stella, on the other hand, lost her job and got dumped. She could not make rent, got evicted, and spent over two hours sobbing on the phone to me. I drove over, packed up her life, brought her to my place, and treated her to a Wagyu steak dinner. After stuffing herself, she looked down in embarrassment, admitting she did not even have twenty bucks to her name. Seeing her hit rock bottom, I told her she could stay in my guest room rent free. I covered all her meals. I told her to just get settled first. She could take her time finding a job, and if she was willing to grind and polish up her Spanish, I could even bring her into my import business. But Stella just sighed. She told me she was so beaten down by her recent failures that she was borderline depressed. All she wanted to do was rot in bed all day. I had no choice but to tell her to rest up and figure the rest out later. A few days ago, she bounced into the kitchen looking ecstatic. She claimed she found a gold mine of a career path. She was going to be an influencer. I just smiled and nodded. I did not take it seriously because making it on social media is a brutal game. Who would have thought that in just two weeks, her follower count would skyrocket past eighty thousand. Her entire brand was built on flexing insane wealth. Her comment section was a sea of absolute worship. “Oh my god, she is so filthy rich!” “I can practically smell the expensive perfume through the screen. Please adopt me, sugar mommy!” “Living my literal dream.” “Wait, is that the crocodile leather Birkin? That is worth like over a hundred grand!” Seeing that specific Hermes mention, my ears started ringing. A suffocating wave of panic crashed over me. Stella had not suddenly struck it rich. Every single bag she was using to flex for the internet belonged to me. Earlier today, a friend warned me that the Hermes I was carrying looked like a replica. I almost lost my mind on the spot. That bag was my holy grail. I had taken fifty percent of the profit from a grueling, massive deal just to bite the bullet and buy it. I dropped everything at work and sped home to authenticate my entire collection. Every single designer bag in my custom cabinet had been swapped out for a high tier fake. It took me a long time to stop shaking and force myself to breathe. At first, I tried to rationalize it. Maybe she was just blinded by vanity. Maybe she swapped them with fakes just so she could borrow the real ones for her photoshoots without me noticing. But my brain immediately caught the flaw in that logic. You cannot stage those photos with just a bag. Where did she get the money for the diamond jewelry, the couture gowns, and the tabs at five star restaurants? I backed out of her Instagram and remembered she mentioned a luxury resale app a while back. I typed in her cell number and hit enter. Her seller profile made my blood run cold. Every single bag featured in her aesthetic photos, along with several of my other personal luxury items, was listed for sale. 2 The completed transaction history left me completely speechless. The Tiffany necklace she claimed was accidentally thrown out in the trash? Sold for three thousand dollars. The designer clothes she supposedly donated to a charity drive? Sold for thirty thousand dollars. She even sold the empty Chanel perfume bottles off my vanity and the branded Louis Vuitton paper shopping bags I kept in the closet corner for a few bucks each. If it had a brand name, she liquidated it. She did not waste a single opportunity. I grabbed a calculator and furiously punched in the numbers. She had already pocketed around fifty thousand dollars of my money. Her seller bio mocked me from the top of the screen. “Turning trash into treasure. Hustling my way to the top.” Staring at those words, I zoned out for a few seconds before letting out a dry, bitter laugh. Her newest listing description read: “Fresh drop of dozens of authentic luxury bags. Can be verified at any boutique. Everything must go at fifty percent off retail. First come, first served!” I felt like I had been struck by lightning. Most of those bags were practically untouched. I barely even took them out of their dust bags. Especially that crocodile leather Hermes. I painstakingly conditioned it on a strict schedule, terrified of a single scratch ruining its value. Just to get fast cash, Stella was slashing the prices in half. A bag worth over a hundred grand, a rare custom piece with incredibly low global production, was sitting on a secondhand app for fifty grand. And the buyers were going feral. Just in the few minutes I spent scrolling, several listings updated to “Payment Pending.” I could not stomach another second of it. I slammed the report button. I submitted a mountain of evidence to the platform’s fraud department to prove she was fencing stolen goods. My paper trail was bulletproof. I uploaded original boutique receipts, bank statements, and close up photos matching the exact wear and tear I had left on specific bags. The verdict was swift. The platform slapped her account with a permanent ban and froze every single penny in her seller wallet. Seeing that notification finally brought me a sliver of peace. I did some quick mental math. If she sold that entire batch at half price, she would be sitting on around three hundred thousand dollars. Add the fifty thousand she had already stolen and spent, and we were way past the threshold for felony grand theft. If I called the cops right now, with this dollar amount, Stella was looking at serious prison time. But thinking about our shared history, my hand hovered over the phone. I could not bring myself to nuke her life just yet. I still vividly remembered our first year out of college, renting a cramped, drafty apartment in the bad part of town. I caught a terrible fever in the middle of the night, and she walked me to the ER in the pouring rain. When I was unemployed for three months, she split her meager savings with me, laughing and saying I could just pay her back when I was a CEO. Back then, we used to share a single iced latte to save money. She always let me have the last sip. I do not know exactly when she morphed into this monster. Maybe it started when she maxed out her first credit card on a bag that cost three months of her salary. Maybe it was when she figured out how to fake location tags at exclusive resorts with stolen Pinterest quotes. She became obsessed with the fictional version of herself in the eyes of strangers, and completely detached from the real people right in front of her. I had tried to warn her. I told her the economy was tough and she needed to build a safety net. She just rolled her eyes, claiming her designer pieces were investments that she could always flip for cash, so she was never actually losing money. I just never imagined I would become her primary inventory. Thinking about all those memories, I let out a heavy sigh. She used to be my sister, my closest confidant. If she walked through the door right now, gave me a genuine apology, handed over whatever cash she had left, and returned the unsold bags, I would consider the matter closed. My phone buzzed. The platform’s customer service rep confirmed that the three hundred thousand dollars in pending funds had been locked and would automatically refund to the buyers in three days. That took a massive weight off my chest. I decided to wait on the sofa for Stella to come home so we could have a brutal but necessary heart to heart. But dinnertime came and went. The front door remained shut. Thinking back on her recent schedule, she had been out every single night at high end VIP lounges, burning cash on bottle service and club promoters. Once, I even saw some bleached blonde frat boy drop her off, making out with her right on my driveway. And to think, just two weeks ago she was screaming and crying over her ex, claiming she could not survive a single day without him. I was debating whether to call her and demand she come home right now. Then my phone lit up with a text from a mutual friend. “Blair, check Stella’s live stream right now. She is dropping bags on bottle boys at the club!” 3 The screen loaded, revealing Stella sitting in the dead center of a plush velvet booth, completely surrounded by a crew of styled, attractive male promoters. Her viewer count was surging, and the chat was moving at warp speed. “Three hundred bucks for a single bottle? And she is on her fifth in ten minutes? Okay, sugar mommy is loaded!” “She literally carries bags worth a house. A few grand on drinks is pocket change.” “Look at those guys practically begging for her attention. They know who pays the bills!” Watching Stella hold court, casually dropping luxury brand names and acting like royalty, I felt completely entirely disconnected from her. I had a sinking feeling in my gut. The Stella I knew was dead and gone. A younger looking promoter slid right up against her side, pouting his lips and putting on the charm. “Gorgeous, think you could treat your favorite boy to a nice watch? Nothing crazy, maybe just ten grand or so.” “The nightlife hustle is rough. I just need something flashy to show these other guys I’m doing well.” “You have so much money, your jewelry changes every day. You probably have a whole vault of watches collecting dust at home, right?” The chat went wild. “Typical club boy behavior. They flirt a little and immediately beg for handouts. Do not give him a dime!” “Well, he just said he would take something cheaper too. If it’s just a few hundred bucks, why not throw him a bone?” “A rich goddess giving out cheap gifts? That ruins the aesthetic. If she gives something, it has to be a Rolex.” “Wait, did you guys see her eyes light up when he said ‘cheaper’? Is she actually broke?” Stella caught that last comment. The arrogant smirk on her face froze for a split second. She quickly recovered, raising her voice loud enough for the microphone to catch. “Of course, babe. I will bring you a stunning piece next time. Give me a second, I need to use the powder room.” The moment the bathroom door clicked shut, my phone started ringing. It was Stella. Taking time out of her massive VIP flex to call me? I narrowed my eyes. I answered the call anyway. “Blair, babe, you up?” Hearing her fake sweet tone made my skin crawl. I was about to answer. But she immediately launched into her web of lies. “Hey, remember those luxury vintage watches you bought for your dad? He is always traveling and never wears them. How about you let me take them off your hands?” “I met these poor, struggling boys downtown. They cannot even afford a clock for their apartment. It is honestly heartbreaking. Giving them your dad’s watches to tell time would be such a good deed.” The remaining warmth in my chest instantly turned to ice. Poor, struggling boys? She meant the bottle service guys charging hundreds for a pour of vodka. She was trying to steal my dad’s watches to flex on club boys? “Blair, I will be home a bit later to grab them. Could you do me a huge favor and pack them up? Preferably in the original velvet boxes? You are the best, babe.” I was so furiously angry I actually let out a quiet laugh. I wanted to rip her to shreds right then and there. But knowing she was coming back soon, I decided this needed to be handled face to face. I swallowed the venom in my throat and kept my voice perfectly flat. “Fine. Come home. We have a lot to talk about anyway.” She totally misinterpreted my tone, squealing with absolute delight. “Oh my god, you are an angel! Love you, bye!” She hung up instantly, rushing back to her booth to brag about the imaginary luxury watches she was about to rain down on her admirers. The chat and the guys showered her in another wave of aggressive flattery. “By the way, gorgeous, what kind of ride do you usually take to the club?” one of them asked. “I swear I saw someone who looked exactly like you stepping off the city bus today. Same dress and everything. Must have been a glitch in the matrix.” Stella almost choked on her champagne. “Excuse me? I ride in a Lamborghini. Your eyes are definitely broken, babe.” The promoter leaned in. “Then how come we never see you pull up in it?” Stella’s eyes darted around the room. She stammered for a second. “I… I do not really like driving. My personal female chauffeur usually takes the wheel.” “I will just have her pick me up later. You will see.” Right on cue, a text notification popped up at the top of my screen. It was from Stella. “Babe, it is super late and I cannot get an Uber. Be a lifesaver and come pick me up? And please take the Lamborghini, you know normal cars give me motion sickness.”

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Mom always told me I was born broken. For as long as I can remember, I have been confined to a wheelchair. My legs were dead weight, completely incapable of even the slightest twitch. Every single aspect of my life depended on my mother. I never knew my father. Mom said he walked out on us. Every day, she vlogged her life as my full time caretaker on social media. Her followers flooded the comments, calling her the most beautiful, resilient mother on the internet. Viewers would constantly send tips and donate to our GoFundMe. I was thrilled about it, thinking the money would finally lift some of the crushing weight off her shoulders. Even though I was dealt a bad hand in life, I considered myself incredibly blessed to have such a devoted mother. That was until I uncovered her sick secret. That was when I realized just how deeply she had destroyed my life. 1 Mom always blamed herself. She claimed she accidentally took the wrong medication while she was pregnant with me, resulting in my lifelong paralysis. She apologized to me every single day. She cried about failing to give me a healthy body and swore she would spend the rest of her life making it up to me. My dad left when I was just a toddler. Mom used to hold me tight, rocking me back and forth while whispering softly. “It is just you and me against the world now, Mona. We are all we have.” And for years, she genuinely took immaculate care of me. I was the perfect, obedient daughter, doing everything in my power to be a burden free child. Long before the sun came up, I would hear the familiar clinking of pots and pans in the kitchen. Without fail, Mom was already up preparing my breakfast. I lay in my small bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. This was our daily routine. She woke up earlier than anyone else in our neighborhood. She would get the oatmeal simmering on the stove, then head to the bathroom to draw warm water. By the time I opened my eyes, the water was at the exact perfect temperature for my morning sponge bath. Shortly after, she would walk in carrying a washbasin, stepping lightly so she would not startle me. “Morning, my sweet Mona. Are you awake?” She would walk over with a warm smile, gently resting the back of her hand against my forehead. “No fever today. Thank goodness.” She would prop me up, stuffing thick, plush pillows behind my back before carefully slipping off my pajamas. My arms were weak, making even the simple act of lifting them a massive chore. Getting dressed relied entirely on her. Her fingers were incredibly nimble and practiced, always terrified of hurting me. While wiping me down, she would always murmur the same hopeful words. “Mona’s legs are just sleeping right now. If we take really good care of them, maybe one day they will wake up.” Her eyes would always glass over with tears when she said that. I used to think those tears came from a place of pure, agonizing maternal love. I learned later it was nothing but an Oscar worthy performance. She made my breakfast at four in the morning. Terrified I might choke or struggle to chew, she boiled the oats until they were practically liquid. She peeled my hard boiled eggs with surgical precision, ensuring not a single speck of shell remained. When she fed me, she blew on every single spoonful until it was exactly body temperature. She never ate with me. By the time I finished my bowl, her own portion on the counter was always ice cold. After breakfast came the medication. Chalky white pills dissolved in a cup of lukewarm water. It tasted horrible. But she always had a strawberry gummy waiting in her pocket. The second I swallowed the bitter medicine, she popped the candy into my mouth. “There is my brave girl. All gone,” she would say with a bright smile. Once the dishes were cleared, she dragged a small wooden stool to my bedside and began massaging my dead legs. She would rub her palms together to generate heat before pressing into my muscles. The pressure was firm but soothing, creating a dull ache in my calves. “Tell Mommy if it hurts.” She would look up at me periodically, her voice dripping with absolute tenderness. I always shook my head. I never told her it hurt. I did not want to add to her stress. I knew how exhausting it was for her. Every time she finished massaging my legs, I saw her secretly rubbing her aching lower back. “Mommy isn’t tired. As long as my Mona gets better, I would do anything.” Around ten in the morning, the ring light clicked on. She opened her phone and began filming our daily routine. She angled the camera toward me, her voice dropping into a soft, vulnerable register. “Hey everyone. Mona is doing so well today. She ate a good portion of her breakfast and was so brave during her physical therapy.” Then she flipped the camera to show her own hands. They were visibly weathered, lined with wrinkles, the knuckles slightly swollen. “These hands dress her, cook for her, and massage her every single day. It is exhausting, but having my beautiful girl smiling beside me makes every second worth it.” The moment the video went live, the comment section exploded. 2 “Your strength is incredible. You are the absolute definition of a supermom.” “Mona is such an angel. Praying for a miracle for you both.” “It breaks my heart seeing a single mother raise a disabled child completely alone. You have so much patience.” “Just sent twenty bucks to your CashApp. I hope Mona gets better soon and you can finally get some rest, mama.” “Supermom! Keep fighting!” Mom would scroll through the comments, reading them aloud to me with a glowing smile. “Look at this, Mona. So many people are rooting for us. You are going to walk one day, I just know it.” Back then, I swallowed every single word. I truly believed the kindness of these internet strangers was easing my mother’s heavy burden. I believed her bone deep exhaustion was the price she was paying for my hypothetical recovery. I believed that even though I was trapped in a wheelchair, having a mother like her made me the luckiest girl in the world. “Once you are all better, I will take you to the countryside. We will climb trees and pick wild apples together.” My eyes lit up at the thought. I leaned over the armrest of my wheelchair, looking up at her. “Really? I could really climb a tree?” She stroked my hair softly. “Of course, baby. As long as you take your medicine and do your massages, you will absolutely get there.” With that, she walked over to the counter to prep my pills. Two small brown tablets sat in a little porcelain dish next to a glass of water. “Time for your meds, Mona. This is what helps your legs wake up.” I obediently opened my mouth. The pills slid down my throat, leaving a faint, bitter metallic aftertaste. Back then, the thought never even crossed my mind. Those two daily pills were not the key to my recovery. They were the chemical chains keeping me locked in that wheelchair. But I was oblivious. I had no idea the “recovery” I prayed for every night was never meant to arrive. My mother’s grueling sacrifices were nothing but a meticulously crafted illusion. And I was the naive, grateful little fool playing the starring role in her twisted reality show. It happened on a random Tuesday morning. Mom stepped out onto the balcony to hang the laundry, leaving me alone in the sunlit living room. The warmth seeped into my legs. Suddenly, I remembered a faint tingling sensation in my knees from the massage a few days prior. Acting on a bizarre impulse, I tried to flex my muscles. First, my big toe twitched. Then, miraculously, my knee slowly lifted upward. The movement was agonizingly slow and incredibly weak, but my leg was actually moving! A rush of pure adrenaline and joy hijacked my body. My voice shook violently as I screamed for her. “Mom! Mom! Look! My leg moved! I just lifted it!” I fully expected her to drop the laundry basket, rush over, and sob tears of joy with me. Instead, she froze dead in her tracks. The soft smile vanished from her face instantly, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated panic. Her eyes darted around like a cornered animal. She practically lunged at me, pressing her hands heavily onto my thighs. Her posture was completely rigid. “Mona, are you sure you aren’t imagining things?” “You have never had feeling down there. How could it just suddenly move?” “You are just tired, sweetheart. It was probably just a muscle spasm.” “It wasn’t a spasm!” I argued desperately. I tried to lift my leg again to prove it. But this time, no matter how hard I strained my brain, my legs felt like solid blocks of concrete. They refused to budge. Mom let out a very audible exhale, her shoulders dropping. She patted the back of my hand. “See? It is okay. Don’t overthink it. Just rest, I will go make breakfast.” She spun on her heel and speed walked into the kitchen. She was moving so fast she completely forgot about the wet laundry sitting on the balcony rail. I sat in my chair, a strange knot forming in my stomach. Why wasn’t she happy? Did she not want me to walk? That night, I woke up around 2 AM. I heard muffled voices coming from the living room. I silently peeled back my bedroom curtain just a fraction. Mom was pacing in the dark, her back to me, gripping her phone tightly against her ear. “…I didn’t miss a dose! Who could have predicted she would suddenly claim she could feel her legs today?” “…She physically lifted her knee. Is her body building a tolerance to the dosage?” “I don’t know what happened! I gave her the exact amount you told me to…” “Fine. I understand. I will come pick up the stronger batch tomorrow…” I could not make out the person on the other end, but my mother’s hushed, frantic tone echoed in the quiet house. The very next afternoon, she returned home with an unlabeled amber pill bottle. The tablets inside were larger and a much darker shade of brown. She shook one out, pressed it to my lips, and gave me her signature warm smile. “Mona, Mommy reached out to a holistic specialist out of state. He sent over this new medication. It is supposed to work miracles.” “If we stick to this routine, you might just be walking in no time.” For the next few days, I swallowed the new pills. Whatever faint tingling I had experienced was completely eradicated. My knees felt completely numb again. My legs returned to being two cold, lifeless stones. 3 Mom walked toward me holding a glass of water, pinching that new, oversized white pill between her fingers. Her smile was as gentle and loving as ever, but looking at it now made my chest constrict with anxiety. “Time for your medicine, sweetie.” She pressed the pill against my lips and tipped the glass toward my mouth. “Drink up and take a nice long nap. Maybe tomorrow your legs will feel brand new.” I stared at the chalky tablet, the memory of her frantic late night phone call screaming in my head. But I kept my face totally blank. I parted my lips and let her place it on my tongue. She watched me closely. I took a large gulp of water, tilted my head back, and put on a show of swallowing hard. Seeing my throat bob, her loving smile deepened. She reached out and stroked my hair. Her palm was physically warm, but to me, it felt like freezing ice. “Such a good girl. Always so cooperative. You are going to be completely healed before you know it.” “Get some rest.” She turned off the lamp and gently pulled my bedroom door shut. The absolute second the latch clicked, I shot up in bed. I slapped my hand over my mouth and coughed violently. The pill, which I had jammed deep under my tongue, popped out into my palm. It was perfectly intact, leaving a sour, chemical burn on my taste buds. I was terrified to leave it in the trash or on the nightstand where she might find it. Running my fingers along the side of my wheelchair, I found a small tear in the fabric underneath the seat cushion. I shoved the pill deep inside the foam padding, smoothed the fabric over, and lay back down as if nothing had happened. I stayed wide awake staring at the ceiling until dawn. Without the drugs coursing through my system, that heavy, leaden feeling in my lower half began to fade. By the early hours of the morning, a faint, electric buzzing sensation returned to my kneecaps. That tiny spark of feeling filled me with a chaotic mix of elation and sheer terror. Elation because my body was actually capable of healing. Terror because if my mother found out I was faking it, I had no idea what she was capable of doing to me. Just as the sun started to rise, the door creaked open. Mom stepped in and froze when she saw my open eyes. “You are up early, Mona. Did you sleep poorly?” I quickly softened my expression, rubbing my eyes to feign grogginess. My voice was sweet and innocent. “No, Mommy. The birds outside just woke me up.” She walked over, automatically checking my forehead for a fever before her eyes darted straight down to my legs. “Any discomfort down there? Need Mommy to rub them out?” I could feel the intense, paranoid scrutiny in her gaze. My heart hammered against my ribs, but I forced a bright smile. “Nope! Still feel exactly the same. But maybe yesterday’s medicine is working its magic deep down.” Hearing that, her tense shoulders visibly relaxed. The sickeningly sweet smile returned to her face. But hiding beneath it was a dark, calculating look I was finally learning to recognize. “Don’t lose hope. We will take another pill today, and the results will be even better.” I nodded enthusiastically. As she turned her back to head to the kitchen, I clenched my fists tightly under the blanket. I knew right then and there. From the moment I spit that pill out, the game had completely changed. I could no longer afford to be the obedient little doll. I needed to find out exactly what she was feeding me. And more importantly, I needed to know why she was doing this to her own flesh and blood. For the next few days, I executed my routine flawlessly. When pill time came, I happily opened my mouth. The second her back was turned, I spat it into a napkin and stuffed it into the secret compartment of my wheelchair. As my stash of hidden pills grew, my body started waking up. It started with the tingling in my knees. Then, I found I could slightly flex my calf muscles. By the fifth night, sitting alone in the dark, I gripped the edge of my mattress and dragged my dead weight forward. I managed to swing both legs over the side of the bed. When the bare soles of my feet actually felt the freezing chill of the hardwood floor, I broke down. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at my toes, tears streaming down my face in the dark. They were not tears of sorrow. It was pure, unadulterated triumph. I focused all my energy downward, and my toes curled against the wood. I wasn’t permanently broken. I actually had a chance to walk on this earth just like a normal person. But as the euphoria faded, the grim reality settled back in. What the hell was in those pills? Why did taking them turn me into a vegetable, and stopping them bring me back to life? I had to get to the bottom of this. Not just to save myself, but to expose the monster playing house with my life. 4 Whenever the camera was rolling, I was the picture perfect disabled daughter. When Mom set up a vlog, I would stare wistfully out the living room window, perfectly portraying a girl longing to play outside. When she cried to her live stream audience, I would lower my head and look heartbreakingly pitiful. When viewers asked me in the chat, “Do you want to walk, Mona?” I recited the exact script she had drilled into my head. “More than anything. I want to walk in the park with my mom so she doesn’t have to carry me anymore.” The moment the camera turned off, she would shower me with praise. “Good girl, Mona. You really know how to help Mommy out.” She would pull up her banking app, showing me the massive spikes in donations. “Look at this. People feel so bad for you. Keep this up, and we will have enough for your treatments in no time.” But looking at her glowing face, I felt nothing but a chilling disgust. During one particular live stream, a viewer dropped a comment that caught traction. “What exact medication is Mona taking? Maybe we can crowdfund a better specialist or find imported alternatives.” Mom’s eyes flickered with panic for a fraction of a second, but she quickly smoothed it over. “It is a highly specialized prescription. The name is ridiculously long and complicated.” “Her doctor explicitly warned me not to share the name online so people don’t try self medicating.” A troll in the chat immediately pounced on the excuse. “Sounds like a scam to me. She’s faking it for the GoFundMe money.” The chat quickly spiraled. “Actually, yeah. Refusing to name the meds is super sketchy.” “Is she even paralyzed? The internet is full of grifters faking illnesses for clout these days.” “No medical records, no doctor names… this has scam written all over it.” Mom’s face drained of all color. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, completely failing to come up with a believable lie on the spot. A lightbulb went off in my head. I was trapped in this house and couldn’t test the pills myself. But the media could. I immediately leaned into the frame, putting on my best performance. My voice trembled with forced indignation and desperate tears. “How can you guys say that about my mom?!” I gripped the fabric of my shirt, forcing my eyes to water. “She wakes up in the middle of the night to take care of me!” “She dresses me, feeds me, and massages my legs until her hands cramp!” “She works night shifts just to keep the lights on. She measures my medicine down to the milligram because she is terrified of hurting me. How could you call her a liar?!” I took a shaky breath, staring directly into the lens with fierce determination. “If you don’t believe us, then call a news station! Tell them to come broadcast our life live on TV!” “They can film her waking me up, doing my physical therapy, and putting me to bed.” “Let them see for themselves if my legs work, and let them see how hard my mom fights for me!” The energy in the chat did a complete 180. “Mona is right. A kid that age wouldn’t lie like that.” “You trolls are disgusting, bullying a single mom at her breaking point.” Right on cue, a verified account pinned a comment. “We are producers from the local Channel 7 News. We would love to do a live documentary on your daily routine tomorrow. Would you be open to this?” Mom sat completely paralyzed in her chair. She stared at me, her eyes wide with shock. She clearly never expected me to hijack the stream like that. I turned to her, flashing my most innocent, angelic smile. I whispered so the mic would barely catch it. “Mommy, this way nobody can ever call us liars again.” Once the stream ended, she hovered over me, her expression incredibly tense. “Mona, why on earth did you invite a news crew here? What if… what if something goes wrong on live TV?” Her voice lacked its usual confidence. She could not even make eye contact with me. I looked down, softly tracing the fabric over my numb knees. “Mom, I just couldn’t stand them attacking you like that.” “You sacrifice everything for me. You break your back working late, and they treat you like a criminal. It made me so angry.” I looked up, letting my eyes shine with naive hope. “Besides, isn’t this a good thing? If we go viral on the news, everyone will see how amazing you are.” “The donations will go through the roof. You won’t have to work those awful night shifts at the convenience store anymore.” She stared hard into my eyes for several agonizing seconds, searching for any sign of deception. Finally, she let out a long breath, her vanity winning out over her paranoia. “My sweet girl is growing up. You are really looking out for Mommy.” “Okay. You are right. Let the reporters come tomorrow.” I nodded obediently. I knew exactly why she caved so fast. She genuinely believed her acting was flawless enough to fool a professional camera crew. But she had no idea what I was actually planning. I did not want the media here to validate her “sacrifices.” I wanted them here with high definition lenses to witness her force feeding me those pills. I wanted them here to broadcast her fraudulent tears to millions of viewers. I was using this live documentary to burn her empire of lies to the ground. That night, I spit my pill out into my palm again. Lying in the dark, I practiced firing the muscles in my thighs. My calves were actually responding to my commands now. Give me a few more days, and I might actually be able to pull myself up using the bedframe. I slipped my hand under the cushion, brushing my fingers against my hidden stash of pills. Mom, I thought to myself into the darkness. Everything you took from me… you are going to pay it back in full.

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My husband Preston is severely allergic to dairy. He refuses to touch anything containing even a trace of milk. During our first year of marriage, I accidentally made him a dairy-based pudding. He threw an absolute fit, screaming and demanding to know if I was trying to kill him. From that day on, dairy was strictly banned from our house. But just moments ago, at his own promotion banquet, he downed an entire glass of milk handed to him by his assistant. I didn’t act shocked. I simply turned around, pulled out a divorce agreement, and handed it to him. The friends and family surrounding us immediately accused me of causing a scene. Preston was so furious he splashed the remaining milk right into my face. “Tracy was just worried the alcohol would upset my stomach! She kindly poured me a glass of milk to coat it. What is your problem?” he yelled. He actually had the nerve to add, “Besides, Tracy is married and has a baby! Are you seriously jealous of a married woman?” I let out a soft laugh. I turned around, poured another glass of milk from the pitcher, and shoved it in front of him. “You love milk so much? Keep drinking.” 1 Preston stared at the glass in my hand. Realization seemed to hit him. Furious and embarrassed, he slapped the cup away, sending it crashing to the floor. “I drink at these corporate dinners for work! I do it to give you a better life! If you don’t care about my health, fine. But demanding a divorce in public over a glass of milk?” His little speech instantly won over the entire banquet hall. “Everyone knows how hard Preston works. He literally drinks until his stomach bleeds just to spoil Audrey. I can’t believe she is acting like such an ungrateful brat!” “Preston is famous for spoiling his wife. I heard he specifically hired an assistant who was married with a kid just so Audrey wouldn’t feel insecure.” His assistant, Tracy, stepped forward with a perfectly crafted look of victimhood. “Audrey, I am a married woman. My baby just turned one. How can you possibly be jealous of me?” “I was just worried about Preston’s stomach. It was a completely innocent gesture. If you hate it that much, I will never pour him a drink again!” I raised my hand and wiped the sticky, sickeningly sweet liquid from my face. A sharp, pungent smell invaded my nose. My stomach physically turned. I slammed the divorce papers onto the table. “Once we are divorced, you can feed him all the milk you want. I won’t get in your way.” Seeing I was dead serious, Preston snatched the papers and ripped them in half. His face was red with anger. “I am not signing anything. You are just throwing a tantrum over Tracy. Fine. I will never drink anything she pours me ever again. Happy?” “Tonight is my promotion party. Are you really going to ruin everyone’s mood?” His sister Brittany stepped up, patting my shoulder with fake sympathy. “Audrey, you are just a stay-at-home wife. You need to know when to quit while you are ahead. If you actually divorce him, you will never find a guy half as good as my brother.” My mother-in-law Eleanor glared at me with pure disgust. “You have been married to my son for three years. He never even lets you step foot in the kitchen. He wakes up early to cook you breakfast before work, and rushes home to make you dinner. He doesn’t even let you wash his socks.” “As his wife, you watch him destroy his body for his career and you feel nothing? You want a divorce over a glass of milk? Are you even human?” Eleanor’s words made the crowd look at me like I was absolute trash. I looked down at the damp stains on my dress. My eyes stung slightly. In everyone’s eyes, marrying Preston was like winning the lottery. He was the undisputed husband of the year. For three years, he took on all the household chores, treating me like a delicate flower in a greenhouse. But this “perfect man” had actually turned my entire existence into a sick joke. The warmth vanished from my eyes. I pulled out my phone, submitted an official divorce filing online, and forwarded the confirmation to Preston. “I don’t care if you agree. This marriage is over.” “Meet me at the courthouse at ten tomorrow morning. If you don’t show, I will let my lawyers handle it.” Preston froze. His tone immediately softened. He reached out to grab my hand, shifting into his usual coaxing voice. “Honey, I know you are just acting out because you want my attention. I promise you, from now on, I will only drink what you pour me. Okay?” Fighting down the bile in my throat, I yanked my hand back. I poured another glass of regular milk and pushed it right to his chest. “Then drink this right now.” Preston stared at the glass. His face instantly darkened into a thundercloud. “You know I am severely allergic. Are you seriously trying to force me into the ER tonight?” “Audrey, why are you being so completely unreasonable?” I looked at him and let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Oh, so now you remember your allergy? Then why didn’t you have a reaction when you downed the glass Tracy just gave you?” “Or does her milk magically cure your allergies, while mine sends you to the hospital?” Preston’s face went ghost white. His hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. The veins in his neck popped. 2 Before Preston could explode, Tracy took a quick step forward and snatched the glass of milk. “Audrey, this is all my fault. I will drink this to apologize. Please, just stop torturing Preston.” “He is still my husband. Who the hell do you think you are to drink for him?” Watching Tracy’s pathetic, theatrical act made me want to throw up. I ripped the glass out of her hand and dumped the entire thing directly over her head. “Does your husband know you are breastfeeding other men?” Seeing her dripping wet, Preston violently shoved me backward. He pulled Tracy into his chest, shielding her. “I spoiled you way too much! I let you get away with everything, and now you think you are untouchable!” “If you want to walk away, fine. We are getting a divorce. But you are leaving with absolutely nothing.” There it was. He finally ripped his mask off. He was completely convinced I wouldn’t dare leave him. In his mind, I had been his little caged bird for three years. I sneered. “I am not the one who crossed the line. Why should I leave with nothing?” “The person getting kicked to the curb with empty pockets is going to be you.” The moment the words left my mouth, the entire room erupted into mocking laughter. “Everyone knows you haven’t worked a day since you got married. You survive entirely on Preston’s paycheck. How shameless do you have to be to demand he leaves with nothing?” “Bankrupting your husband over a glass of milk? You are actually psycho.” Eleanor was so furious she raised her hand and swung it directly at my face. “Without my son, you are just used goods! Let’s see who wants a spoiled brat like you!” I covered my stinging, red cheek. Before I could say a word, Preston grabbed his mother’s arm. “Mom, stop! Audrey is still your wife. She is just throwing a tantrum right now. Once she cools off, she will come crawling right back to me.” The crowd collectively swooned over his “protection.” They praised him as an absolute saint of a husband, painting me as a heartless, ungrateful leech. “Look at that. You act like a total lunatic, and Preston still defends you. If you keep pushing this, you really have no soul.” Everyone expected me to take the out and back down. I didn’t. My eyes swept past Preston and locked onto Tracy, who was hiding behind his shoulder. “I guess I have no soul, then. This divorce is happening.” Seeing my absolute resolve, Preston’s eyes turned bloodshot. “Audrey, are you screwing someone else? Is that why you are so desperate to leave me?” I didn’t even want to waste another breath on them. I turned toward the exit, but Preston gripped my wrist like a vice. “Tell me! Who is the guy? If you confess right now, I am willing to give you one last chance!” Tracy seized the opportunity to play the empathetic peacemaker. “Audrey, I know Preston works long hours. It is normal for a housewife to feel lonely and empty at home. But since he is willing to forgive you, just tell the truth. Are you leaving him for another man?” As she breathed heavily, trying to look concerned, the fabric of her silk blouse shifted. A faint, wet stain was clearly visible on her chest. It burned my eyes. I raised my free hand and slapped her straight across the face. “Stop throwing your dirty water on me. You know exactly why we are getting a divorce.” Tracy clutched her cheek and buried her face into Preston’s chest, sobbing hysterically. “Preston, I was just trying to help her! I don’t know why she hates me so much! I’m just a mother trying to do my job!” Preston wrapped his arms tightly around her, glaring at me with pure hatred. “Fine, Audrey. You want a war? I will see you in court.” Hearing him finally agree to the divorce felt like a massive weight lifting off my chest. I turned and walked away. I didn’t look back once. As soon as I stepped out of the banquet hall, I noticed the door to the hotel’s private nursing room was wide open. Sitting right on the counter was a freshly used breast pump. My stomach violently convulsed. I ran to the nearest trash can and threw up everything I had eaten. 3 Walking out the hotel doors, my phone buzzed. It was a text from my private assistant, Harper. “Ms. Kensington, the lab results from the glass are in. I sent the report to your inbox.” I opened my email immediately. At the very bottom of the report, the chemical breakdown listed one undeniable result. Human breast milk. Even though my stomach was completely empty, I hunched over and dry heaved on the sidewalk. I wiped my mouth and dialed Harper’s number. “Compile every single piece of evidence we have. I am going to obliterate Preston in that courtroom.” I hung up, glanced back at the glowing hotel, and started walking down the driveway. I reached the valet stand, but the driver immediately blocked the door of my assigned car. He looked at me with total disdain. “Sorry. Mr. Preston gave strict orders. Since you are getting divorced, this car is his personal asset. You are not allowed to use it.” I stared at the pitch-black mountain road ahead, my nails digging into my palms. The banquet was held at an exclusive halfway resort. The scenery was beautiful, but it was incredibly remote. Getting a rideshare up here was impossible. He was trying to put me in my place. The driver sneered at me. “You are just a parasite living off a man’s wallet. Throwing your life away over a glass of milk. Let’s see how long you survive in the real world without him.” I ignored his trash talk, gritted my teeth, and started the long walk down the winding mountain road. The road was rugged and the night air was freezing. It took me two full hours to reach the bottom of the hill. Just as I hit the main highway, a sleek Mercedes sped up from behind and slammed the brakes right next to me. Preston and Tracy were sitting in the backseat, staring at me with icy arrogance. “Do you finally understand what happens when you cross me, Audrey?” Preston sneered. “Apologize to me and Tracy right now, and I promise I will let you get in the car and come home.” Tracy chimed in, perfectly echoing his tone. “Just apologize, Audrey. Preston was just promoted to regional director. The sky is the limit for him now. If you throw this away, there is no magic pill to cure your regret.” I looked at Tracy’s smug, toxic smile and let out a scoff. “You clearly love collecting trash. But I don’t. I’m a germaphobe.” Preston’s face turned violently green. He glared at me like a venomous snake. “I am going to wait for the day you crawl back to me on your knees!” He barked at the driver, and the Mercedes peeled out into the night. The second his taillights vanished, I walked straight toward a custom black Maybach parked quietly under a streetlamp. I slid into the plush leather seat. Harper immediately handed me Preston’s corporate employment file. “Ms. Kensington, Preston doesn’t possess a fraction of the talent required for that director position. If it wasn’t for your secret backing, he would still be a bottom-tier sales rep. Do you want me to terminate him right now?” I waved my hand, staring out into the dark night. “No. I want him to stand at the absolute peak before I push him off the edge.” Years ago, Preston’s pure, unfiltered devotion had actually moved me. To protect his fragile masculine ego, I gave up the spotlight and played the role of the quiet housewife. I secretly funneled all my family’s corporate resources into paving his way to the top. And my reward was absolute betrayal. That night, I slept in my own multi-million dollar private estate. Just as I was about to close my eyes, my phone lit up. It was an emergency call from a close friend. “Audrey, it’s a disaster. Someone just leaked a massive folder online. They used deepfake technology to paste your face onto highly explicit photos with dozens of different men. They even posted manipulated adult videos of you on several underground forums.” 4 I hung up the phone. A barrage of text messages flooded my screen instantly. I clicked on one and saw a grotesque, heavily doctored photo of myself in bed with a stranger. Below it was a link to a sketchy forum hosting the fake videos. Before I could even process the image, a random number called me. “You filthy gold digger! You belong in the gutter! Go burn in hell!” I slammed the end button. Two seconds later, another call broke through. “Audrey, you cheated on him and then tried to frame him over a glass of milk? Preston is the unluckiest guy on earth to have married trash like you.” My personal data had been completely exposed. I quickly popped the SIM tray out and removed the card. Preston moved incredibly fast. The very next morning, I received a formal lawsuit and a court summons. He was filing for divorce and demanding everything. That afternoon, I drove to our old apartment to collect my personal belongings. But as I pulled up to the gate, I saw a massive pile of clothes and boxes scattered across the dirty pavement. I stepped closer. They were all my things. He had tossed my belongings onto the street like actual garbage. As I bent down to pick up a box, Eleanor suddenly appeared with a mob of neighborhood Karens, completely surrounding me. “That’s her! The shameless tramp! She slept with half the city, got exposed online, and used a glass of milk to demand a divorce!” A barrage of rotting lettuce and cracked, foul-smelling eggs rained down on me. The smell was unbearable. I couldn’t even shield my face. The women descended on me like rabid animals, violently grabbing and tearing at my jacket. “You are a jobless housewife! Every bite you eat and every thread you wear belongs to my son! How dare you cheat on him? You should be locked up!” My coat was ripped at the seams, hanging off my shoulders in tatters. I was completely cornered. Right on cue, Preston came rushing out of the complex. He dramatically ripped off his blazer and draped it over my shoulders. He turned to his mother with a deeply disappointed look. “Mom! As long as the judge hasn’t signed the papers, she is still my wife. You cannot treat her like this!” His theatrical performance won over the entire crowd instantly. “Look how she treated him, and he still protects her! What a saint!” “Audrey, if you have a shred of conscience, you should be begging for his forgiveness right now!” Preston looked down at me, his eyes brimming with fake, deep affection. “Honey, if you just admit you were wrong and come home, I will drop the lawsuit today.” I looked at his sickeningly hypocritical face, grabbed his blazer, and whipped it directly at his chest. “Save it, Preston. I will see you in court.” The day of the trial arrived quickly. Relatives, friends, aggressive internet vigilantes, and local reporters packed the gallery. They were all waiting to watch me burn. Preston walked in with Tracy glued to his side. He looked at me with a perfectly crafted look of pity. “Audrey, it is not too late to back out. If this trial starts, you are leaving with zero.” I looked at his arrogant posture and let out a dry laugh. “We will see who leaves with zero. You are celebrating way too early, Preston.” His fake smile instantly vanished, replaced by a dark, vicious glare. “Then don’t blame me for ruining you.” The trial officially commenced. Preston eagerly submitted his mountain of “evidence” to the judge. “Your Honor, my wife committed adultery with multiple partners. Furthermore, she has been monetizing illegal, highly explicit content online. Her actions have caused catastrophic emotional and reputational damage to my family.” He shot me a smug, victorious grin. Just as he thought he had me completely cornered, the heavy courtroom doors swung open. A team of sharp-suited lawyers marched down the aisle and took their seats next to me. The gallery started whispering frantically. “Wait, isn’t that the most elite corporate litigation team in the state? Why the hell are they defending a broke cheater?” Preston scoffed, leaning against his table. “You can hire the best lawyers in the world. It doesn’t matter. I have witness testimonies and hard physical evidence.” “You are dead in the water, Audrey.” He stood tall and recited my alleged sins to the courtroom one by one. The judge adjusted his glasses, looking down at me coldly. “The plaintiff has submitted the evidence. The defendant is accused of serial infidelity and the illegal distribution of explicit material for profit. Do you have any objections to these claims?” I smiled calmly. “I absolutely object.” I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a single folder. Preston saw the logo on the folder, and a slight tremor ran through his shoulders. I looked at him with a deadly smirk.

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1 I was three months pregnant when I found a half-empty condom box in my husband Kevin’s car. I demanded a divorce immediately, not even knowing who the other woman was. He begged on our porch for days. My best friend Brooke warned, “Men are unreliable. Let me set you up, and you should lose the baby—it’ll only hold you back.” But I couldn’t. Each time I touched my growing belly, I softened. We reconciled. Kevin changed—came home early, gave me his unlocked phone, even added a GPS tracker. My mother said a changed man is precious. I believed her. Until the day I started bleeding heavily. Rushed to maternity in agony, I needed a signature for an emergency C-section. Shaking, I called Kevin over and over. No answer. Finally, he picked up, voice sharp with impatience. “One late night and you’re already tracking me?” A woman’s laugh cut in from the background, clear and cold: “You haven’t even fixed things with Brooke yet, and your wife is checking up. Aren’t you scared she’ll find out?” White noise flooded my ears. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the phone, desperately hoping I had misheard. Then came Kevin’s low, familiar voice. “If she was going to catch me, she would have done it by now.” I could practically hear the smirk on his face. “It’s her own fault for telling Brooke everything. It just makes logistics easier for us. Plus, Brooke actually knows how to act. She’s wild in bed and easy to keep happy.” His buddy gave a half-hearted warning. “Have your fun, man, but keep it in check. If you end up putting the girl in the hospital, things are gonna blow up.” Their laughter echoed through the speaker, twisting like a serrated blade in my chest. No wonder Brooke hadn’t come to visit me the last couple of days. She said she was “busy.” Right after Kevin and I got married, Brooke moved into the apartment right next to ours, claiming she wanted to be close to her best friend. Her appliances were always magically breaking down, giving her the perfect excuse to knock on our door and ask Kevin to fix them. I had never thought twice about it. The day I first caught Kevin cheating, I was a sobbing mess. I called Brooke. When she rushed over to comfort me, there was a fresh hickey bruised into her collarbone. I didn’t connect the dots. I didn’t even notice the faint, triumphant little smile playing on her lips while she held me. Back then, I was obsessed with finding out who the homewrecker was. Kevin swore he had been black-out drunk and couldn’t even remember the woman’s face. I went crazy playing detective, stalking the socials of every woman in his orbit. I found nothing. I stopped sleeping. I couldn’t understand why the man who vowed to cherish me forever would throw it all away. I fell into a deep depression, paranoid of everyone around me. And Brooke was the one who held my hand through it all. Eventually, for the sake of the baby and the years of history we shared, I went back to him. But the reconciliation was tainted. Every time Kevin tried to be intimate, my mind would instantly flash to the image of him sweating over someone else. Nausea would rise in my throat. I would physically shove him away. “Just… give me some time,” I had pleaded. He had looked so hurt. He nodded, eyes red. “It’s okay. I’ll wait as long as it takes.” After that, he played the role of the perfect husband. Breakfast in bed, drawing my evening baths to the perfect temperature. He even volunteered to sleep in the guest room, promising to give me space until my trauma healed. I really thought things were getting better. I really thought he had changed. But a cheater never stops. They just get better at hiding. Another violent wave of pain hit me. The phone slipped from my sweaty fingers and clattered onto the linoleum. Hot fluid gushed between my legs, soaking the hospital sheets. “The patient’s vitals are crashing! We’re out of time, prep the OR for an immediate C-section!” Cold steel instruments brushed against my skin. The blinding surgical lights faded into total darkness. When I finally opened my eyes again, the doctor was standing over me, his expression grave. “The fetal asphyxia lasted too long. We did everything we could.” I stared blankly at the ceiling. Tears spilled over my temples, soaking into my hair. Because of my fragile health, I had to go through IVF. I endured daily hormone injections until my arms were bruised black and blue. I swallowed handfuls of pills that ruined my stomach lining, all to finally conceive this child. The day we found out I was pregnant, Kevin wept tears of joy. He went to the local chapel and prayed all night, thanking God for our miracle. Brooke had hugged me so tight, practically squealing about how excited she was to be the godmother. But now… maybe God just didn’t want me wasting any more of my life on this toxic marriage. So He took my baby back. Ignoring the tearing pain in my abdomen, I dragged my hollow, exhausted body out of the recovery room. I walked straight to the nurse’s station and asked for Brooke’s room number. As I turned to leave, I overheard two nurses gossiping behind the counter. “That patient is so lucky. Her boyfriend is amazing.” “I know, right? When she came in sick last month, he stayed by her bed the entire night. Didn’t even close his eyes.” My footsteps faltered. Last month. That was my birthday. Kevin had promised to get off work early. He had even pre-ordered my favorite cake. But as the sun went down, all I got was a phone call. “I’m so sorry, babe. Emergency out-of-town conference. I can’t make it tonight.” He had FaceTimed me from a generic-looking hotel room just to prove it, swearing up and down how guilty he felt. I was disappointed, but I told him not to overwork himself. He never texted back. I assumed he was busy. He was busy, alright. Busy taking care of my best friend. 2 I stood outside Brooke’s hospital room. I raised my hand to knock, but my fingers were trembling so violently I couldn’t make a sound. Through the thin door, Brooke’s whiny, sweet voice drifted out into the hallway. “Once you’re a daddy, you’re going to spend all your time taking care of your wife and kid. You’re going to forget all about me.” Kevin’s response was lazy, laced with a casual arrogance. “We’ll split it. She gets me Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You get me Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Deal?” “What if she catches us again? Who are you going to pick? Me or her?” I didn’t wait to hear his answer. I grabbed the handle and shoved the door open. Two heads snapped toward me, their faces draining of color. I forced a stiff, mocking smile onto my face. “I heard my husband went so hard he ruptured my best friend’s ovarian cyst. Thought I’d drop by and check on the patient.” The first time I caught Kevin cheating, he looked like he was going to vomit. He was a trembling, frantic mess, terrified I would walk away. This time, he was infuriatingly calm. He looked at my disheveled hair, my swollen, bloodshot eyes, and just let out a heavy sigh. “Sarah, let me explain. It’s not what you think.” Seeing him so composed made something snap inside me. I choked back a sob, my voice cracking. “Did you forget what you promised me?! You swore on your life there wouldn’t be a next time! And with her? How could either of you look me in the eye?!” All the tiny, overlooked details from the past year suddenly flooded my mind, slotting perfectly into place. Whenever Brooke came over for dinner, she intentionally went braless. When I gently suggested she cover up, she just rolled her eyes and laughed. “It’s the twenty-first century, Sarah! Free the nipple!” She acted so righteous about it that I ended up feeling like a prudish, jealous housewife. I remembered coming back from the bathroom at a restaurant once, catching Brooke reapplying her lipstick, her breathing slightly heavy. Kevin was wiping his mouth with a napkin. The air between them was thick and sticky, but I had been entirely blind to it. Then there was the time Kevin had to go away for a week-long “business trip,” right around the same time Brooke announced she was going on a solo vacation. When Kevin got back, he gifted me a pair of stunning diamond earrings. I cherished them. A few days later, I noticed Brooke wearing a diamond necklace with the exact same cut and setting. I thought it was just a coincidence. Now I realized the earrings I refused to take off were just the free gift that came with her necklace. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. I raised my hand, fully intending to slap the life out of Brooke. “I treated you like my sister! Is this how you repay me?!” I had known Brooke longer than I had known Kevin. When I was twenty, I was in a horrific car accident. Brooke stayed in the waiting room until dawn, praying for my survival. When I needed a massive blood transfusion, she stepped up without hesitation, donating until she passed out from severe anemia. When I woke up and called her an idiot while crying, she just gave me a pale, weak smile. “You’re my best friend, Sarah. I can’t lose you.” When I found out Kevin was cheating, she was the only person in the world I didn’t suspect. And in the end, it was my best friend who slid the knife the deepest into my back. Before my hand could make contact with her face, a strong grip clamped around my wrist. Kevin stared down at me, his eyes dark, acting like he was dealing with an unreasonable toddler. “Sarah, I’m a normal guy. I have physical needs. You have to be realistic.” “You wouldn’t let me touch you. What was I supposed to do? I had to find somewhere to blow off steam.” “You’re pregnant. Stop causing a scene.” I froze. A pathetic, acidic burn stung my nose. How long had it been since he actually looked at me? He didn’t even notice that my stomach was flat. The baby was gone. A hollow, self-deprecating laugh escaped my lips, but the tears fell faster. “We’re getting a divorce, Kevin.” He paused for a second, then gave a dismissive scoff. “Don’t pull the divorce card again. It was exhausting the first time. You’re a mother now. Act like an adult. You really want our baby to grow up in a broken home?” Maybe he thought my love for the child made me weak. Maybe he thought I was completely trapped. He let go of my wrist, stepping forward to pull me into a suffocating hug, lowering his voice to a coaxing whisper. “Look, Brooke and I just needed to scratch an itch. There are no real feelings there. You’re the only woman I actually love.” “As soon as you’re ready to be a real wife to me again, I swear I won’t touch another woman. And honestly, considering how close you two are, it’s better I do it with her than some random escort off the street, right?” His cologne mixed with the sterile hospital smell made my stomach heave. I shoved my hands against his chest, ready to fight my way out. But as I turned my head, I saw my mother standing in the doorway. I didn’t know how long she had been there. Her face was an ashen, terrifying gray. Her chest was heaving erratically. On our wedding day, Kevin had gotten down on one knee in front of my mother, swearing he would protect me with his life. Three years later, he had shattered that promise twice over. My mother’s lips trembled violently. She raised a shaking finger, pointing at the two of them. She only managed to choke out the word “You…” before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed hard onto the floor. 3 Kevin panicked, taking a step toward her. I shoved him back with everything I had, dropping to my knees to cradle my mother’s limp body, screaming for a doctor. The diagnosis was a severe stroke triggered by massive emotional trauma. After hours of agonizing resuscitation, they moved her to the ICU. “You need to prepare yourself for the worst,” the doctor told me gently. “Even if she stabilizes, she may remain in a vegetative state.” The words felt like a slow, deliberate execution. I broke down right there in the hallway, sobbing until I couldn’t breathe. My father died when I was young. My mother sacrificed everything to raise me. When she first met Kevin, my usually fierce, independent mother had teared up. Before he left our house that night, she handed him my late father’s vintage watch, officially accepting him into the family. “Sarah has a pure heart,” she had told him. “Please treat her well. Don’t break her.” The first time Kevin’s affair came to light, my mother drove straight to our house to defend me. She looked him dead in the eye and said, “If you don’t love my daughter anymore, just let her go. Stop making her suffer.” I snapped back to the present, pressing my face against my mother’s ice-cold cheek. My voice was a broken whisper. “Mom, don’t worry. I won’t let them step on me anymore.” “I’m leaving him. For real this time.” As if she heard me, two tears slipped out from the corners of my mother’s closed eyes. Once she was stable enough, I left the hospital to meet with a lawyer to draft a bulletproof divorce agreement. The lawyer, Nathan, was an old college classmate. As our meeting ended, he slid a sleek black business card across the table. “If things get rough, call me. Anytime.” When I walked back into my mother’s hospital room, I froze. Brooke was kneeling by the bed, her eyes red, putting on a flawless performance of a remorseful sinner. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Miller,” she cried softly. “I was the one who seduced Kevin. I betrayed Sarah.” “But please don’t be mad at him. If you want to blame someone, blame your daughter. She’s the one who divorced him and then came crawling back like a pathetic dog.” My mother was awake. Her whole body was seizing with violent tremors, her eyes wide and burning with furious, helpless rage. She couldn’t speak. She could only shake. I sprinted across the room, grabbing Brooke by the shoulders and throwing her backward. “What the hell are you doing?!” I screamed, scrambling to press the emergency call button for the nurses. Brooke caught her balance and grabbed my wrist, a vicious, triumphant glare replacing her tears. “Am I wrong?!” she hissed. “Kevin was sick of you ages ago! He told me I’m the only one who can actually make him feel like a man!” I ripped my hand free and slapped her across the face. The crack echoed in the quiet room. “Is that how you justify destroying my life?” I spat. “It’s a shame that Kevin was willing to beg on his knees outside my door, yet he never once considered marrying you. What does that tell you?” Her face morphed into an ugly, mottled purple. “You don’t know anything! You think he took you back because he loves you? He only did it because you’re obedient and stupid!” She paused, a sickeningly sweet smile stretching across her lips. “Did you know? In exchange for me sleeping with him, he promised he wouldn’t let you get pregnant. Those special herbal fertility blends he brewed for you every night for three years? They were contraceptives. Toxins.” “Those herbs were meant to make you permanently infertile. And if by some miracle you actually conceived, the baby was supposed to be born deformed!” 4 I stood paralyzed. The blood in my veins turned to ice. Those three years of grueling IVF. Every single night, Kevin would meticulously boil those foul-tasting herbal teas, claiming they were holistic supplements to prepare my body for a baby. I choked down every bitter drop, my heart full of absolute devotion, dreaming of the family we were building. It was all a lie. A calculated, venomous lie. My chest caved in. The pain was so sharp it felt like thousands of surgical blades slicing through my organs. My vision went red. Before I even realized what I was doing, I lunged. I tackled Brooke to the floor, wrapping my hands around her throat and squeezing with every ounce of strength I had left. Pure terror washed over her face. She thrashed, gagging and clawing at my arms. I didn’t let go until someone grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me backward. I hit the floor hard. Kevin was standing over me, pulling Brooke behind him, his face twisted in disgust. “Have you completely lost your mind?! Are you trying to kill her?!” he roared. “I never knew you were this deranged!” When he shoved me, my head clipped the edge of the metal bedside cabinet. Warm blood instantly started dripping down my temple. Kevin flinched, a flash of genuine panic crossing his eyes. He took half a step toward me. But Brooke dropped to her knees, clutching her throat, sobbing hysterically. “Sarah, I know I wronged you! But you can’t just cheat on him to get revenge!” “Kevin has been so good to you! How could you sleep with another man behind his back?!” Kevin froze dead in his tracks. “What did you just say?” Brooke pulled out her phone. On the screen was a gallery of photos. Me, tangled in bed with another man, entirely naked. My lungs seized. I screamed until my throat tore. “She’s lying! Those are deepfakes! It’s photoshopped!” I scrambled up, trying to snatch the phone from her hand. As I did, Nathan’s business card slipped out of my pocket and fluttered to the floor. The man in the fake photos had Nathan’s exact face. The temperature in the room dropped below freezing. The fury in Kevin’s eyes shifted into something psychotic and terrifying. He ground his teeth together, spitting out his words like venom. “You wouldn’t let me touch you… but you’ll spread your legs for some lawyer?” I looked at him. The coldness radiating from my own body was absolute. He didn’t believe me. He didn’t even hesitate. Suddenly, I was just so exhausted. I let out a soft, broken laugh. “So you can screw whoever you want, but I can’t?” Kevin’s jaw tightened. He pulled his phone from his pocket, hit a speed dial, and gave a sharp command. Seconds later, three massive, suited bodyguards stepped into the room. I backed up until my shoulders hit the wall, a deep, primal panic rising in my throat. Kevin wrapped an arm around Brooke’s waist, staring at me like I was a stranger. “If you don’t like me touching you, maybe you’ll like it when they do.” He nodded to the guards. “Teach her a lesson. Just don’t hit the stomach.” The men moved in instantly, grabbing my arms and twisting them behind my back. “Kevin, are you insane?!” I shrieked, kicking and thrashing wildly. On the bed, my mother saw what was happening. Using the absolute last dregs of her strength, she dragged herself over the railing, tumbling onto the floor in a desperate attempt to reach me. Brooke casually stepped forward and shoved her back down with the toe of her shoe. My mother lay there, her body convulsing, cloudy tears spilling from her unblinking eyes. My vision tore at the seams. “Mom!!!” “Stop! Stop it, please! Kevin, please, help her!” Kevin frowned, his eyes darting between me and my mother, a flicker of hesitation finally breaking his cold facade. He opened his mouth to say something, but Brooke tightened her grip on his arm, her face flushed. “Kevin, my stomach is cramping really badly…” He immediately turned his attention back to her, gently resting a hand on her waist. “I’ll take you down to ultrasound in a second.” My mother’s convulsions slowed, and she lay perfectly still on the linoleum. Kevin glanced at her in annoyance. “Stop faking it. You’re awake.” He turned, leading Brooke toward the door. Seeing that Kevin didn’t care, the guards tightened their grips, their faces twisting into crude, menacing smirks. Staring at those disgusting faces, I thrashed like a wild animal, desperate to crawl to my mother. One of the men got annoyed and shoved me hard. I stumbled backward. Kevin had stopped in the doorway, probably waiting for me to beg for mercy. But as I fell back, my oversized hospital gown rode up. His eyes locked onto my stomach. The slight, rounded bump from a few days ago was completely gone. Only a flat, empty abdomen remained. His face drained of every ounce of blood. His eyes went wide and manic, and a raw, terrifying roar ripped from his chest.

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1 My husband Matthew’s second wife stood outside the precinct interrogation room, holding a paper bag from a high-end deli. She wore a delicate silk scarf tied around her neck, smiling sweetly as she whispered to the officers that she had brought her husband dinner. At that exact moment, the serial killer sitting inside the interrogation room casually mentioned that the person who hired him had a distinct, cross-shaped scar on her neck. He even tilted his head, flashing a crooked grin, and told Detective Matthew that he should be very familiar with it. The atmosphere in the corridor instantly flatlined. Every cop in the vicinity turned their eyes toward Matthew. Matthew’s face remained a mask of stone. He demanded to know what the hell that had to do with him. The killer, Silas, let out a dry, rattling chuckle. Up until now, he had been relaxed, happily spilling the details of a massive contract he took five years ago. A wealthy buyer had set her sights on the victim’s husband. The buyer ordered Silas to abduct the wife, sever her head, and cut out the unborn child she was carrying on a very specific date. That date happened to be the exact day of Detective Matthew’s second wedding. This sensational, gruesome case had gone unsolved for five years. When the task force finally caught Silas, he was blowing through cash in a five-star hotel. As they slapped the cuffs on him, he didn’t even flinch. He just looked amused, openly mocking them for taking half a decade to track him down. The rich scent of roasted meat and garlic drifted from the deli bag, yet no one was paying attention to the food. Every gaze was locked onto Daphne’s neck. She shrank back slightly, her voice trembling like a startled bird. “Why is everyone staring at me?” Matthew’s sharp gaze softened the moment he looked at her. “What are you doing here so late?” “I heard you guys finally caught that monster. I wanted to bring you something to celebrate.” She tilted her head up, entirely compliant as Matthew reached out and gently untied the silk scarf. There was indeed a jagged scar marring the pale skin of her throat. It just wasn’t shaped like a cross. Matthew’s eyes filled with deep, unmistakable affection. He brushed his thumb just below the scarred tissue. “You really should look into getting that laser removal surgery.” “No way,” she protested softly. “This is my badge of honor. I got this protecting you. I’m keeping it.” The interrogation paused for a recess, and the two of them stood in the bustling precinct, wrapped up in their own private world. I stood a few feet away, watching them. I was completely numb. Ever since I died, my soul had been tethered to Matthew. I couldn’t leave his side. Five years was a long time. It was enough time for him to fall genuinely, deeply in love with Daphne. It was also enough time for him to entirely forget his first wife, the woman who had vanished without a trace half a decade ago. They walked side by side back to his desk to eat. Daphne was an incredible cook, and every dish in that bag was perfectly tailored to Matthew’s palate. Watching him eat with such quiet contentment, a memory surfaced from five years ago. Daphne had sat in my kitchen, smiling brightly as she asked me for advice. “Nora, they say the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Do you ever cook Matthew’s favorite meals at home?” I looked at the woman I considered my absolute best friend in the world and, without a single ounce of suspicion, gave her all of Matthew’s favorite recipes and dietary quirks. She used those secrets well. Over the last five years, every single meal she made for him was a dish I had taught her. She succeeded. She captured his stomach, and then she stole his heart. Daphne packed up the empty containers and prepared to leave. As she stepped out of the bullpen, she glanced back over her shoulder, a picture of innocent curiosity. “Honey, what was that guy saying earlier? Why did everyone look at me like that?” Matthew froze for a fraction of a second. He walked over and gently pinched her cheek. “It was nothing. Just the ramblings of a psycho. Head home. I’m going to be interrogating him all night, so don’t wait up.” The moment the glass doors shut behind Daphne, a junior detective named Bennett practically sprinted out of the observation room. He grabbed Matthew’s arm, his face pale and slick with sweat. “He shut down the second you walked out. Matthew, we still haven’t found the victim’s head. You have to get back in there and break him.” Matthew’s gentle demeanor vanished, replaced by the hardened, lethal edge of a veteran detective. He marched back into the room. Silas sat handcuffed to the steel table, completely unfazed by the blinding glare of the overhead lights. He squinted at Matthew, his posture lazy and arrogant. “Detective Matthew. I hear your lovely wife dropped by with dinner. Tasted pretty good, didn’t it?” The upward curve of his lips was grotesque. Matthew crossed his arms over his chest, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Silas, you’re backed into a corner. Stop playing games and start talking.” Silas’s eyes went wide with mock surprise before he burst into a fit of manic laughter. “I always heard you were the best on the force. Turns out you’re entirely useless. Five years. You couldn’t identify the body, you couldn’t find the buyer, and now you have to beg the killer to put the pieces together for you.” Matthew lunged forward, slamming his fists onto the metal table with a deafening crash. “You know exactly why we couldn’t identify her! You butchered her, Silas! You severed her head, cut out her child, and submerged the remains in chemicals so the lab couldn’t pull a single strand of viable DNA!” “You will tell me who she is and where you buried the rest of her, or I swear to God…” “Or what?” Silas sneered, raising his hands. The heavy chains of his cuffs rattled loudly against the steel. “I’m already chained to this table. What exactly are you going to do to me?” Matthew had broken drug lords, cartel enforcers, and psychopaths. But no one had ever pushed him to this level of suffocating rage. Silas watched him struggle to keep his composure, soaking in the entertainment before deciding to throw him a bone. “The woman I carved up was the woman who shared your bed for three years. Your ex-wife. Nora.” Silas leaned forward, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “She had a gorgeous body. The way she screamed when I pinned her down… it was practically music. She begged me to stop. She offered to let me use her all night if I just let her live.” “But I had a job to do. I tied her to that filthy mattress and made sure she kept her eyes open while I took my knife to her stomach.” He jerked his chin toward the evidence bags resting on the edge of the desk. “I used that exact hunting knife, by the way.” Matthew’s head snapped up. The veins in his neck bulged against his skin, pulsing erratically. “Bullshit,” he growled, his voice absolute. “She cheated on me. I saw her with my own eyes. I watched her get on a flight to Europe with another man.” Matthew cracked his knuckles, the sharp popping sounds filling the small room. He refused to look at Silas, speaking more to himself than the killer. “She was fragile. Always insecure. I yelled at her once, and she decided I didn’t love her anymore. So she found someone else. I sent her a hundred texts asking for an explanation. She ignored every single one.” He paused, pressing his thumb hard against his index finger until the joint popped again. He finally glared at Silas. “I saw her social media updates. She’s in the Swiss Alps right now, skiing with her new boyfriend. Making up a sick ghost story isn’t going to save you from a lethal injection. Or what, did Nora pay you to come here and mess with my head?” Silas stared at Matthew, his chest heaving with silent, uncontrollable laughter. “When I cut her head off, her eyes were so wide. I couldn’t get the eyelids to close, no matter how hard I tried. I always wondered why she died with such a horrific grudge. Now I get it. It was you.” Matthew acted as if he hadn’t heard a word. He pulled out his phone, swiped furiously, and shoved the screen right into Silas’s face. “We deal in facts in this building, Silas. Here’s a photo from last month. She’s alive. She’s thriving. You’re a liar.” I floated closer, my gaze locking onto the glowing screen. It was a picture of my face, pressed intimately against the cheek of a man I didn’t even recognize. Matthew’s face was devoid of emotion, but a phantom pain ripped through my chest. I didn’t understand. Matthew, that isn’t me. It’s edited. Why couldn’t you see that? Why didn’t you recognize your own wife? Silas rested his chin in his hands, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Detective, you can wave that fake picture in my face all day, but nothing beats seeing the truth with your own eyes.” “I’ll only say this once. Five years ago, a woman with a fresh, unhealed scar on her neck tracked me down. She paid me a fortune to execute Nora on the fourteenth of May.” “I asked her why that specific date. She smiled and told me that Nora’s death was going to be her wedding present. To celebrate her marriage to Nora’s husband.” Matthew’s breathing hitched. His spine snapped entirely rigid. “You’re completely insane. If you won’t talk, I’ll let the boys in the basement have a turn with you.” He stood up, his movements stiff and uncoordinated. His hand was just inches from the door handle when Silas’s voice slithered through the air again. “Right before I ended it, I let her call you.” “You picked up. But she couldn’t even get a word out before she heard you and your new bride going at it in the background.” Matthew whipped his head around, slamming right into Silas’s mocking stare. “You have no idea how utterly destroyed she looked,” Silas said casually. “So, as a final favor, she begged me to bury her and the kid somewhere you would have to drive past every single day.” Matthew froze. His lungs stopped working. There was a specific, scenic shortcut he took to the precinct every morning. Only two people in the world knew about it. Matthew stormed out of the room, shouting orders to mobilize a forensics team to that exact stretch of road. Once the chaotic flurry of officers cleared the hallway, he slumped against the concrete wall, trying to drag oxygen into his lungs. I crouched beside him, a sad, bitter smile touching my lips as I watched him fall apart. Matthew was two years younger than me. When we were together, he always tried to act stoic and mature, but underneath it all, he was just a stubborn kid. Now, five years later, the job had stripped that away. He had seen the worst of humanity. He was the legendary Detective Matthew. I watched him for a long time. He took a jagged breath, pulling his phone from his pocket. His thumb hovered over the screen, shaking slightly, before he dialed a number he had memorized years ago. It rang once before someone picked up. Matthew didn’t even wait for a greeting. His voice tore through the quiet hallway, vicious and raw. “Nora, do you think this is a joke? How much did you pay that psychopath to sit in my interrogation room and lie to my face?” “You are completely out of your mind. You hired a serial killer? Are you not terrified he’s going to turn around and butcher you for real?” He stopped talking. His chest heaved violently, betraying the sheer panic boiling underneath his anger. Total silence stretched across the line. Then, a deep, unfamiliar male voice replied. “Hey, buddy, I think you’ve got the wrong number. There’s no Nora here.” Matthew turned to stone. He pulled the phone back and stared at the screen. It was the right number. It was the matching couple’s phone plan we had bought for our last anniversary. Our numbers were identical except for the very last digit. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice dropping into a dangerous snarl. “You’re the guy she ran off with, aren’t you? Listen to me—” “Dude, no. I’m an accountant. I bought this number from the carrier four years ago. Have a good night.” The call clicked off. Matthew stood completely paralyzed. During the first year after I died, he would call that disconnected number every single night, screaming his frustrations into the void. Over time, as he built a new life with Daphne, the calls stopped. He eventually learned to forget the woman who had supposedly ruined him. Time moves on. The dead stay dead, and the living forget. Everything that once tied us together had faded into dust. I reached out, wrapping my translucent arms around his shoulders in a phantom hug, just like I used to when he was stressed. He stood there in silence for a long minute. Then, he bolted. He sprinted down the hall like a man on fire. I was dragged along behind him by our tether. I watched him throw his cruiser into gear, tires screeching as he sped toward the route he took every day. The rural road was already swarming with flashing red and blue lights. Crime scene tape glowed violently in the dark. An excavator idled nearby, its massive metal claw digging into the earth. Matthew ignored the perimeter guards, marching straight to a small curve near an old oak tree. There was a completely unremarkable stone sitting in the dirt. I had placed it there myself. He dropped to his knees, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers digging desperately into the damp soil. “Is it here?” he whispered to himself. “You told me you got this stone blessed at a cathedral… you said you buried it on my route to keep me safe.” I let out a heavy sigh as the night wind rushed past us. He stood up, wiping the wet dirt from his palms onto his slacks. “Bring the machine in. Dig right here.” No one questioned him. The mechanical arm tore into the ground. The heavy, metallic scent of overturned soil filled the air. Matthew stared into the widening pit, his thumb unconsciously digging hard into his own palm. It was a nervous tic he had whenever he was terrified. I used to scold him for it constantly. I leaned in, whispering in his ear to stop hurting himself. But he couldn’t hear me anymore. The excavator hit the three-foot mark. Metal scraped loudly against metal. “We hit something! It looks like a steel trunk!” an officer yelled. Matthew’s breath hitched. He practically threw himself into the ditch. It was a heavy, reinforced lockbox. No one knew what was inside. The forensics team promised they could drill the electronic lock within twenty-four hours. Matthew didn’t say a word. He just knelt in the dirt in his ruined suit, his fingers hovering over the keypad. I stood right behind him, watching as he typed in the first combination. 0-5-1-9. The day of our anniversary. Shortly after our wedding, I had rested my head on his chest and told him, “This date means everything to me. You and Daphne are the only two people in the world who know why. You’re my family.” Matthew held his breath and hit the enter key. The lock flashed red. Access denied. The frantic pounding in his chest began to slow. He stumbled backward, retreating from the center of the pit, his eyes completely hollow as he stared right through me. He was entirely lost in his own mind. A split second later, a soft, familiar voice echoed behind him. “Honey, what are you doing out here? What’s May 19th?” Matthew answered purely on reflex, his mind still somewhere else. The moment the words left his mouth, the warm, concerned smile on Daphne’s face twisted into something ugly and panicked. She instantly smoothed her features back into a mask of innocence. “I have no idea. Nora never mentioned that date to me.” It had been five years. This was the first time either of them had spoken my name to the other. The silence between them was thick and suffocating. I stood in the shadows, glaring at Daphne. Liar. You know exactly what that date means. No one knows better than you. Daphne and I had been best friends for over a decade. She was charismatic, beautiful, and loved by everyone. I was timid and socially anxious. She was the only friend I had. I told her everything. Seven years ago, I confessed to her, “There’s a guy in my history seminar. I think I’m falling for him.” The day I met Matthew was May 19th. Daphne pushed me to go after him. I stepped entirely out of my comfort zone to get his attention. We confessed, we dated, we got married. It was a fairy tale. But as time went on, Daphne began embedding herself deeper into our lives. I thought she just missed me. Yet, every single time she came around, Matthew and I would end up in a screaming match. I couldn’t figure out why. I broke down once, begging him to tell me what was wrong. He just stared at me with this complex, utterly cold expression and walked away. Our marriage began fracturing at the seams. We fought, we cried, we tried desperately to glue the pieces back together. During one of our worst cold wars, I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to surprise him. I spent two weeks secretly planning a romantic dinner, hoping a baby would be the miracle that saved us. When everything was ready, I asked Daphne to bring him to the apartment. I waited from sunset until midnight. Neither of them showed. I finally went out looking for them. I turned the corner near his precinct, only to find them holding each other tightly under the streetlights. All the fighting, all the sleepless nights, suddenly made perfect, devastating sense. They were sleeping together. I lost my mind. I threw the heavy, glass-encased gift box I was holding straight at Matthew. Daphne threw herself in front of him. The shattered glass sliced across her neck. Blood poured from the wound. She collapsed, clutching her throat, crying hysterically. Matthew caught her, his face twisting in absolute fury as he glared at me. “Nora, are you psychotic?! Look at what you just did!” Daphne gripped his jacket, her voice trembling. “Matthew, don’t yell at her… she just misunderstood…” “Misunderstood?” Matthew’s teeth locked together. “Is it a misunderstanding that I saw her checking into a hotel room with another guy three days ago?!” “What the hell did I ever do to make you betray me like this, Nora?!” I stood frozen. The world went black at the edges. A violent ringing tore through my ears. My mind was a tangled mess of static. I realized someone had set me up. There was a massive web of lies between us, but before I could untangle a single thread, the blood from Daphne’s neck dripped through her fingers and splashed onto the pavement. Matthew didn’t give me a chance to speak. He hauled Daphne into his car, fixing me with a look of pure disgust. Like I was a monster. “Go home. We’re done talking for tonight.” I took a shaky breath, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. “Fine. I’ll wait for you at the house. We’re going to figure this out.” His taillights faded into the distance. I turned around to make the short walk home. I barely made it three blocks before a rag soaked in chloroform was slammed over my nose and mouth. After that, there was only darkness. I lost all concept of time in that basement. By the time I finally saw the light of day again, Silas was standing over me with a knife. I had been trying to walk home for five years. I still hadn’t made it. A rookie cop came scrambling up to Matthew, his chest heaving. “Detective… the tech team popped the lock.” The kid looked like he was about to be sick. He couldn’t finish his sentence. Matthew’s heart hammered against his ribs. He shoved through the crowd of uniforms and stared down into the dirt. The moment he saw what was inside, every drop of blood vanished from his face.

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1 I stood frozen outside the breakroom. Blood still seeped through the gauze on my cheek, but the tears fell faster. Roger’s voice carried through the door, cold and clinical. It was a blade that cut apart every shred of faith I had clung to for three years. “The moment I paid her mother’s hospital bills, I started the clock,” he said. His tone was unrecognizable from the man who once swore he loved me. “Jona needs that overseas commendation. Bianca is tough. And she is naive enough to take the blame.” So that was it. I was not a partner. I was a tool. A stepping stone. “Once she returns, I will convince her to transfer her combat medic merits to Jona. In exchange, I marry Bianca. It is a fair trade.” Fair? I spent three years dodging shrapnel, stitching wounds, bleeding for that commendation, all to clear a path for his favorite colleague. That was his idea of fair. His colleague slammed his coffee mug down and stormed out. He froze when he saw me in the hallway. Roger looked up. His eyes met mine, and his pupils tightened. My mind shot back three years. He had held my hands, looked into my eyes, and told me he loved me. But he said I had to serve three years as a combat surgeon to prove my devotion. Come back, and I will marry you. For three years, bullets grazed my head. Mortar fire damaged my hearing. I operated with insurgent rifles at my back. Every time I was near death, I told myself it would be worth it. Survive, and I could marry Roger. Everyone knew Roger was a genius with severe affective detachment. He could not feel emotions. But during the darkest year of my life, he took out his checkbook and operated on my dying mother himself. I thought he was my savior. I did not know he was leading me into another hell. “Roger, we are done.” My voice was terrifyingly calm. It felt as if those three words had drained the last life from my veins. … Roger frowned, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “Bianca, eavesdropping is incredibly unprofessional.” He stood up, adjusting his pristine white coat. “But since you heard it, it saves me the trouble of drafting a cover story. Come to the chief of surgery’s office with me this afternoon and sign the merit transfer over to Jona. Tomorrow morning, we go to the courthouse and get married.” I stood perfectly still, staring directly into his eyes. There was absolutely no warmth there. Just a barren, calculated wasteland. He didn’t even have the basic human decency to look guilty about getting caught in a lie. The veil finally dropped. He wasn’t terrified of losing me. He never loved me at all. “Let me repeat myself, Roger. We are breaking up.” “I am not giving my commendations to Jona. And I am absolutely not marrying you.” I spun on my heel and walked away. Roger lunged forward, his long fingers clamping around my wrist like a vice. I could hear the forced patience in his voice, masking a bubbling irritation. “Bianca, stop being irrational.” “You serve three years in a combat zone, and I marry you when you get back. That was the transaction we agreed upon from day one. Why are you suddenly backing out of the deal?” A transaction. The love I had literally risked my life to prove was just a line item on a ledger to him. I looked back at him, a bitter, broken smile twisting my lips. “Because you lied to me.” Roger blinked, genuine confusion washing over his handsome face. “You told me you loved me,” I whispered. “I would never put my life on the line for a man who was just using me.” He stared at me, totally lost. His emotional detachment meant the concept of “love” was like a foreign language he had never bothered to study. But for some reason, hearing me say those words made his chest tighten. His gaze flicked down to the fresh, bloody scrape on my cheek and my red, swollen eyes. A strange, suffocating pressure built in his lungs. He honestly wondered if he needed to schedule a psych evaluation. Something inside him felt medically wrong. While he was distracted, I ripped my arm out of his grip and kept walking. I hadn’t even made it past the outpatient corner when a chaotic scream ripped through the corridor. Before I could process what was happening, a hysterical middle-aged woman tackled a nurse against the drywall. She had a hunting knife pressed tight against the nurse’s carotid artery, twisting a fistful of her hair. “You worthless bitch! You gave me the wrong meds and killed my baby! You’re paying for my child’s life with yours!” I recognized the sobbing nurse instantly. It was Jona. Instinct overrode my trauma. My combat training kicked in, and I took a slow, calculated step forward to de-escalate. “Ma’am, I need you to breathe. Look at me.” “Do you know who I am? My name is Dr. Bianca. I’m a combat surgeon, you might have seen me on the local news. Just lower the knife, and we can figure this out.” The woman locked her wild eyes on me for a few agonizing seconds. She seemed to recognize my face. She pulled the blade a fraction of an inch away from Jona’s throat, swinging it erratically in my direction. “Figure what out?!” she shrieked. “Do you know how many rounds of IVF I went through?! I finally got pregnant, and this stupid slut mixed up my prescription! My baby is gone! And she had the nerve to tell me I was just genetically defective and deserved the miscarriage!” I took a deep, steadying breath, closing the distance inch by inch. “She was entirely out of line, and I am so sorry she said that to you. Listen to me. I went to med school with one of the best fertility specialists in the country. Her success rates are incredible. I will personally introduce you to her. You’re still young. You have so much hope left to start a family.” The woman’s crazed expression wavered. The hand gripping the knife began to tremble. She was breaking down. She was just about to drop the weapon. Suddenly, two hands slammed violently into the center of my back. I was shoved hard, launching directly into the woman. The sickening sound of tearing flesh filled my ears. The hunting knife buried itself straight to the hilt in my abdomen. Agony exploded through my nervous system like a live wire. The waiting room erupted into terrified shrieks. The grieving mother went pale, dropping the handle of the knife like it burned her. Hospital security rushed in, tackling her to the linoleum. Hot, thick blood pulsed out of my stomach, pooling rapidly onto the pristine white tiles. I clamped both hands over the wound, fighting the darkness closing in on my vision, and weakly turned my head to see who pushed me. It was Roger. He was the one who threw me onto the blade. 2 My vision blurred, but the sheer disbelief anchored me to consciousness. Roger was standing at the edge of the crowd. He looked down at me, doing a rapid, clinical visual assessment of my blood loss to calculate if the wound was fatal. Once he was satisfied I wasn’t bleeding out fast enough to die on the spot, his face went completely blank. He wrapped a protective arm around a trembling, crying Jona and walked away. I collapsed into the growing puddle of my own blood and let the darkness take me. When I finally opened my eyes, the harsh scent of antiseptic and sweet fruit filled my nose. I was in a private recovery suite. Roger was sitting in a chair beside my bed, meticulously peeling an apple with a surgical scalpel. “You’re awake,” he said smoothly. “I apologize. My psychiatrist informed me that my actions in the lobby were socially unacceptable.” “He said I shouldn’t have based my decision purely on the triage of survival probabilities. But looking at the variables, if that woman twitched, Jona’s carotid artery would have been severed. Immediate exsanguination. Zero chance of survival. By pushing you into the blade, I ensured you took the hit to the lower abdomen. Highly painful, but statistically non-lethal.” He finished the peel in one continuous ribbon and offered the apple to me. “From a purely mathematical standpoint, I made the correct choice.” “Let’s renegotiate our deal, Bianca.” I didn’t take the fruit. I slowly turned my head to stare at the wall. “Get the hell out of my room,” I rasped. Roger paused, clearly confused by my hostility. He tried again. “I recognize that your emotional state is volatile right now. Fine. You can keep your combat commendations. Consider this a trade for saving Jona’s life today.” “We’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow.” Another transaction. He was bargaining with my life like I was a used car on a lot. A wave of absolute, sickening revulsion crashed over me. I pushed through the searing pain in my stitches, threw my torso forward, and swung my arm. Crack. My palm connected violently with his cheek. But when I opened my mouth, a pathetic, broken sob tore out of my throat instead of a scream. “Stop treating me like an animal, Roger!” “You’re a brilliant surgeon! You know the anatomy! The blade missed my inferior vena cava by literally a fraction of an inch! If it had severed that vein, the mortality rate is one hundred percent!” “What if I had died right there on the floor?!” Roger froze entirely. For the absolute first time in my life, I saw something fracture behind his eyes. It was raw, unadulterated terror. He slowly lowered his head, his voice dropping to a hollow, tight whisper. “I’m sorry. I’ll take my cognitive therapy more seriously. I will learn how to protect you properly.” “Just… please don’t die, Bianca.” The room fell into a suffocating, heavy silence. When he realized I wasn’t going to look at him or speak another word, he set the apple on the nightstand and quietly walked out of the room. A second later, my phone buzzed on the table. I answered it. A deep, steady voice came through the speaker, grounding me instantly. “Bianca. I’m on a military transport plane heading your way. I’ll be touching down soon.” “Pack your things and come with me. That man doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even possess the biological capacity to understand what love is.” Tears spilled over my eyelashes, soaking into my hospital pillow. I felt like an idiot. A tragic, pathetic cliché holding onto a ghost. “But Wyatt,” I cried softly, “he saved my mom. He promised he was going to learn how to keep me safe.” “Let me be stupid just one last time.” Wyatt let out a heavy, frustrated sigh on the other end of the line. “And what happens if he’s just playing you again?” I closed my eyes, letting the last thread of my naive hope snap. “If he’s lying to me again, I’ll pack my bags and leave with you.” “And I will never, ever forgive Roger as long as I live.” 3 The next morning, I ate the apple Roger had left for me. We got back together. He visited my room every single day. Sometimes he brought fresh fruit. Sometimes he just sat in the armchair, quietly reviewing my chart and checking my surgical drains. He would awkwardly force himself to make small talk, trying to mimic what he thought a normal, loving boyfriend sounded like. His cognitive behavioral therapy was clearly making a dent. He was trying. But he was also the chief of cardiothoracic surgery. His schedule was brutal. On the Friday afternoon we were finally supposed to go get our marriage license, two emergency trauma surgeries got dumped on his lap. He rescheduled for the following week. But when the next week rolled around, a massive pile-up on the interstate flooded the ER. “Bianca, I’m so sorry. I can’t scrub out right now. Next week. I promise I will clear my entire afternoon next week.” “It’s fine,” I told him over the phone. “Save lives. Drink some coffee.” I was a doctor too. I understood the triage. I took the bitter disappointment swelling in my chest and locked it in a box. It was just another week. I survived three years of artillery fire; I could survive a few more days of waiting. Later that month, the hospital administration held a mandatory all-staff assembly. After the Chief of Medicine droned on about budget cuts, he switched gears. “Additionally, HR is rolling out a massive update to our internal benefits and payroll software. We need to update our dependent and marital status records.” “If anyone here has recently gotten married, please raise your hand so we can get a preliminary headcount.” A ripple of low chuckles went through the auditorium. Everyone knew this was the Chief’s way of publicly teasing the staff. I glanced to my right. Beside me, Roger slowly raised his hand. Immediately, a chorus of catcalls and whistles erupted from our department’s seating section. “Oh, come on, Dr. Roger! The whole hospital knows you’re dying to put a ring on Dr. Bianca, but raising your hand before the ink is dry doesn’t count!” “Seriously man, you two are making us sick with the lovesick puppy routine! Give us a date already so we know when the open bar is!” “Put your arm down, Chief, she’s not going anywhere! Just make sure you get the good champagne!” The good-natured teasing made my face burn. I smiled, a warm flutter in my chest, and gently tugged on the sleeve of his white coat. “Put your hand down, you idiot,” I whispered playfully. “He asked for people who are already legally married.” But as I looked across the aisle, my stomach dropped. Jona had her hand raised too. And she was staring directly at me, a vicious, triumphant smirk plastered across her face. Every alarm bell in my nervous system went off at once. A second later, Jona stood up. Her voice carried clearly through the massive room. “You guys have it all wrong.” “I’m the one who married Dr. Roger.” Dead silence. And then, absolute chaos. The auditorium exploded like a grenade had been dropped in the center aisle. Hundreds of eyes darted frantically between me, Roger, and Jona. The whispers morphed into a deafening roar of shock and aggressive gossip. The Chief of Medicine froze at the podium, completely blindsided. It took him a solid ten seconds to recover. “Alright, settle down! Shut it down! This is a professional environment, not a tabloid! Assembly dismissed! Everyone back to your wards!” I couldn’t hear the rest of his speech. It felt like a mortar shell had gone off right next to my head. The ringing in my ears was absolute. My entire body went numb. I stood up and moved like a ghost, letting the current of the exiting crowd carry me toward the hallway. Roger caught up to me in a deserted stairwell, grabbing my arm. He looked incredibly guilty. “Bianca, please let me explain.” “Jona’s father was my mentor in med school. He practically raised me. He has stage four pancreatic cancer. His dying wish was to see his daughter married to someone who could take care of her. We made an arrangement. I used this marriage to repay my life debt to him.” “But Jona and I already have a contract. The second her father passes away, we file for an annulment. Then I marry you. I swear.” I stared at his perfectly symmetrical face. My chest felt hollowed out, like someone had taken an ice scoop to my ribs. The cold draft howling through my empty chest was unbearable. “When exactly did you two go to the courthouse?” My voice sounded like crushed glass. Roger flinched. He dropped his gaze to the concrete floor. “It was… the first Friday afternoon we were supposed to go.” “Then why did you keep telling me ‘next week’?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. “Bigamy is a felony, Roger.” He stared at his shoes, his voice laced with heavy, genuine remorse. “I’m sorry. I lied to you again. I just thought I could stall you long enough until my mentor passed.” The chill seeped all the way into my bone marrow. “Roger,” I whispered. “I am never, ever going to forgive you.” 4 I walked straight to the HR department and put in for an indefinite leave of absence. Given the spectacular public humiliation I had just endured, the HR director didn’t ask a single question. She just stamped my paperwork with a look of deep pity. As I walked out of the hospital’s main glass doors, someone stepped into my path. Jona. Her chin was tilted up, radiating the smug arrogance of a victor standing over a corpse. “Giving up already?” she sneered. “If Roger hadn’t promised me your combat commendations, I wouldn’t have even let you stick around to play his pathetic little side piece. But we’re legally bound now. If you keep throwing yourself at my husband…” “You’re nothing but a cheap, homewrecking whore.” Her insults didn’t even register. I was just exhausted. “You have zero class, Jona. You’re a disgrace to your father’s reputation,” I said coldly. “And regardless of your pathetic jealousy, you shouldn’t speak to the person who took a knife for you like that.” I don’t know which button I pushed, but Jona instantly lost her mind. “Took a knife for me?!” she shrieked, her face turning ugly. “That psycho bitch lost her kid because she was genetically weak! Her body was trash! It had nothing to do with me mixing up some stupid pills! And then she had the nerve to go slit her wrists at my house?! My family had to pay out a massive settlement to her gross husband!” “She should have just died quieter! Fucking white-trash parasites!” My expression darkened instantly. As a medical professional, her lack of empathy was horrifying. Mixing up a patient’s prescription was a catastrophic, lethal error. Instead of remorse, she was spitting on a dead woman’s grave. I opened my mouth to verbally tear her apart, but a blur of motion caught my eye. A middle-aged man in a filthy jacket was sprinting toward us from the parking lot, a massive meat cleaver gripped in his fist. Jona saw him. All the blood drained from her face. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and scrambled backward. The man swung the heavy blade wildly, catching Jona on the upper arm. She screamed again as he chased her toward the glass doors, roaring like a wounded animal. “My wife killed herself because of you, and you’re still out here running your filthy mouth! My family is dead! I have nothing left to lose! I’m sending you straight to hell, you murdering bitch!” Jona tripped over the curb and crawled frantically toward the hospital lobby. Patients and nurses in the atrium began screaming, scattering in total panic. My combat instincts took over. If an active shooter or a maniac with a blade got loose in a crowded hospital lobby, it would be an absolute bloodbath. I spun around and sprinted toward the danger. The man grabbed a heavy metal trash can and hurled it at Jona’s back. She went down hard, sprawling flat on the concrete. Before she could get up, he grabbed her by her hair, yanked her head back, and pressed the edge of the cleaver against her throat. “Run! Keep running, you piece of shit! I’m going to carve you up!” “Stop!” I yelled, skidding to a halt a few feet away, my chest heaving. “Don’t do this!” I pleaded. “Do you remember me? I’m Dr. Bianca! I signed the forgiveness waiver for your wife when she stabbed me!” The man glared at me, his eyes wild and bloodshot. His grip on the cleaver tightened. “Back off! I don’t kill innocent people!” “You’re a good person, Doc. But if you’re trying to save her—forget it!” Security guards began slowly circling us, drawing their batons. The man’s jaw set. He was fully prepared for suicide by cop. “I’m trying to save you!” I screamed, desperate to break through his psychosis. “You and your wife adopted a little girl, right? Lily! She’s eight! When I went to your house to drop off the legal waivers, I met her. She’s so smart! She already lost her mom; she cannot lose her dad today!” “If you die here, or rot in a cell, she goes into the foster system! They’ll tear her apart!” The man’s lower lip began to tremble. He stared into space, unconsciously whispering his daughter’s name. “Lily…” The cleaver shook against Jona’s skin. A raw, guttural sob ripped from his throat. “But I crossed the line! I don’t have a way back!” “Doc… please. Call social services. Tell them I’m sorry. I failed her…” Tears flooded his eyes. When a person cries heavily, their vision blurs for a fraction of a second. Their adrenaline spikes, then dips. It’s the ultimate tactical blind spot. This was my window. I shifted my weight, preparing to lunge forward and secure his wrist. Just wait for the blink. Now—! Suddenly, a violent force slammed into my spine. I was shoved hard from behind. I stumbled forward, completely losing my footing, crashing directly into the man holding the cleaver. The blade didn’t hit Jona. It went straight into my stomach. It slid perfectly into the exact same, partially healed surgical wound from a month ago. Except this time, the blade was wider, heavier, and it went so deep the steel tore through my back. A horrific fountain of arterial blood exploded from my torso, painting the concrete red. I collapsed to my knees, choking on copper, and slowly turned my head. I didn’t even need to guess. It was Roger. Bianca, my fading mind whispered to itself. You got played again. I hit the pavement, completely submerged in a pool of my own blood, and the world went totally black.

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My cold body knelt rigidly in the corner of the room. My head hung low. Even my heartbeat had faded away a long time ago. When Dad pushed the door open and saw me in this state, a satisfied smile spread across his face. He had no idea that it took every agonizing ounce of willpower I had left just to crawl back here. Hours ago, I had sneaked out of the house to follow him and that fake son of his to a dinner banquet. Hiding in the shadows of the grand hall, I overheard Dad chatting with his wealthy buddies. “That kid has been gunning for Toby since day one. Always throwing the ‘I’m your real blood’ card in his face. I was at my wit’s end.” “I had no choice but to send him to that underground AI obedience clinic. Just a little neural rewiring to make him a compliant, proper son. It is tough love, but it is for his own good.” Just as the words left his mouth, the remote control in Dad’s pocket vibrated. The screen flashed a warning indicating I was not in my bedroom. His face went pale with rage. He jabbed his thumb onto the screen, firing off an override command: [Return home immediately. Assume the kneeling punishment!] My body instantly hijacked itself. I sprinted toward the estate like a madman, my legs moving completely against my own will. On the dark road, a speeding car came out of nowhere. The impact launched me into the air, shattering my ribs and rupturing my organs. But the override command was absolute. I dragged my broken frame off the bleeding asphalt, stumbling forward, murmuring blindly into the night air. “I am sorry, Dad. I will go home to kneel. I am sorry.” And now, I was finally kneeling here in the dark, exactly as he wanted. 1 The entryway lights flickered on. Dad walked in holding Toby’s hand. His eyes landed on me, and his lips curled into an approving smirk. “Good boy. Glad to see you have learned your lesson.” I remained frozen in place, kneeling perfectly still. Toby wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Gross, Dad. He is covered in dirt. He looks like a homeless beggar.” Dad ruffled Toby’s hair, his voice softening instantly. “Do not be mean, buddy. Your brother knows he messed up. He is going to toe the line from now on.” He turned his cold gaze back to me, issuing his next vocal prompt. “Go up to your room and clean yourself up. Do not come out until I give you permission.” My neck gave a jerky, mechanical nod. I forced myself up and dragged my heavy feet up the stairs. During lunch the next day, the dining table was loaded with gourmet dishes. Dad kept piling food onto Toby’s plate, his tone dripping with affection. “Eat up, Toby. The salmon is good for your brain. And here are those BBQ ribs you love so much.” Toby chewed loudly, speaking with a mouthful of meat. “Thanks, Dad!” I sat rigidly in my chair, staring blankly ahead, waiting for Dad’s command. Dad glanced at me from the corner of his eye and muttered dryly. “Eat your greens. No being picky.” “Yes, Dad.” I picked up my fork, stabbed a pile of boiled spinach, and shoved it into my mouth. The vegetables had gone freezing cold. They felt like wet cardboard grinding against my teeth, but I could not stop. I chewed and swallowed, over and over again, like a machine on a loop. I did not put my fork down until Dad finally said, “Stop eating if you are full.” I immediately dropped the silverware and sat bolt upright. “Look at your brother, Toby. So obedient. Does not fuss over his food at all. You need to learn from him and finish your fish.” Dad tossed the words out casually. There was not a single ounce of actual praise in his voice. Toby scoffed, clearly annoyed by the comparison. He picked up his piping hot bowl of soup and shoved it across the table toward me. “Here, weirdo. You can have my soup.” Before I could even reach out, Toby deliberately tilted the bowl. Boiling hot broth splashed directly onto my forearm, soaking through my sleeve. “Wow, you are so clumsy! Can’t even hold a bowl right,” Toby sneered. A triumphant little smirk played on his lips. The scalding liquid blistered my skin, yet my face remained entirely blank. I did not flinch. I did not feel a thing. Dad quickly grabbed a napkin to wipe a stray drop off Toby’s fingers before turning to glare at me. “Ben, what is wrong with you? If you drop a bowl, you could burn your little brother! You are the older one here. You are supposed to protect him. Do you understand me?” I nodded my head in that same rhythmic, lifeless motion. “Understood, Dad. I will protect my brother.” Dad let out an exhausted sigh and called for Mr. Bates, our butler, telling him to take me upstairs to clean up the mess. I followed Bates into my bedroom. As he helped peel off my soup-soaked shirt, he gasped. He stared at my arms and back, horrified by the massive, dark purple blotches blooming across my skin. “Ben, sweet heavens… how did you get these bruises? This looks incredibly severe.” I just stood there, staring at the wallpaper with hollow, unblinking eyes. Bates asked me three more times. When my vocal box did not register a command to reply, he shook his head in distress and hurried downstairs to find Dad. “Sir, Ben’s body is covered in massive purple contusions. I don’t know what happened to the poor boy, and he absolutely refuses to speak.” Dad was busy peeling an orange for Toby. He rolled his eyes, utterly unbothered. “Where do you think he got them? He probably tripped and fell into a ditch when he snuck out yesterday. Leave him be. The pain will teach him a lesson so he stops running off like a stray dog.” Bates opened his mouth to argue, but Dad silenced him with a lethal glare. “Enough. Go back to your duties. Stop babying him.” After the butler left, a brief shadow of doubt crossed Dad’s face. He remembered last night. Shortly after he sent the punishment override, his control app had vibrated violently. A bright red error message had popped up on the screen, reading: [Subject is experiencing critical trauma. Vitals failing. System initiating emergency reboot.] It had freaked him out for a split second. But when he got home and saw me kneeling perfectly fine in the hallway, he assumed the underground clinic’s app was just glitchy. Thinking about Bates’s nagging only irritated him further. “Ungrateful little brat. I paid top dollar to have him fixed, and he still tries to run away.” Later that night, Dad walked up to my bedroom door and delivered his evening command. “No sleeping tonight. Stand facing the door and reflect on your pathetic attempt to escape. Think about what you did wrong.” I nodded, shuffled over to the heavy oak door, and stood perfectly straight. I did not move a single muscle for the rest of the night. When Dad woke up the next morning and saw me standing in the exact same spot, holding the exact same posture, a look of deep satisfaction washed over him. “Now that is more like it. You are actually tolerable when you listen. Try to rebel again, and the punishment will be twice as harsh.” 2 The Sunday afternoon sun was bright and warm. Dad had invited a few of his country club friends over for drinks. They were gathered around the patio furniture by the garden, laughing loudly with cigars in hand. Dad snapped his fingers, gesturing for me to come over. “Go play with Toby. Protect your brother. Do not let him get a single scratch on him. You hear me?” “I hear you.” My voice scraped out mechanically. I walked over to the lawn and trailed a few steps behind Toby, shadowing him like a silent ghost. Toby ran over to the edge of the large decorative koi pond. He leaned over the slippery stone border, standing on his tiptoes to peer into the deep water. “There is a shiny rock down there! I’m gonna get it!” I said nothing. I just stood rooted to the grass, eyes locked onto his frame, my internal hardware running the ‘protect’ directive on an endless loop. Suddenly, Toby’s foot slipped on wet moss. He shrieked, tumbling backward into the deep end of the pond. The water was over his head. He thrashed wildly, swallowing mouthfuls of dirty water. “Dad! Help! Help me!” My body reacted with terrifying speed. Without a single second of hesitation, I launched myself into the freezing water. The icy chill soaked through my clothes, but my nerve endings registered zero temperature. I grabbed Toby by the collar, kicking my legs to violently shove him up onto the stone ledge. Dad and his friends rushed over just in time to see me pushing a coughing Toby onto the grass. Once we were both dripping wet on the patio, Dad’s friends began patting him on the back. “Michael, your eldest boy is a brave one! Diving in like that without a second thought. You really know how to raise a man.” “Absolutely. So young, but he already knows how to step up and protect his family.” Dad puffed out his chest, hiding his smugness behind a fake, humble smile. “Oh, please. It is just basic instinct. They are good boys. Bates! Get them upstairs for a hot shower before they catch a cold.” By dinner time, the guests had cleared out. Dad stormed into my bedroom. Without a word of warning, he raised his hand and slapped me across the face. The sharp crack echoed loudly against the walls. My head snapped to the side from the sheer force of the blow, but the burning sting of the strike never reached my brain. “Who gave you permission to let him play near the deep water?” Dad roared, his face flushed with pure rage. “Did you do that on purpose? Were you trying to drown him to get him out of the picture? You are lucky Toby is fine, or I swear to God I would end you!” He raised his hand, fully intending to strike me again. But the moment his knuckles brushed against my cheek, he recoiled. He looked at his own hand in confusion. “Why is your skin so freezing? You feel like a block of solid ice. Did you catch a fever or something?” I offered no response. I just slowly turned my head back, staring at him with hollow, dead eyes. “Useless trash. You can’t even regulate your own body temperature, let alone protect your brother.” Dad sneered, wiping his hand on his trousers like I was diseased. “No dinner for you tonight. Stay in this room and think about how badly you failed today!” “Understood, Dad.” Toby was peeking through the crack in the doorway. Seeing me get berated brought a wicked little smile to his face. He tugged at Dad’s sleeve, playing the innocent angel. “Dad, please don’t be mad. Ben didn’t mean it. I forgive him.” Dad’s furious expression melted instantly. He crouched down and kissed Toby’s forehead, his voice dripping with honey. “Oh, my sweet Toby. You are too good for this world. Come on, let’s go downstairs. I’ll have the chef bake those chocolate lava cakes you love.” Dad took Toby’s hand, turning his back on me completely. He shut the door without a second glance. I stood completely still in the center of the room. After a full minute of silence, my heels pivoted mechanically. I walked into the dark corner of the room, assuming my standby position, quietly waiting for his next command. 3 The next morning, Dad’s phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. He picked it up, his voice immediately shifting into a loving purr. “Hey, honey. How is the business trip going?” Mom’s gentle voice drifted through the speaker. “It is going well. I just miss my boys so much. How is Ben doing? Has he adjusted to being home yet?” Dad glanced over at me, a fake smile plastered across his face. “Ben is an angel. Completely obedient. He dropped all that teenage angst and even keeps Toby company while he does his homework. Such a mature kid now.” He held up his phone, snapping a picture of me sitting rigidly beside Toby at the study desk. He texted it to her. “See for yourself. Two brothers bonding over math problems.” Hearing Mom’s voice, Toby dropped his pencil and rushed over to the phone. “Mom! I miss you! When are you coming back?” Mom chuckled warmly on the other end. “My sweet boy. I miss you too. I will be home in a week, and I promise to bring you and your brother some amazing gifts.” Dad shoved the phone near my mouth, dropping his voice into a hushed command. “Say hi to Mom.” “Hi, Mom.” I spoke mechanically. My pitch was entirely flat, devoid of any warmth or joy. Mom paused. A trace of worry crept into her tone. “Is Ben okay? He sounds exhausted, and he looks incredibly pale in that photo. Is he sick?” Dad snatched the phone back, laughing nervously to cover his tracks. “Oh, you know kids. He kicked his blankets off last night and caught a minor cold. I already gave him some meds. He will be totally fine by tomorrow. Do not stress yourself out.” “Okay, good. Make sure you take care of them, Michael. Don’t let my boys get sick.” “I got it, babe. Focus on your meetings. Love you.” The second the call ended, Dad’s warm smile vanished. He glared at me, his eyes full of venom. “Next time your mother calls, you better act like you have a pulse. Stop giving me that miserable dead-fish look.” “Understood.” Ever since Mom’s phone call, Toby’s malice toward me escalated dramatically. He would rip pages out of my textbooks and scatter them across the hallway floor. He would dump my expensive pens into the trash can, stomping on them for good measure. When Dad saw the mess, he just shrugged it off. “Toby is just a kid. He is playful. You are the older brother. Just clean it up.” Following the standing directive, I crouched on the floor, picking up the shredded paper and fishing broken plastic out of the garbage. The jagged edge of a ripped textbook sliced deep into my index finger. Dark, thick blood dripped onto the hardwood floor, but my face did not twitch. I just kept sorting the trash, moving my bleeding hand with rhythmic precision. I did not stop until the desk was perfectly organized. Then, I sat back down in my chair, staring blankly at the wall. As the days dragged on, I became nothing more than a puppet wired to Dad’s voice. If he did not give me a command, I would sit in the exact same posture for hours. I did not fidget. I did not blink. Even the sound of my breathing faded away into nothingness. One night, Bates woke up to get a glass of water. He walked past my room and saw me standing in the dead center of the floor, wide awake, staring into the dark. First thing the next morning, the butler confronted Dad. “Sir, something is terribly wrong with Ben. He does not speak unless spoken to. He barely moves. Last night, he did not even sleep; he just stood in his room staring at the wall. Did that obedience camp do some sort of psychological damage to him?” Dad was shaving by the sink. He wiped the foam off his chin, completely unconcerned. “That is the whole point of the program, Bates. He is quiet. He follows orders. He stops causing drama in my house.” “But sir—” “I pay you to clean my house, not to play doctor,” Dad snapped, pointing his razor at the old man. “Do your job and stop obsessing over him. You are forbidden from giving him any special treatment. Am I clear?” Bates swallowed hard, his eyes full of sorrow. He bowed his head and quietly left the bathroom. At dinner, I sat at the table, my jaw moving up and down in a stiff, unnatural rhythm as I chewed my boiled spinach. Dad suddenly spoke, issuing a new directive. “Wake up early tomorrow. Accompany Toby to his piano lesson. Do you hear me?” “I hear you.” I nodded slowly, returning to my mechanical chewing. No one at the table noticed that the beds of my fingernails had already turned a sickly, bruised blue.

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A severely depressed student sent me a suicide note late at night. I rushed to the school rooftop and pulled him back from the gates of hell. The very next day, his mother reported me to the school district, accusing me of psychological manipulation and grooming her son. I did not argue with her. I silently accepted the school’s decision to suspend me pending an investigation. Turning around, she brought a reporter to the school gates, holding up a massive banner: “Give My Child Back His Mental Health! Severely Punish the Corrupt Teacher Valerie Pierce!” On Thanksgiving Eve, her son stood on that same rooftop once again. He specifically asked to see me. She called my phone frantically, her voice bordering on madness. I replied with absolute calm. “My suspension is specifically to prevent me from causing him further harm. Therefore, I cannot be there. Going would be a violation of district orders. You will just have to wait for the fire department to rescue him.” … Late Friday night, I had just finished grading the last batch of weekly journals and was getting ready for bed. My phone buzzed. It was a message from my student, Noah. “Ms. Pierce, I finally figured it out. Thank you for everything.” Beneath the text was a photo. It showed the very edge of the high school’s rooftop. Two feet dangled over the abyss, framed by the glittering city lights far below. A spike of pure ice shot up my spine, freezing the blood in my veins. I dialed his number instantly. The receiver only fed me a cold, mechanical busy signal. Without a second of hesitation, I grabbed my car keys off the sofa and sprinted downstairs. Throwing myself into the driver’s seat, I started the engine and used the car’s Bluetooth to dial 911. “Crestview High School, the main building rooftop. A seventeen year old student named Noah Collins is attempting to jump.” My voice sounded terrifyingly calm. There was not a single tremor in it. The car shot forward like an arrow released from a bow. I blew through red lights, completely ignoring the traffic signals. My foot was practically glued to the gas pedal while my brain rapidly cycled through every psychological intervention technique I knew. Do not agitate him. Do not shout. Show empathy. Make him feel profoundly understood. A fifteen minute drive took me exactly seven. I sprinted up the stairwell and pushed open the heavy iron door leading to the roof. Noah was sitting on the ledge, his back to the entrance. His thin school uniform billowed in the night wind, making him look like a fragile kite about to snap off its string. I stopped walking. I did not call out his name. About thirty feet behind him, I quietly sat down on the concrete. “When birds grow weary of the sky, do they long to plunge into the deep sea to see the coral and the whales?” I spoke softly, reciting a line of poetry from the journal entry he had submitted the week prior. His shoulders gave a violent, almost imperceptible flinch. I kept my voice steady. “The feedback I wrote on your paper was that your words are like frost on a windowpane. They can bite and sting the heart. But when that frost melts, it becomes the water that nourishes the earth.” “Noah, your words hold immense power. It is a power that can heal others, but more importantly, it can heal you.” “You are a born writer. Your story is only in its opening chapters. You should not put a period here.” I did not mention his parents. I did not lecture him. I simply sat there in the quiet night, talking about his writing and the beautiful imagery in his poetry. The wind was biting, making my teeth chatter, but I kept my posture perfectly straight. An hour later, shivering uncontrollably, he slowly climbed back over the railing. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the safety of the concrete floor. Just as I was about to let out a breath of relief, the heavy roof door burst open with a deafening crash. His mother, Brenda, rushed in alongside several police officers. “Noah! My baby!” Brenda threw herself at the trembling boy, her wails echoing across the rooftop. She held him and cried for a few minutes before suddenly turning around. She practically threw herself at my feet, ready to drop to her knees. I reacted quickly, catching her arms to hold her up. “Ms. Pierce! You are a literal angel sent from heaven to save my boy!” She gripped my hands with a vice like strength, her face a mess of tears and snot. “If it were not for you, my son would be gone! You saved his life. You have been giving him free tutoring since his freshman year! You have poured so much of your heart into him!” The police officers and school security guards watched the exchange in silence. “Ms. Pierce, I have two thousand dollars right here. You have to take it! You deserve this!” She pulled a thick envelope of cash from her designer purse and tried to shove it into my coat pocket. I firmly pushed her hand back. “Brenda, please, there is no need for this. I am his teacher. This is my job.” I looked her in the eyes, my tone turning serious. “Money will not fix the root of the problem. Noah’s mental state requires far more attention from you as his parents.” I helped her steady herself. Later that night, I compiled a comprehensive list of adolescent psychological intervention resources and the contact information for several professional counseling centers, sending them directly to her phone. 2 On Monday, I was giving a masterclass in the grand lecture hall. The tiered seats were packed with students and faculty members observing my teaching methods. I was dissecting a classic piece of Victorian literature, reading a famous line about a tree planted in memory of a deceased wife. I was so immersed in the emotional weight of the text that my own voice grew slightly thick. The heavy oak doors at the back of the hall suddenly swung open. The principal walked in, accompanied by two men in sharp, official looking suits. Every single pair of eyes in the room darted toward them. My heart instantly sank. One of the men, possessing a stern, square jawline, walked straight down the aisle to my podium. He completely interrupted my lesson in front of hundreds of students and dozens of my peers. “Are you Ms. Valerie Pierce?” I offered a slow nod. “We are from the District Board of Education’s Disciplinary Committee. We have received a formal, named complaint against you. We need you to halt your teaching duties immediately and accompany us to the office for an investigation.” He did not shout, but in the dead silence of that lecture hall, his words hit like a bomb. A tidal wave of whispers erupted among the students. The other teachers exchanged shocked, suspicious glances, their eyes scanning me with deep scrutiny. I was escorted out of the room with a man on either side of me. A suffocating wave of humiliation washed over me. When they pushed open the door to the principal’s office, I froze. Brenda was sitting on the leather sofa. Seeing me, her eyes darted away, entirely avoiding my gaze. Sitting next to her was a scruffy man with a DSLR camera around his neck. He introduced himself as a reporter for the City Chronicle. Before I could even speak, Brenda stood up. Right in front of the district officials, she pressed play on her phone. An audio recording filled the room. It was my voice, sounding incredibly harsh. “Noah! If you keep giving up on yourself like this, your entire life is going to be ruined!” That was the entirety of the clip. Stripped of all context, heavily spliced, it sounded suffocatingly aggressive. Brenda instantly snapped into her role as a heartbroken, devastated mother. She sobbed directly at the district officials. “Do you hear that? This is how she has been verbally abusing my son for months!” “She tells everyone my boy is a genius, but behind closed doors, she tears him down! She is grooming him! She is completely gaslighting my child!” “How old is my son? She is a woman in her twenties, spending hours alone with him every day, talking about literature, talking about life, calling him her soulmate! It is blatantly obvious she is fostering an inappropriate, romantic teacher student attachment!” “She wants to isolate him so he becomes completely dependent on her. All so she can eventually extort us for astronomical private tutoring fees!” The fake reporter’s camera flashed aggressively in my face, the harsh light blinding me. Brenda slammed a stack of printed bank statements onto the coffee table, followed by a highly questionable psychiatric diagnosis report. “Here are the wire transfers she forced me to send for her ‘tutoring’! And here is the medical proof! My son has been diagnosed with severe clinical depression because of her psychological abuse!” “I am demanding that the school and the district compensate us for his medical bills and emotional distress. I want fifty thousand dollars!” The blood rushed to my head, leaving my vision speckled with black spots. Those bank transfers were just reimbursements. I had asked her to send me money so I could buy Noah specific study guides. She had deliberately photoshopped out the transaction memos. And the accusation of fostering a romantic attachment was an absolutely sickening, baseless lie. Standing in front of all of them, I was so furious my vocal cords locked up. My body swayed slightly. The principal let out a heavy sigh and delivered the verdict. “Ms. Pierce, per district protocol, you are suspended pending further review. Please hand over your office keys and your ID badge, and head home.” I walked out of the building feeling like an empty shell. But a far more explosive scene was waiting for me at the front gates. Brenda had taken her hired reporter to the main entrance. They had strung up a massive, blindingly white banner across the wrought iron gates. Bold black letters screamed out: “Give My Child Back His Mental Health! Severely Punish the Corrupt Teacher Valerie Pierce!” She was performing for the camera, weeping hysterically as she listed my supposed crimes. My phone vibrated violently. Richard Blackwood, the president of the Parent Teacher Association, had already posted photos and videos of the scene in the massive parent group chat. “Look at this, everyone! This woman is a ticking time bomb around our kids! A teacher with zero moral compass needs to be blacklisted from the industry forever!” “I propose we draft a joint petition demanding the school board give us a formal explanation!” “Exactly! This is terrifying. To think we actually respected her before this.” “You really can never know a person’s true colors. Who knows what sick agenda she actually had. It makes my skin crawl.” I stood on the opposite side of the street, staring at that blinding banner and Brenda’s theatrical, disgusting performance. My phone completely froze under the sheer volume of abusive text messages pouring in. With a totally blank expression, I raised my phone, aimed the lens at the absurd circus in front of me, and pressed the shutter. 3 I was officially suspended. The first thing I did when I got home was unplug my router and shut off my cellular data, but the harassment found ways to seep through. Richard Blackwood had leaked my home address and personal cell phone number to a group chat filled with hundreds of angry parents. “This is where the witch lives. If anyone has grievances to air out, feel free to drop by and have a chat with her.” From that day on, my phone rang non stop with unknown numbers. Every time I answered, I was met with vile, explosive curses. “Why don’t you do the world a favor and drop dead? You call yourself an educator? You are trash!” “I heard you groom little boys. You are absolutely disgusting!” My front porch became a dumping ground for rotting vegetables and foul smelling garbage. The final straw was the morning I tried to leave my apartment, only to find the keyhole of my front door completely filled with industrial superglue. I did not shed a single tear. I did not call the police. Calling the cops would only attract a crowd and give them another opportunity to humiliate me. I quietly called a locksmith to replace the hardware. Then, I went online and ordered several discreet pinhole cameras, installing them above my door frame and inside the peephole. I was going to capture every single one of their ugly faces on high definition video, frame by frame. I forced myself to eat three meals a day. I forced myself to sleep on a strict schedule. Then, I sat down at my laptop and began systematically organizing the arsenal of evidence that would burn their lies to the ground. That heavily edited audio clip was the linchpin. I contacted an old friend of mine, an absolute wizard in cyber security, who had helped set up the camera system in my tutoring classroom years ago. Under immense pressure and taking a massive personal risk, he stayed up all night pulling the raw, unedited cache data from the deepest layers of the cloud servers. He managed to recover the original, untouched two hour recording of that tutoring session. Once I had the raw file, I did not hand it off to anyone else. I taught myself how to use professional audio forensic software. Wearing noise canceling headphones, I listened to the track on a loop, manually generating crystal clear soundwave spectrograms. Using bright red digital markers, I pinpointed the exact timestamps where Brenda had spliced, cut, and stitched the audio together to change the context. I spent sleepless nights reading through legal precedents and civil codes. I interviewed three different attorneys before hiring Arthur Kingsley, a man infamous in legal circles for his ruthless, surgical precision in the courtroom. Next was Brenda’s forged psychiatric report. It was stamped by a so called Mental Wellness Center I had never heard of. I drove over two hundred miles to find the dilapidated, sketchy clinic hidden in a rundown suburban strip mall. Posing as a highly anxious mother, I engaged the staff. Through careful questioning and hidden audio recordings, I obtained hard proof that the man who signed Noah’s diagnosis, a certain Dr. Higgins, did not even hold a valid medical license. The night before my scheduled hearing with the district board’s investigative committee, I did not sleep. I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, endlessly rehearsing my statement. I needed to ensure every single word I used was precise, icy, and entirely stripped of personal emotion. The next morning, facing a panel consisting of the principal and high ranking district officials, I did not cry. I did not beg for my job back. I simply placed a silver USB drive in the center of the polished conference table. “Ladies and gentlemen, everything I need to say is on this drive.” The flash drive contained four meticulously organized folders. Folder One held the unedited, two hour audio recording alongside my forensic soundwave analysis. Folder Two contained two weeks’ worth of high definition security footage showing the vandalism, the harassment, and the superglue being injected into my locks. Folder Three contained the undercover recordings from the fake clinic and a comprehensive background check on the unlicensed doctor. Folder Four contained every single text message Brenda and I had exchanged over the past two years, including her constant begging for extra tutoring sessions and her endless paragraphs praising my dedication. My presentation did not sound like a victim pleading for justice. It sounded like a brilliant academic defending a flawless thesis. This time, I was going to make sure they paid the absolute maximum price for their cruelty. 4 It was Thanksgiving Eve, a night meant for family and warmth. I was sitting alone in my apartment, running through the legal strategies Arthur Kingsley had outlined for me. In the parent group chat, Brenda was currently showing off. She proudly announced she had hired a gold medal tutor with a Harvard degree for Noah, costing nearly three hundred dollars an hour. She posted a photo of a very expensive looking contract, the caption dripping with smug arrogance. “This is what real professionals look like. So much better than those lazy public school teachers who just coast by!” Richard Blackwood immediately chimed in to stroke her ego. “Brilliant move, Brenda! You can never put a price tag on a child’s education. It is best to cut out the cancer early and keep certain toxic influences away from him!” I stared at the screen with absolute apathy and hit the button to leave the group chat forever. Suddenly, an unknown local number lit up my phone screen. My pulse spiked. I swiped to answer and simultaneously hit the screen record button. Brenda’s ear piercing scream echoed through the speaker. “Valerie! You vicious bitch! You have completely ruined my son!” “Noah is back on the roof! He says he does not trust anyone else in the world, he only trusts you! You need to get over here right now!” In the background, I could hear the howling wind and the distorted, booming voices of police officers using bullhorns. I could even clearly hear Richard Blackwood standing right next to her, spewing his toxic advice. “Make her come! Tell her to get her ass over here right now! When she gets here, make her kneel down and apologize to the kid! Maybe if he sees her beg, he will soften up and come down!” Brenda’s tone instantly shifted from rabid cursing to demanding, desperate pleas. “Ms. Pierce. No, Saint Pierce! I am begging you, please come here!” “If you come right now, I will drop the complaint with the district tomorrow morning! I won’t even ask for the fifty thousand dollars! I will drop it all!” My heart was physically aching in my chest. The image of Noah’s pale, hopeless face violently clashed with the grotesque, twisted expressions of Brenda and Richard in my mind. The conflict was tearing me apart. The raw, human instinct to save a life was at war with my dignity, which they had trampled into the mud. I could barely breathe. I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. In the distance, atop the tallest high rise in the downtown skyline, I could see the frantic, flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers. That was where he was. I took a deep, shuddering breath. When I finally spoke, my voice was so calm it bordered on absolute cruelty. I articulated every single word with lethal precision. “Hello, Mrs. Collins.” “First of all, according to the joint petition drafted by you and PTA President Richard Blackwood, signed by dozens of parents and submitted to the school board… I, Valerie Pierce, am a dangerous individual with severe moral failings, actively engaged in the psychological manipulation and grooming of your son.” “My current suspension is a direct mandate from my superiors designed specifically to ‘protect the student’ and prevent me from causing any further harm to Noah.” “Therefore, I cannot be there.” “If I show up, I am defying an official district order. I am breaking the rules. And I am placing the child you claim I have ‘severely damaged’ into an even more dangerous situation.” “That would be irresponsible to the boy, and incredibly irresponsible to you and the rest of the concerned parents.” “You will just have to wait for the fire department to rescue him.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “440321”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel