The day I tried on the wedding dress, my fiancé Ethan called out the wrong name. He was looking at my back when the words slipped out of him. “Clara, you look beautiful.” Clara was my sister. She was also Ethan’s first love. She died in an accident during the year they loved each other most. From that moment on, she carved a place in his heart that could never be erased. Every year on Clara’s anniversary, I would go with Ethan to lay flowers at her grave. Ethan promised me they were in the past. One day a year, he allowed himself to grieve. The rest of his days belonged to me. But clearly, he broke that promise. Clara had never left his heart. Not for a single moment. And I understood — the living can’t compete with the dead. If I couldn’t win, then I was done trying. A man who can’t let go of the past — I don’t want him anymore. Soft morning light drifted through the window and settled over the white wedding dress. It cast a kind of sacred glow over a dress that was never really mine. Ethan recovered quickly. He smiled and walked over to me like nothing had happened. “You look beautiful in that dress.” “More beautiful than Clara?” My smile didn’t waver. Ethan looked at me the way you’d look at a child throwing a small tantrum. Gentle. Composed. Nothing like love. “We agreed not to bring her up.” Some people are meant to stay buried in your heart. I nodded quietly and let it go. I went back into the dressing room and slipped off the dress that had never really belonged to me. When I came back out, the saleswoman’s smile turned syrupy. She handed me a glass of water and poured on the flattery. “Ma’am, you’re so lucky — your fiancé is handsome and so generous.” “A wedding dress that costs over a million, and he didn’t even blink.” Ethan came from a very particular kind of family. Wealthy, but allergic to excess. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, he reminded me constantly. Stay composed. Keep a low profile. Don’t give people anything to talk about. And yet here he was, spending a small fortune on a dress this extravagant. For Clara, I thought. It had to be. For that one moment when he looked at my back and saw her instead. A wedding is supposed to be a happy thing. And I was marrying a man who looked perfect on paper. I should have smiled back at the saleswoman’s well-wishes. But for some reason, my face just wouldn’t cooperate. I looked up. Ethan had already walked outside. He was holding a cigarette. Seven years he’d been clean. This was the first time he’d broken that. A small flame flickered at his fingertips, stuttering in and out. I wondered if he was lost in the past again. I didn’t walk over to interrupt that moment. I waited until his brow finally relaxed before stepping back to his side. “It’s getting late. Let’s head home.” “Your grandmother’s waiting for us for dinner.” The lighter clicked rhythmically in Ethan’s hand. After a brief silence, he let out a quiet sigh. “Let’s go.” He had accepted his fate. Marrying a woman he didn’t love — all for the sake of his family. We got in the car. Out of habit, Ethan reached toward the breast pocket of his jacket. His calm expression shifted into something frantic. He got out of the car and rushed back into the store. I was pretty sure I knew why. He’d left a necklace in the dressing room. The necklace he and Clara had exchanged as a promise. When we first got together, Ethan stood in front of me and buried every one of Clara’s belongings in the ground. He swore to me, over and over, that he had moved on. That our life together was what he wanted now. But he lied.

That necklace had been with him every single day, pressed close to his skin. Tucked away with all the love he still carried for Clara. I hesitated for a moment, then pulled out my phone and sent a message to my best friend. She replied fast, a string of shocked reactions following close behind. “Abroad? Are you insane???” “You and Ethan are literally about to get married — you want to go study overseas now? What about your future husband?” “A catch like him isn’t going to wait around for three years.” “Wait, something happened, didn’t it?” “Did Ethan do something? Did he cheat? Did he change his mind?” Not exactly. His heart had never belonged to me to begin with. I filled my best friend Zoe in on what happened at the bridal shop. She called me immediately on FaceTime. “Yvonne, you need to think this through.” “Your two families have been tied together for years. Missing someone from the past isn’t exactly a deal-breaker.” “We’ve all watched how well he treats you. You can’t throw that away over one moment.” I knew all of that. But the thing that breaks a camel’s back is never just one straw. And my decision to leave Ethan wasn’t about this one thing either. By any reasonable measure, I had no business marrying Ethan at all. He was the heir to one of the most powerful families in the city. I was just the illegitimate daughter of the Shaws. A secret. An afterthought. The family’s real daughter was Clara. And we couldn’t have been more different. Clara was the product of two great families coming together in love. She was the princess everyone adored, raised in warmth and admiration. Following the path life had laid out for her, she would have married into the most prestigious family in the city. She would have gone from the cherished Shaw daughter to the celebrated Mrs. Crawford. And I would have spent my life in some quiet, forgotten corner. Invisible. But life doesn’t follow anyone’s plan. An accident. A car crash. Clara was gone. Her father’s hair turned white overnight. Ethan aged ten years in what felt like moments. Ethan swore he’d never remarry. But the Shaw family wasn’t ready to let go of the connection — or the power that came with it. Using my mother’s life as leverage, they pressured and maneuvered until they managed to send me in Clara’s place. I was living under someone else’s roof. I didn’t have a choice. I had to do what I’d always done since arriving at the Shaws’. Walk carefully. Make myself useful. Keep everyone satisfied. I paid close attention to Ethan’s preferences. I showed up exactly when he needed someone. I quietly imitated the way Clara used to speak and move, hoping to earn even a fraction of his sympathy. Ethan was sharp. There was no way he hadn’t noticed. But he never once called me out for it. And unlike the Shaws, he never looked at me with that cold, dismissive stare — the kind that reminded you exactly how little you mattered. Instead, he’d gently suggest I change out of something that didn’t suit me, his voice easy and unhurried. “Yvonne, you don’t have to do this.” “You’re a good person. But my heart already belongs to Clara.” In the end, he agreed to let me stay. On one condition: he would never love me. That was fine. Staying was enough. I had no way to escape the Shaw family’s grip on my life. And Ethan had no way out of the grief that still followed him everywhere. I needed his protection. He needed someone to take care of things. And so, in this strange and distant kind of arrangement, we held each other up and walked through seven years together. In those seven years, my mother’s health stabilized, and I earned a place at a university abroad. The day I received my acceptance letter, I said goodbye to Ethan — politely, calmly, like it was nothing. But in the second before my flight was supposed to take off, Ethan appeared. He got every plane on the tarmac grounded. And then he searched that airport for me. For a long, long time.

When he finally found me, he broke down. He stood there and cried. “Yvonne, please don’t go.” “Since you left, my whole world has felt empty.” “I think I’ve been falling in love with you — and I didn’t even realize it until now.” “I’ve already lost someone once.” “I can’t lose you too.” How could a girl who had never been loved turn down a confession like that? Especially when she had been quietly in love with him for years. So I gave up my spot. I stayed by his side. An illegitimate nobody, suddenly becoming Mrs. Crawford. For a while, I was genuinely happy. I thought I had finally found something good. I thought that even someone like me deserved to be loved. But fate doesn’t stay kind for long. While I was decorating our new home, I found a letter. It was something Ethan had written to Clara. A confession, tucked away and forgotten. “Clara, I miss you so much.” “My family keeps pushing me toward this arranged marriage. How am I supposed to forget you?” “The woman they want me to marry is Yvonne — your stepsister, the one you always said you couldn’t stand.” “When she and I get married, do you think you’ll be so annoyed you’ll come back to haunt me in my dreams?” “Honestly, I hope you do.” “At least then I’d get to see you one more time.” Tears had blurred parts of the writing. Some of the middle was unreadable. But the last line came through perfectly clear. “Clara, I promise you — no matter who’s beside me, you are the only one I will ever love.” His feelings for me were a lie. His feelings for Clara were the truth. He confessed to me out of defiance. Out of distraction. To fulfill a family obligation and find someone presentable enough to stand beside him. Love had nothing to do with it. Everything I had built my life around collapsed in an instant. My world went back to rubble. Even my voice, when I finally spoke to Zoe, came out broken. “I spent the whole night trying to convince myself to pretend I never found it. To keep going like nothing happened.” “I had everything I used to dream about. I told myself I should be grateful.” “But today — the moment Ethan said Clara’s name out loud — I realized I can’t do it.” Silence on the other end of the line. Then, a screenshot appeared. A flight booking. “Go. Don’t come back.” “I’ll figure out how to cover for you with Ethan.” “Safe travels.” My vision blurred. Then the car door opened. Ethan hadn’t noticed my tears — his eyes went straight to my phone screen. “Why are you looking at flights? Honeymoon planning?” “Rome or Paris? Your pick.” Neither. I wanted somewhere without Ethan. Somewhere without any of this. I was afraid he’d read my face. So I smiled and steered the conversation elsewhere. “Just browsing. Oh — can you stop at the light up ahead?” “I want to grab some macarons. Your grandmother loves them.” Ethan smiled. The kind of smile that came from finding a lost necklace. And from having a fiancée who remembered his grandmother’s favorite treat without being asked. “You’re so thoughtful. I really did find the perfect daughter-in-law for this family.” For the family. Not for himself. After all this time, I finally heard what had always been hiding inside that joke.

The line at the macaron shop was long. By the time we got back, the dinner had already started. The elders were deep in conversation, trading drinks and talking about things I had no part in. I pushed my steak around on my plate. And found myself thinking about the night Ethan and Clara got engaged. Gifts had filled more than a dozen rooms. Everyone had gathered around her — fussing over her, asking if she was warm enough, if she needed anything. But at my engagement dinner, the conversation was about business. Strategy. What the alliance between two families was worth. Not a single person had asked whether I was happy. Ethan noticed. Under the table, he quietly took my hand. “Bored? Let’s step outside for a bit.” “I’m here. They won’t say anything.” He was always like this. Attentive. Considerate. Three parts genuine, seven parts performance. Just enough to keep me off balance. I was about to answer when his phone buzzed. He glanced at it. His expression shifted fast. “Something urgent came up at work. I have to go handle it.” “Yvonne, stay and keep the elders company for me.” As Ethan hurried out, his grandmother’s face tightened. She never let her displeasure show in front of him. That was reserved for me. “Your husband has to leave and you can’t do a thing about it.” “You’re nothing like your sister.” Mrs. Shaw clicked her tongue in agreement, adding her own twist of the knife. “What do you expect? She’s just a bastard. No class.” The table turned on me. Back and forth, one comment after another, each one designed to remind me exactly where I stood. Before, I would have smiled through all of it. Too afraid of making things difficult for Ethan. But not anymore. None of that mattered now. I pushed back my chair and left the table. I soaked in the bath until the tension of the day started to loosen. When I got out, my phone had a new message. A video. And it wasn’t subtle. In it, Ethan had his arm around a young woman, whispering against her ear. “You little troublemaker — faking sick just to get me over here on a night like this.” “You’re going to pay for that.” The girl curled into him, laughing and pouting. Ethan smiled and kissed her harder. The sounds echoed in the room. The ease between them — loose, flirtatious, completely at odds with the composed, controlled man I knew — hit me like a stranger wearing his face. I stared at the screen. Then the girl turned toward the camera. Her face. Her expression. She was the image of Clara. Down to the smallest detail. My vision blurred. My chest pulled tight, a dull throb that wouldn’t let up. It was all fake. Everything. The marriage. The love. Ethan had betrayed what we had. And in doing so, he had betrayed even the love he claimed to carry for Clara. At least Clara was gone now. And I would be gone soon enough. Less than twenty-four hours until my flight. One more sunrise. That was all I had to get through. After that, I’d be free of all of it. Morning came, and Ethan still hadn’t come home. His grandmother, worried, kept nudging me to go check on him. I figured I could use one last look at his face anyway. Ethan hadn’t expected me to show up. He looked caught off guard. On instinct, he tugged his collar up to hide the marks on his neck. Then, with a trace of guilt in his voice: “What are you doing here? Did someone give you a hard time last night?” I shook my head. “No.” I had long since gotten used to being looked down on and talked over.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “413759”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

After witnessing my parents’ deaths, I lost the ability to shift. Even the smell of another werewolf made me throw up violently. The only person I could bear to be near was my adoptive brother, Alpha Alexander. So he kept me by his side for ten years, forbidding anyone from gossiping about me or insulting me. Everyone said he loved me. Until he brought in that “therapist,” Chloe. She said I was too weak, that I needed exposure therapy. The first time, she dumped me into a chaotic Rogue camp. I almost got killed by those lunatics. The second time, she forced me to watch slaves fight to the death. The smell of blood sent me into shock right there on the spot. The third time, she dangled my parents’ urns outside a 28th-floor window and made me climb a rope ladder to retrieve them. I froze for a single second, the memory of my parents’ deaths flashing through my mind—the urns plummeted from the sky and shattered into pieces right in front of me. I broke down sobbing. Alexander gave me a hard slap across the face. “That was flour! Are you done with your tantrum yet?” I knelt on the ground, staring at that smug woman, and finally understood. He wasn’t doing this for me. He just wanted to be rid of me—the burden who’d brought him shame. That night, I sent a message to the Alpha of Frostmark Pack, far away in the north: “Uncle William, that offer you made before, about coming to live with your Pack? I accept.”

Seraphina’s POV Everyone in the werewolf world knew that Alpha Alexander of Dusklight Pack had a “glass rose” he’d been pampering for ten years. That was me. Because I’d watched my parents die brutally in battle, I’d developed severe PTSD. It made shifting completely impossible. Just seeing another werewolf shift, or witnessing any kind of fighting, would trigger violent physical and psychological reactions—mild cases meant nausea and dizziness, severe ones meant suffocation and fainting. For my sake, Alexander had built a special mansion that blocked out almost all outside sounds, sights, and smells. No werewolf was allowed near the property. Even our maids and housekeepers were human. If anyone in the Pack dared discuss my condition, he punished them harshly. If gossip from another Pack reached his ears, he’d launch a brutal attack and kill the gossipers without mercy. Everyone assumed Alexander would protect me like this for the rest of my life. Until that therapist Chloe showed up. She was human, but bright and bold, like a wild rose blooming under blazing sun. Even an iceberg like Alexander melted for her. Because Chloe said one sentence—”She’s just spoiled and too weak. She needs strong stimulation”—I was forced into so-called “exposure and shock therapy.” The first time, she tricked me into a chaotic Rogue camp, calling it “adapting to the real living environment of werewolves.” I lasted less than half an hour before having a complete breakdown, throwing up until I passed out. The second time, Chloe took me to a dungeon and forced me to watch two werewolf slaves fight to the death up close. The bloody scene dragged up my worst memories. I went into shock right there. The third time… this last time, Chloe hung my parents’ urns outside a 28th-floor window and forced me to climb an unsecured rope ladder to get them. She framed it as: maybe under extreme conditions, I could finally overcome my fear and shift. I finally snapped. I slapped Chloe hard across the face and stormed straight to Alexander, demanding he fire that crazy woman. “Alexander, where the hell did you find this lunatic?” I pointed at him, my voice shaking. “I have a psychological trauma. I’m not just being weak! Why would you bring in some human who barely understands werewolves to torture me? She used my parents’ ashes to threaten me. Is that something a doctor should ever do?” Alexander completely ignored my anger. His eyes went straight past me to Chloe. Five clear finger marks were swelling up on her pale cheek. She bit her red lip and stared at Alexander stubbornly, eyes full of hurt but somehow still strong. “I know this kind of shock therapy is painful,” she said, voice catching slightly. “But I’m experienced. This will help Seraphina overcome her psychological barriers. As long as she cooperates, I’m sure she’ll soon be able to face the real werewolf world. She might even shift.” I watched the ice in Alexander’s eyes melt away, replaced by tenderness and concern. “I’m sorry, Chloe. Seraphina wasn’t always like this. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” Chloe gave him a small, understanding smile. “It’s fine. As a doctor, getting misunderstood by patients comes with the territory. But I’ll never give up on any patient of mine.” The admiration in Alexander’s eyes only deepened. Then he turned to me, his expression instantly turning cold and disappointed. “Seraphina, what’s happened to you? Chloe is doing all this for your own good. How could you raise your hand against her? Where’s the dignity an Alpha’s daughter should have?” My eyes were red. I screamed back hysterically, “She used Mom and Dad’s ashes to threaten me! Don’t I have the right to slap her? Alexander, can you really stand there and let someone desecrate our parents’ ashes? Should they not get any peace even after death?” “Enough!” Alexander’s voice cut me off sharply. “Seraphina, your parents protected you too much when they were alive. That’s why you turned out so fragile! And whose fault is it they can’t rest in peace? If you’d just gotten over this barrier earlier and learned to face the world, would they still be worrying about you?” His words hit me like a thunderclap. Tears rolled down my cheeks, one after another. “So… you’re blaming me?” My voice trembled. “You won’t blame Chloe for abusing me, but you’ll blame me?” For a split second, something flickered in Alexander’s eyes—maybe guilt. But it vanished, replaced by hard resolve. “Seraphina, just listen. Chloe is helping you. Cooperate with her and overcome this. Then you can become my Luna and rule the Pack with me.” Chloe chimed in from the sidelines, looking like a victor. “Yes, Seraphina. My methods may be a bit intense, but they work. After the first two sessions, your tolerance to a ‘werewolf environment’ has improved slightly. That’s huge progress. If we just keep going, you’ll succeed.” Alexander’s hardness, his absolute refusal to listen, made my chest hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe. Before, Alexander never forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do. When had he ever yelled at me like this? I wiped my tears and stopped fighting. No matter what, I couldn’t let anything happen to my parents’ ashes. I obediently climbed the ladder. Chloe stood below, smiling encouragingly. “You can do it, Seraphina.” Her grace only made me look more “irrational” and “unreasonable.” But I was the one being hurt. I’d always been the one being hurt. The wind was strong up there. It chilled me to the bone. Chloe wouldn’t allow me any protective gear or comfort items. Said it would ruin the “extreme stimulation.” So I climbed in nothing but thin clothing. I forced myself past my fear of heights, climbing one rung at a time. The higher I went, the stronger the wind got, and the closer I came to those dangling urns. Then Chloe’s voice came from below: “Hurry, Seraphina. To control the time and reduce your anxiety, I’ve set a countdown. One minute until the mechanical claw releases automatically.” My heart slammed in my chest. How dare Chloe? Forgetting my fear, I scrambled up the ladder as fast as I could. But I couldn’t even shift. I’d spent my entire life inside a safe mansion. How could I have a normal werewolf’s reflexes or strength? One minute wasn’t nearly enough to cover the remaining distance. Just as my fingertips finally brushed the urns with everything I had— The mechanical claw released. I reached out, desperately trying to grab them, and watched helplessly as my parents’ urns slipped through my fingers. They fell from twenty-eight floors up and smashed onto the concrete below, shattering into pieces. “NO—!” I screamed until my throat tore. In total despair, I leapt off the ladder. Thankfully, I still had a safety harness on. When I touched down, ghostly pale and trembling, Alexander didn’t check on me first. He charged up and slapped me across the face. “Seraphina! Have I been too soft on you?” He roared, “You’ve got such a temper now you’d throw your own life away to spite us? How can you face your dead parents like this? Chloe already told you—those were just prop urns. They were filled with flour. You really think she’d be insane enough to actually use your parents’ ashes?” I froze, my cheek burning. Chloe rushed over, throwing herself between us, all virtue and sainthood. “Alexander, don’t blame Seraphina. This is my fault. Maybe this aggressive therapy is too soon for someone in her current state.” Before she could finish, I shoved her hard from behind. “I don’t want your fake kindness!” Chloe fell forward, hitting her forehead on the steps. A trickle of blood appeared. “Seraphina, that’s enough!” Alexander scooped Chloe up in his arms, shooting me an icy glare. Then, without sparing me another glance, he turned and walked away. I knelt on the ground, tears falling onto cold concrete, one after another. In that moment, a thought floated through my mind: Alexander doesn’t belong to me anymore. I cried as I tried to gather the shattered pieces, scooping up the gray-white powder. Did anyone really think a daughter wouldn’t recognize her own parents’ urns? I had even carved special marks on them to tell which was which. Flour, my ass. It was all lies. Before I could finish, a gust of wind swept the ashes into the air, and they were gone forever. The image of my parents’ deaths replayed in my head—the blood, the screaming, all of it pressing in around me. I dry-heaved twice. Then everything went black, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying in the Pack’s hospital. Special aromatherapy filled the room with mild herbal scents, calming my nerves. There were no other werewolf scents in the room, which made things much easier. I struggled to sit up to get some water and faintly heard Alexander on the balcony outside, talking on the phone. “I know Chloe’s methods are extreme, but if we don’t do this, Seraphina will never live like a real werewolf.” His voice sounded exhausted. “Always being so careful with her, protecting her. Ten years of this. I’m exhausted.” “I know what my adoptive parents wanted, but Seraphina can’t even shift.” “I can’t be tied down for life by a defective mate who can never shift, who has to stay locked behind glass. As an Alpha, I need a strong mate who can stand beside me. The Pack needs a strong Luna. Is that wrong?” A huge hole tore open in my chest, and a freezing wind blew straight through it. Alexander was the adopted son of my parents—the late Alpha and Luna of Dusklight Pack. He was technically my brother, but everyone in our circles knew exactly what my parents had in mind when they took him in. He’d been chosen to be my mate and protector. They figured a werewolf raised from childhood would be more loyal than a fated mate. I’d always known this. I’d given my heart to that strong, gentle man a long time ago. I’d thought we’d naturally end up spending our lives together. Now I knew Alexander didn’t see it that way at all. To him, I was just a burden he couldn’t shake off—a stain on his perfect record. I laughed bitterly, tears sliding silently down my face. If he’d never planned to spend his life with me, he didn’t have to come up with such noble excuses. He didn’t have to bring in a maniac to torture me. I didn’t blame him for wanting a strong, normal life. I just hated the way he was crushing my dignity, denying that I had any worth at all. I pulled out my phone and opened the encrypted email that had been sitting in my drafts for so long. I thought for a moment, then hit reply: “Alpha William, your offer for me to join Frostmark Pack? I accept.”

Seraphina’s POV An international call came through almost immediately. William’s steady, concerned voice was on the other end. “Seraphina, my dear girl, you’ve finally come to your senses!” “Your situation isn’t suited to staying in Dusklight Pack at all. That environment will only keep traumatizing you. Things are peaceful here, and being far away from everything might help you heal.” “I suggested you come years ago, but you couldn’t bear to leave. I’m so glad you’ve changed your mind.” I forced out a pale smile. “Then… could I trouble you with the international flight arrangements and passport?” William’s voice was grounding and reassuring. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ve handed it all to Julian. He says he’ll use every resource available to handle the documents as fast as possible.” “In the meantime, just wrap things up over there. Julian will come pick you up himself.” “Okay,” I answered softly. I’d just hung up when Alexander pushed open the door. “Seraphina, you’re awake? Who were you calling?” I shook my head, said nothing, and quietly flipped my phone face-down on the bed. Alexander assumed I was still angry. Out of habit, he reached out to ruffle my hair, but I dodged. His hand stopped awkwardly in midair. He paused, then withdrew his hand. His voice softened. “Seraphina, are you still mad at me?” “I’m doing this for you. Once you overcome this, you can live like a normal werewolf instead of being mocked behind your back.” For me? I laughed bitterly inside. Before, I really had believed he was doing it for my sake. I’d just been too naïve. Now I knew—he wasn’t doing it for me. He was doing it to get rid of me. Ten years of accommodating his “defective” sister had been more than enough for him. He was desperate to shake off the burden who lived in a glass bubble and embarrassed the Pack. When I still didn’t speak, his patience ran out. “Seraphina, Chloe worked hard putting together a treatment plan for you. You don’t appreciate it, fine—but you pushed her and hurt her. Once you’re feeling a little better, I want you to apologize to her.” I forced down the bitter ache in my chest. My voice came out cold. “Apologize? Not happening. She destroyed my parents’ urns, and I’m supposed to apologize to her? Alexander, you must be dreaming.” His face darkened instantly. His voice came out cold as ice. “You’ll apologize, or I no longer have a sister.” I turned and stared at him in disbelief. “Alexander, are you actually threatening to disown me?” I steeled myself. Each word was sharp and clear. “I will never apologize to that woman. Not as long as I live.” He laughed, furious, and nodded. “Fine. Great. If you refuse to see reason, then from this day on, you don’t set foot inside the Alpha’s mansion. Not until you apologize.” My eyes burned red as I stared him down. “Why? That’s my home! That’s what my parents left me! If anyone’s leaving, it should be you—the outsider! I don’t need a brother like you!” The word “outsider” clearly cut him deep. Alexander’s face went terrifyingly dark. The one thing he hated most was being reminded of his adoptive status. He shot me a venomous glare without saying a word, then slammed the door on his way out. I stared at the closed door, all color drained from my face. I’d never expected things to end between us over some human woman we’d just met. For the next several days, Alexander didn’t come to the hospital once. No calls. No messages. I told myself I didn’t care. I went home alone to that empty mansion. I didn’t have much time left. Maybe a clean break was better. I could leave without looking back. No more lingering attachments. Back home, sitting in the dark living room, I happened to scroll past a new SnapChat post from Chloe. In the photo, sunlight bathed a green lawn. Chloe wore a pure white wedding gown, her arm hooked through Alexander’s, who was in a sharp tailored suit. Both of them were beaming under the sun, looking like the perfect couple. The caption read: “Some people have nowhere else to go, so they end up being my free model.” “Shoot in progress. Just the test photos, but weddings are exhausting!” The comments were full of congratulations and likes from mutual acquaintances. Chloe didn’t bother explaining whether it was for work or anything else. She just replied with a tongue-out emoji. My phone slipped from my hand and dropped onto the carpet with a soft thud.

Seraphina’s POV I hesitated for a long time, but in the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling gnawing at me. I bundled myself up tight, put on my special mask, and tracked down the location Chloe had tagged. It was a wedding photography studio in the small town nearby. The weather was clear and warm. I searched for a while before finally spotting them by a European-style flower garden. It was a break in shooting. I hid in the shade of a tree and watched as Alexander gently pulled out a tissue to wipe sweat from Chloe’s brow. He even unscrewed a water bottle and held it to her lips. The deep affection in his eyes was impossible to hide. Chloe had changed into a long, flame-red dress, looking like a fresh bloom. She leaned against him bashfully. Both of them were stunning. Just standing there, they were a sight, and everyone around—staff, other couples shooting their wedding photos—kept stealing glances. I looked down at myself. In my drab clothes, I was like a ghost who couldn’t bear sunlight, like a rat hiding in a gutter, only able to peek at someone else’s happiness from the shadows. My heart felt like someone was crushing it. The pain made it hard to breathe. In that moment, I felt it for real—Alexander had only ever seen me as a sister. No, less than that. As a burden he had to shake off. The tenderness from these past ten years had been about duty. About my parents’ last wishes. It was never love. Never had been. I’d just been deluding myself. I wanted to leave, but my feet felt like lead. Like a masochist, I kept watching them shift through pose after pose. My goggles fogged up with tears. Chloe seemed to glance my way casually. The corner of her mouth quirked up. Then she suddenly cried out in fake panic. “Oh no! My bracelet! My diamond bracelet—it’s gone!” “That was… that was the last thing my mother left me! What am I going to do?” Her eyes welled up, like she was about to cry. The staff around them immediately dropped what they were doing and started searching. Alexander gripped her shoulders, comforting her over and over. “Don’t panic, Chloe. It has to be nearby. Security here is good. We’ll find it.” Chloe suddenly raised her hand and pointed at my hiding spot. Her voice turned shrill. “That person! That person has been acting really suspicious. I just saw them lurking around. Did they steal my bracelet?” I was bundled up head to toe, hiding in an inconspicuous corner. I really did look suspicious. A few security guards and staff immediately closed in on me. Panic surged through me. I instinctively wanted to explain, but the menacing crowd terrified me. I turned and ran. But the more I ran, the more guilty I looked. “Stop! Catch the thief!” The shouts came from every direction. Disoriented, I slammed into a trash can and went down. Then security caught up and pinned me to the ground. I struggled wildly. “Let go of me! It wasn’t me! I’m not a thief! I was just walking by!” But nobody believed me. “Not a thief? Then why were you sneaking around?” “You won’t even show your face! Guilty conscience for sure!” I begged through tears. “Please… I was just passing by…” They didn’t listen. Someone suggested, “Pull off her mask! Let’s see what this thief looks like!” A wave of despair crashed over me. Being treated like this—the hostility, the pressure—my deep, instinctive fear started spreading. Several rough hands grabbed my head. Despite my screams and struggles, they yanked off my mask and hat. Exposed to so many strangers’ eyes and scents, my face went white in seconds. My body started shaking uncontrollably. Cold sweat broke out everywhere. To them, it must have looked bizarre. Someone muttered, “What the hell? Why’s she freaking out like this?” “Weird. Probably mentally ill. Stay back!” People backed away like I was contagious. I struggled to push myself up, raising my arm to shield my face from those piercing stares. “No… please… I just…” I tried to explain my PTSD, but the words stuck in my throat. A passerby with an iced coffee in hand walked over, his face twisted in disgust. “Oh, please. She’s just one of those psychos who fakes a fit when they get caught stealing. Stop scaring the kids around here!” With that, he dumped the entire iced coffee, ice and all, over my head. Cold brown liquid and ice cubes hit me. The cold and humiliation made me shake harder. Around me, scattered laughter and cheers broke out. “Yeah, teach this freak a lesson!” Some people even started picking up small stones from the ground and throwing them at me. I curled up on the ground, covering my head. My mind went blank. The horror of past memories blurred with the present, and I could barely breathe. Through the gaps in the crowd, I looked desperately into the distance. Alexander and Chloe were standing right there, watching this circus play out with cold detachment. A final, weak hope flickered in my chest. I called out in a tiny voice, “Alexander… Alexander, help me…” If he didn’t help me, I didn’t know what would happen to me. Alexander’s expression seemed to falter. He took a half-step forward. But Chloe immediately grabbed his arm. “Alexander, did I just hear Seraphina’s voice?” Chloe said, pretending to be confused. He stopped, frowning. “How is that possible? Seraphina should be at home reflecting on what she did. And in her condition, why would she be in a crowded place like this?” “True.” Chloe linked her arm tighter through his and smiled. “Must have been my imagination. Looks like some psycho is causing a scene over there. Let’s not get involved, it’s bad luck. We’ve still got a few more shots to take. After we wrap, I’ll buy you a fancy dinner to thank you for stepping in today.” Alexander’s face relaxed. He nodded. “Sure. Whatever you want. We don’t need to get involved.” The two of them turned and walked away. Neither of them looked back. In that instant, the last bit of light inside me went out. I stopped struggling. I let the cold and shame swallow me. I let those stones strike my body. Consciousness faded. Right before the darkness took me, I thought: Maybe it’s better this way. I’m finally not anyone’s burden anymore.

Seraphina’s POV When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in my own familiar bed. My whole body felt cold. My head was splitting. I turned my head and saw Alexander sitting on the couch by the bed, eyes closed. A bowl of steaming cream of mushroom soup sat next to him. He sensed me moving and turned. A familiar tenderness softened his eyes. “You’re awake. Hungry? I had the kitchen make your favorite soup.” His tone was casual, intimate—like we hadn’t fallen out at all just days ago. Like I hadn’t almost broken down in public. I turned my head away, not wanting to look at him. But my chest ached. Every time we fought, the next day he’d act exactly like this—warm and easy, like nothing had happened. “Why are you here?” My voice was hoarse. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t allowed back here?” His face stiffened. His tone turned colder. “Are you really still trying to fight me about that? You knew that was just me being angry.” “If someone hadn’t called me, I never would have known you’d gone outside alone, that you’d been treated like a thief and bullied!” “Seraphina, if something had happened to you, how could I face Mom and Dad?” At the mention of my parents, my eyes welled up again. “Dying would have been better. At least I could be with them. Then I wouldn’t be a burden anymore. Without me dragging you down, you can finally have the strong Alpha life you’ve always wanted.” I’d torn open my deepest, ugliest thought, and his face went iron-gray. “Seraphina! What did you say? After ten years, that’s how you see me?” he growled. I trembled, but threw it back at him. “How else am I supposed to see you? You brought in Chloe to torment me, didn’t you? Just to get rid of me?” He shot up and started pacing the room, agitated. “Seraphina, I really have spoiled you these past few years. I should have cured you sooner. Otherwise, how could your thinking get so dark and twisted?” The air in the room froze. Alexander rarely talked to me like this. But ever since Chloe showed up, his exceptions had become the rule. Just then, the door opened. Chloe walked in with a tray, her voice gentle and pleading. “Seraphina, you really have Alexander all wrong. He cares about you with his whole heart. He literally dreams about you overcoming your barriers, about you being a normal werewolf again. Saying things like this hurts him so deeply.”Alexander looked at her, his eyes softening, and shot her a grateful glance. Their eyes met in the air, sharing some kind of intimate understanding that left no room for outsiders. Watching them, my heart felt like it was being pricked by needles. I let out a cold laugh. “Who do you think you are? This is my home. Since when do you get a say?” The smile froze on Chloe’s lips. Her face went pale in an instant, like she’d been wronged in the worst possible way. Alexander immediately stepped forward, putting her behind him, glaring at me. “Seraphina! When did you become so cruel and unreasonable? Chloe poured her heart into making this plan for you, and this is how you treat her? Looks like Chloe was right—you don’t know how to be grateful!” “Treatment needs to speed up. Starting today, Chloe will move into the estate until you’re fully recovered!” With that, ignoring my shock and protests, he grabbed Chloe’s hand and led her out. Just as the door was about to close, Chloe turned her head. Those eyes, hidden from Alexander, held no trace of victimhood. They were full of triumph and provocation. She mouthed the words silently to me: “Seraphina, I won’t ‘disappoint’ you.”

Seraphina’s POV The day after Chloe moved in, my life turned into hell. She took complete control over my food, clothing, and living arrangements. Because of my psychological condition, I was extremely sensitive to anything that carried a strong werewolf scent. But to Chloe, all of that was just “spoiled behavior” and “psychosomatic.” With one wave of her hand, she dismissed every human maid in the mansion and replaced them with werewolves. And items started appearing in my room with intense, unfamiliar adult werewolf scents—bloodstained blades, silver daggers. Even during meals, she’d play loud, frantic music. I took a deep breath and forced down the urge to smash everything. Just a few more days. I didn’t want to fight with this lunatic anymore. I’d consider it my final exercise in patience. Seeing that I had barely touched dinner, Chloe curled her lips and asked with fake concern, “Seraphina, is the food not to your taste? I noticed you’ve barely eaten.” I kept my expression cold. “Not hungry.” Chloe’s eyes welled up immediately. She turned to Alexander. “Alexander, is there a problem with the meal I arranged? I know Seraphina has issues with me, but she shouldn’t take it out on her health. If my presence is bothering her, I can eat elsewhere from now on.” She made a show of standing up. Alexander grabbed her hand. “What are you doing? You’re an honored guest. You’re our therapist. You’re not eating anywhere else. Sit down!” Chloe gave me a troubled look. “But…” Alexander’s eyes turned cold as they landed on me. “Seraphina, there’s a limit to your tantrums. Chloe has stayed up nights perfecting your treatment plan. All of this was designed with care. If you can’t appreciate it, fine—but who are you putting on this attitude for?” I didn’t answer. I set down my napkin and dabbed at my mouth. “I’m full. Enjoy your meal.” I stood and started to leave. As I passed Alexander, he grabbed my wrist with shocking force. “Seraphina! I’m talking to you! Where are your manners?” Sharp pain shot through my wrist. I winced and yanked my hand free, staring at the red mark blooming on my skin. “You call this dinner?” I gestured at the unsettling background and music. “Look around. Listen. Is this something I can handle? Did you forget what these things do to me?” Alexander froze. His eyes softened, and a flicker of guilt passed through them. But Chloe immediately spoke up softly. “Alexander, this is part of exposure therapy. Tolerance training is important too. A lot of Seraphina’s discomfort is actually psychosomatic. We need to break those false associations.” The guilt vanished from Alexander’s eyes. He hardened again. “Seraphina, Chloe is right. This is psychological. As long as you slowly accept it, your body and mind will adapt.” “If you don’t want to accept it, you can go hungry.” He turned coldly to his Beta, Joseph. “No special meals for her without my permission. All her arrangements need to go through Chloe. Let her starve a few days. Once she’s calm, she’ll learn to listen.” Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t say anything. I just turned and walked away, not wanting them to see me cry.

Seraphina’s POV This time, Alexander was dead set on forcing me to be “normal.” For days, my surroundings were full of deliberate, unbearable stimulation. Before, even when we fought, he’d leave me some breathing room. Now even that last bit of peace was gone. I didn’t know when my relationship with Alexander had become this. But it wouldn’t be much longer. I looked at the encrypted message I’d just received on my phone. From Julian: “Everything is arranged. In five days, the plane will be waiting at the agreed location. Seraphina, I look forward to meeting you.” I rubbed my burning eyes. Five days. After days of constant emotional stress, I’d visibly deteriorated. My face was paper-white, dark circles under my eyes. When Alexander came to check on me, something complicated flickered across his face at the sight of me—but it was quickly replaced with cold detachment. Chloe came too. She stood at my doorway and whispered in his ear: “Alexander, hold steady. This is the darkness before dawn. Once we get through this, she’ll be reborn, and you’ll finally be free.” Alexander’s jaw tightened. He nodded. By the morning of the fourth day, while going down the stairs, I collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition. Everything went black. When I woke up, Alexander was sitting by my bed holding a bowl of plain oatmeal porridge. His tone was unusually conciliatory. “Seraphina, you win.” He sighed, his voice hoarse. “I just want you to live like a real werewolf. Is that wrong? Why can’t you understand my intentions?” Looking at this Alpha—famous in the werewolf world for his ferocity and brutality—now looking helpless and frustrated with me… There was nothing left in my heart but a cold exhaustion. I turned my head, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll try to cooperate with Chloe,” I rasped. But all I was thinking about was getting out of here as fast as possible. His eyes seemed to brighten. He reached out, wanting to pat my head like he used to. But his hand stopped mid-air. In the end, he just said stiffly, “Get some rest. No more foolish stunts.” I forced out a weak smile. Right. No more foolish stunts. Because in five days, I’d disappear from his world for good. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chloe standing in the doorway. Her eyes were dark and cold. Her fists were clenched. She turned and left. Something about that look sent a chill down my spine.

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When Adrian and Isla had another screaming match, both of them grabbed their suitcases, ready to walk out on me. He gripped my arm, his face dark. “Are you really going to stay with a girl like her? She’s reckless. Come with me.” Isla’s explosive temper flared, and she spat out the words without thinking: “Cut the righteous act, Adrian! Whose lace panties are those in your pocket? You think just because Maeve can’t speak, you can play her for a fool?” Panic seized me. I made desperate, choked sounds, my hands flying in a flurry of frantic signs, begging them both to stay. There’s a mistake, Isla. He’s not like that. Please, don’t go. But the screaming only escalated. By the end of the night, one had headed North, the other South. I was torn, caught in the wreckage of their anger, but in the end, I chose to follow Isla. She had always been the one to bend, to tolerate Adrian’s coldness just to keep the three of us together. I reached her apartment and turned the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. From inside the bedroom, the unmistakable, breathless sounds of my best friend drifted down the hall. “If you’d just told me you bought them for me, we wouldn’t have fought so hard…” And then, Adrian’s voice. The cold, untouchable Adrian Locke, now thick with a raw, restrained lust. “As if you don’t scream loud enough already. Keep it down. What if she…” Isla let out a low, knowing laugh. “You know Maeve. She’s too busy trying to keep the peace. She’s so terrified of choosing between us that she won’t follow either of us.” She paused, her voice turning sharp and teasing. “Besides, when it comes to this, do you really prefer that quiet little mute girl?” Adrian didn’t answer. But the sudden, violent creak of the mattress was answer enough. My feet felt nailed to the floor. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Slowly, I raised my hand and knocked on the door. … Both of them turned toward me, their eyes wide with shock and guilt. “M-Maeve… how did you get in here?” Adrian scrambled to shove Isla away, hurriedly pulling up his pants. He sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at the floor, completely unable to meet my eyes. I stood in the doorway. The mango cream cake I had bought in the city to cheer Isla up slipped from my fingers, splatting onto the hardwood floor. Isla’s tears fell first. She rushed over, grabbing my wrists. “Maeve, please, let me explain. It’s not what it looks like…” Her bare shoulders were covered in fresh, dark hickeys. I pulled my hands back. Slowly, deliberately, I signed: Don’t touch me. You both disgust me. Adrian pushed past her, barking, “Get some clothes on! Let me talk to Maeve!” He grabbed my hands, his palms burning and wet with sweat. “Maeve, listen to me. It was just physical. A release. If you’re angry, take it out on me. Isla saved your life once—please, don’t blame her.” It was sick. Even now, his first instinct was to shield her. I remembered the night Isla saved me from those thugs in the alley. She was a singer at a local dive bar back then. When Adrian finally arrived, he didn’t even thank her. Instead, he spat venom at her: “If Maeve didn’t hang around trash like you, she would never have been in danger!” He had even called her a whore. Because those thugs had strangled me so hard they ruined my vocal cords, leaving me unable to speak, the hatred between Adrian and Isla seemed written in stone. Adrian looked down on her, constantly warning me to cut ties. “You’re too naive, Maeve. She’s the neighborhood bicycle. I’m just looking out for you.” And Isla would sneer back: “He acts so clean, but he’s a closet freak. Watch your back, or he’ll leave you looking like a fool.” I had spent years playing peacemaker, secretly feeling blessed that the two people who loved me most were simply overprotective. But they were fucking. Looking at the red scratches on Adrian’s chest, my stomach churned. I raised my hands to sign: Adrian, let’s get a div— Before I could finish the sign for divorce, a sharp shriek echoed from the bedroom. Adrian bolted inside. I followed. Isla was slumped on the floor, her wrist slashed open, blood pooling around her feet. My instinct was to help, but Adrian shoved me away so hard my shoulder hit the wall. “Isla! Isla!” He scooped her pale body into his arms, throwing a look of pure, unadulterated disgust at me before running out. I followed them to the hospital in a daze. When the doctor said she’s out of danger, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I turned to leave, but the doctor’s next words froze me. “Her previous miscarriage already took a heavy toll on her body. As her boyfriend, how could you let her slit her wrists?” My chest tightened. A miscarriage? They had a child. Adrian didn’t deny it. “Doctor, will this affect her ability to get pregnant again?” When the doctor reassured him, the tension in Adrian’s shoulders melted away. Behind the door, tears streamed silently down my face. Isla caught my reflection in the glass. Panicking, she tried to sit up. “Maeve, don’t look at me like that! The baby… it was an accident…” Adrian’s first move isn’t to look at me; it’s to hold Isla steady. He looked up at me, his eyes dark with a suppressed, simmering irritation. “Maeve, she’s highly unstable right now. Can we talk about this later?” A choked, broken sound escaped my throat. I signed rapidly: Is this why you refused to have a baby with me? Adrian looked up at the ceiling, swallowing hard before he spoke. “You got pregnant once too, Maeve.” “But when you and Isla were pregnant at the same time, I had to choose. Be honest with yourself—you’re mute. How could you possibly take care of a baby?” My hands trembled as I sign: So you aborted my child behind my back? Adrian looked down, silent. The last fragile thread of hope inside me snapped. In their sick, twisted game, I had already lost before I even knew I was playing. I left them there, looking like a perfect, worried little family. I walked home in the pouring rain. My mind flashed back to when Adrian first tried to learn sign language for me. He was so clumsy, tracing the gestures with a fierce, earnest devotion. I don’t want to miss a single word you say, he had signed. I want to be the one you turn to when it hurts. Now, that patience was gone. In the middle of the night, a clap of thunder woke me. My phone buzzed with an anonymous video message. I clicked it. It’s Isla, her heavy makeup smeared with tears, screaming at Adrian. “Call me a whore! Call me a cheap slut! But don’t you dare pretend you don’t feel anything for me!” “I paid those guys to rough up Maeve. I wanted her voice gone so you’d see how much better life is with me!” The world stopped spinning. The room went cold. On the screen, Isla’s crazed voice continued: “Go on! Tell her! Tell your precious little angel that her best friend is the reason she can’t speak! Let’s see if she still looks at you the same way!” She beat her fists against Adrian’s chest, sobbing hysterically. Then, Adrian’s voice cut through the noise, chillingly calm. “Fine. We bury this. We bury it forever. She never finds out.” My brain exploded into white noise. That night. The dark alleyway. The hands ripping my clothes. My screams cut short as a rough cloth was tied around my neck, choking me until my throat filled with the metallic taste of blood. Just as the darkness was closing in, Isla had appeared, shattering a beer bottle over their heads. She was my savior. I had defended her against Adrian’s insults. I had even slapped him once when he spoke ill of her. And all along, the people who claimed to love me most were the ones who dragged me into the dark. I ran to the hospital, bare feet hitting the wet pavement. I slammed open Isla’s door, my hands moving so fast they were a blur: Adrian was right. You are a disgusting, pathetic whore. But signing those words felt like driving a knife into my own chest. Isla shrank back, her eyes wide with terror. I remembered when we were young, and she worked at that sketchy bar to feed her family. When men harassed her, I broke a glass bottle and stood in front of her, almost getting my face slashed. When I caught a high fever, she stayed by my bedside for three days and nights. I don’t care what they say, Maeve. As long as you believe in me. Suddenly, Adrian burst into the room. “Maeve! How dare you scream at her!” “You were pinned down by those thugs too! You’re no saint, Maeve. Stop acting so pure!” His words rang in my ears, deafening me. When it happened, he had hunted those men down. He had blamed Isla for dragging me into her world. Now, he was tearing open my deepest wound, using it to stab me. With tears streaming down my face, I signed one last question: You knew what Isla did to me. You knew the whole time, didn’t you? Adrian froze for three long seconds. There was shock in his eyes, but no remorse. “It’s in the past, Maeve. Let it go. Isla lost a child—isn’t that punishment enough?” Three years. Three years of silence. Three years of being looked down upon at job interviews, of having no one but her. I had wanted to end my life so many times, but the thought of leaving them behind kept me alive. And now, he wanted to sweep it under the rug. I clenched my fists, my chest heavy as lead. I pulled out the divorce papers and signed: Adrian, let’s divorce. Adrian blinked, his chest stalling. Then, a flicker of relief washed over his face. “Maeve… you’re doing this so I can take care of Isla, right?” I looked at his smug, confident eyes, and slowly nodded. He sighed with relief, quickly signing his name on the dotted line. “She’s your best friend. She’s lost so much blood and has no one. I’m glad you’re being sensible about this. Once she’s out of the hospital, we’ll get remarried.” They both relaxed, the tension in the room evaporating. Neither of them noticed the utter hollow deadness in my eyes. Even my consent to a divorce is just another convenience for them to play house. I took the signed papers and went home to pack. At 3:00 AM, the front door flew open. Adrian stood there, his face contorted in a dark rage. Before I could react, his hand flew out, striking my cheek. The force of the blow sent me stumbling, my vision spinning. I looked at him, bewildered, signing: What are you doing? What’s wrong? Adrian was shaking, his eyes wild. “Stop playing dumb, Maeve! You proposed the divorce just to clear your name, didn’t you? You knew I wouldn’t suspect you!” “She took your voice, so now you’re taking her life!” I shook my head frantically, signing over and over: It wasn’t me! I don’t know what you’re talking about! But he had no patience left. He dragged me out of the apartment, throwing me into his car, and drove to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. “Since you hired them, you go in and get her out. If we’re too late, she’s going to die!” Looking at the dark, menacing structure, I shook my head in terror, signing: It wasn’t me. If I go in there, they’ll kill me. Adrian hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, a curdling shriek echoed from the top floor of the warehouse. “Adrian! Help me! I’m so scared!” Hearing Isla’s voice, Adrian lost his mind. He dragged me up the stairs. Isla was tied to a chair, gagged, tears streaming down her face. “Take her instead!” Adrian yelled at the masked kidnappers. “Let Isla go!” Without a word, the leader unties Isla and shoves me against a concrete pillar, binding my hands tightly. With my mouth free but my voice gone, I could only make desperate, muffled whimpers. Adrian didn’t look at me. He was too busy checking Isla for injuries, whispering sweet comfort, inspecting her wrists. Only when he was about to carry her out did he cast a brief glance back. “You deal with your own mess, Maeve. Once Isla is safe at the hospital, I’ll come back for you. We’ll talk.” He turned and walked away. No matter how hard I thrashed against the ropes, he didn’t look back. As his shadow disappeared, I stopped struggling. The leader of the kidnappers pulled down his mask, revealing a scarred face. My heart dropped. Shane. He was one of Isla’s frequent drinking buddies at the bar. He had openly chased her for years. He drew a switchblade, tracing the cold metal against my cheek. “Isla told me to just ruin your face, but you made her slit her wrists. How can I let you off that easy?” He pressed the tip of the blade against my chest, right over my heart. I closed my eyes. I welcomed the silence. Suddenly, the metal doors burst open. “Get away from my daughter! Take me instead!” My breath caught. My mother. I shook my head frantically, begging her to run, but no sound came out. As I struggled violently against the ropes, a sickening squelch cut through the air. She had thrown herself in front of me, taking the blade meant for my heart. Hot, thick blood splattered across my face. The world lost all sound. The air froze. She collapsed to the ground, her body heavy and still. Her phone slid across the dusty floor, landing near my feet. The screen was lit up. A single name flashed on the caller ID: Isla. It was Isla who had called my mother. She had sent her to “save” me. I fell to my knees, my bound hands desperately hovering over my mother’s cooling body. “Let’s go! She’s dead! Run!” the men panicked, dropping the knife and fleeing into the night. In the empty, rotting warehouse, a ragged, guttural howl finally broke from my ruined throat. At dawn, with my mother’s ashes sealed in a heavy urn and my body covered in bruises, I boarded the earliest flight out of the city. As soon as the plane touched down, my phone exploded with hundreds of messages from Adrian and Isla. I didn’t read a single one. I blocked them both, deleted their numbers, and disappeared into the crowded streets. Keep playing your tragic, twisted love story, Adrian. I’m done.

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Every night after my father cheated, Mom washed his body with steel wool. She would spray rubbing alcohol onto his raw, bleeding back, her voice a manic, repeating whisper. “Dirty. You’re so dirty, Wesley. So dirty.” Dad’s face would go bone-white from the agonizing sting, but his eyes were always swimming with guilt. He never flinched, never pulled away. Instead, he would look at my wide, bewildered eyes and offer a gentle, quiet comfort. “Daddy made a mistake, Gemma. Mommy is doing the right thing.” But on my sixth birthday, Dad asked if he could take a shower by himself. The knife shook in Mom’s hand as she sliced my birthday cake. Suddenly, she snapped, lunging at him and tearing desperately at his shirt. “Are you sleeping with her again? Your little apprentice, Amber? Is she that desperate? Can’t she live without you?” “You’re pathetic, Wesley! You have a family right here, but you’d rather ruin your career and throw away your reputation just to sleep with garbage!” After Mom slapped him for the eighteenth time, Dad finally reached his breaking point. He caught her wrists and yanked up his sleeve, exposing a jagged, angry wound on his arm. “I nearly lost my arm fixing the main press at the plant today, and you don’t even care! All you do is obsess over who I’m sleeping with! When does it end!” “Even if Amber is messy, she’s still better than you. At least she didn’t grow up fooling around with her own stepbrother! I’d rather sleep with her any day. What of it?” The candle on my cake flickered out without warning, plunging our small company-housing apartment into a dim, suffocating twilight. Mom’s hand fell limp at her side. The fierce, manic light in her eyes simply vanished. I knew then: Mom was tired. Truly tired. She was ready to let go. … 1 The dry air in the room was thick with a dead, heavy silence. Dad was the first to snap out of it. He tugged the pull-string switch, and the dim, yellow bulb cast a flickering shadow across the room. He reached out instinctively to grab Mom’s hand, but he caught only empty air. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” “The machine malfunctioned today. I got hurt while trying to repair it. I only wanted to wash up myself because I didn’t want you to worry.” “Look at me, Meredith. I’m clean. There’s no scent of another woman’s cold cream on me. I swear.” Mom’s stepbrother had been an orphaned boy her stepfather brought home when they were kids. Two years older than her, she had been thrilled to finally have an older brother. She never expected that years later, he would pin her against a wall, trying to make her his. It was Dad who had happened to walk by and save her, promising never to speak a word of it to anyone. But now, he was the one using it as a weapon to tear her apart. Mom didn’t say a word. She turned her back to him, picking up the cold dishes to put them back into the steamer to reheat. Only then did Dad realize he was two hours late getting home. Two hours. That was a very specific, agonizing number in our house. A year ago, when Dad was two hours late, Mom had been so worried she ran out into a torrential downpour to find him at the plant. Peering through the dusty glass of the control room, she saw Dad and Amber tangled together. I had been riding piggyback on Mom, giggling innocently. “Is Daddy playing a game? He’s riding on Auntie Amber’s back just like I ride on yours!” “Daddy is like a puppy, playing so happily with Auntie Amber.” Mom had quickly covered my eyes, whispering for me to look away. I only remembered how hard it rained that night, the thunder shaking the earth. But as she carried me home on her back, she wept louder than the storm. Remembering this, Dad’s face drained of color. He mumbled, his voice trembling. “I’m sorry. There was really an emergency at the plant.” “I promise you, nothing like that will ever happen again. Let’s just live our lives quietly.” Mom kept her back turned, offering no reply. Assuming her silence was a quiet acceptance, Dad let out a long, relieved sigh. He went to change his clothes and sat back down at the table, his bandaged arm resting quietly. “Happy birthday, Gemma. And here’s to many more years just like this for us.” To many more years, through every season. That had been their wedding vow. They used to repeat it to each other every year. But tonight, Mom didn’t complete the sentence. She just kept silently scooping food into my bowl. Dad sighed softly and pulled two beautifully wrapped gifts from his coat pocket. One was a pair of pearl earrings; the other was a porcelain doll. “I bought these on my business trip down south. I knew you two would love them.” Though I was thrilled, I stole a glance at Mom’s face first. She gave me a small, reassuring nod, signaling that I could accept them. A spark of hope lit up Dad’s eyes. He leaned in gently, trying to slip one of the pearl earrings into Mom’s earlobe. But before he could secure the clasp, the front door was hammered so violently by the night watchman that the frame rattled. “Engineer Wesley! Come quick! The calibration is off, and Amber got her sleeve caught in the assembly line again!” Dad’s hand slipped. The sharp metal post of the earring gouged into Mom’s earlobe, and blood began to bead and run. Mom gasped from the sudden sting, tears welling in her eyes. Without looking back, Dad pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against her bleeding ear, already heading for the door. “There’s an emergency at the plant. I have to go.” We both knew there was no emergency at the plant. There was only Amber. And Dad’s injury from earlier wasn’t from a rogue machine—it was from shielding Amber. Mom stared down at the handkerchief left in her hand. It was embroidered with a wild rose—Amber’s favorite flower. After a long, quiet moment, Mom let out a soft, hollow laugh. She stroked my hair, whispering a gentle apology. “I’m so sorry I ruined your sixth birthday, sweetie.” “But Mommy can’t do this anymore. I’m leaving your father.” When Mom took me to the municipal registry office, it was already the next morning. Dad hadn’t come home all night, and Mom hadn’t slept a wink. She held her red identification booklet, staring blankly at the clerk, taking a long moment to process the words spoken to her. “What do you mean our marriage certificate is invalid? Wesley and I aren’t husband and wife?” The clerk, a kind-faced older woman, sighed with deep sympathy. “I checked the registry database multiple times. Wesley is indeed registered as married. But not to you. His legal wife is Amber.” “They filed the paperwork with a special unit exemption a year ago.” One year ago. That was exactly three months after Amber had first moved into our house. When Mom first brought her home, Amber was black and blue, covered in cuts and bruises. Mom had told us she was a broken soul, and that we must treat her with kindness. I remembered Dad complaining in private back then, calling Amber a troubled girl from the streets, warning that keeping someone like her around would ruin my upbringing. That was the first time I ever saw Mom raise her voice at him, accusing him of lacking basic human empathy, making him swear he would treat Amber like his own sister. Once Amber recovered, she clung to Dad, eventually becoming his apprentice at the plant. Mom had been genuinely happy, thinking Amber was finally on the right path, and that Dad had let go of his prejudices. She never expected the path would lead straight to her own undoing. Dad came home early that evening. Seeing the dining table bare, he arched an eyebrow. “I’m sorry about missing dinner yesterday. Let me make it up to you. I’ll take us out to a nice restaurant.” Mom didn’t move. She simply pointed to our framed wedding portrait on the wall. “Wesley, when did your heart change?” “Was it a year ago, or was it the very first moment you laid eyes on Amber?” The photograph on the wall was already yellowing, its edges curling. In it, Dad looked stiff and formal, while Mom’s lips were pressed into a tight, nervous line. But in the photos of Dad and Amber at the plant, they both laughed with radiant, carefree abandon. Dad froze for a second, then let out a dismissive laugh. “You’re angry over a piece of paper? If you want to take new pictures, we can go to the studio right now.” “Amber is young and brilliant; her talent shouldn’t be wasted. Marrying her was just a formality to secure her residency and her spot in the plant’s fast-track program.” “It’s just a legal loophole. If it bothers you this much, I’ll file for divorce immediately.” I tugged at the hem of Mom’s shirt, looking up with innocent confusion. “Is that why the school wouldn’t let me register? Because of that paper?” Dad went rigid, a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. I was already past the age to start school. Every time Mom took me to register, the administrators always told her my paperwork didn’t meet the requirements. Mom had spent weeks running from office to office, wearing out two pairs of shoes, only to receive a quiet warning from an old clerk: “Are you sure about your husband’s legal status? You should look into that before you try registering the child.” Mom had assumed it was because Dad worked on confidential projects for the plant. She didn’t know that her husband wasn’t legally her husband, and that I was an illegitimate child—a ghost with no legal standing. Mom held me close, keeping her silence. Dad cleared his throat, softening his tone. “Once Amber gets her union tenure, I’ll divorce her. Then we’ll get Gemma into the best private academy in town. Just wait a little longer, okay?” Mom slipped out of his reach, looking up with calm, empty eyes. “So you never had feelings for her? It was all just a favor?” Dad nodded vigorously, trying to pull us both into a tight embrace. “I swear to God. In my heart, there is only you and Gemma.” I wrinkled my nose, pulling away from him in disgust. The scent clinging to his collar was the unmistakable, sweet aroma of Amber’s cold cream. Just then, the door creaked open. Amber stood there in a delicate floral sundress, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes rimmed with red. “Wes… I’m pregnant.” I looked up, catching the unmistakable flash of joy that crossed Dad’s eyes before he could hide it. Amber slid a medical form onto the table, her expression torn. “I know you only married me to help me get my union status. I won’t keep this baby.” “I only came because I wanted the baby’s father to know he existed. The doctor said… it’s a boy.” Tears trickled down Amber’s pale cheeks, catching the light of the pearl necklace around her throat. It was a perfect match to the earrings Dad had given Mom, only hers was far larger, far more expensive. Amber touched her neck, looking sheepish. “Wes gave this to me as a reward for winning the plant’s design competition. If it makes you uncomfortable, sister, I’ll take it off.” Dad’s eyes darted around in panic. He opened his mouth to explain, but Mom cut him off. She calmly took off her own pearl earrings and tossed them onto the table. “You already wear my old clothes and sleep with my husband. Since you love my secondhand trash so much, you might as well take these too.” Amber’s mock-innocent smile stiffened, but she quickly recovered, flashing a sharp, triumphant grin. She picked them up and put them on. “Thank you, sister. You’re so generous. It seems Wes was right to sleep with me. Compared to your flat, cold body, I obviously know how to keep him happy.” “After all, he told me that no matter how wild I am, at least I never slept with my own brother. I’m clean where it counts.” “Amber! Shut your mouth and get out of here!” Dad roared, stepping between Amber and Mom. Amber’s eyes flooded with tears, and she spun around, running out into the twilight. Dad hovered in place for a second, then tried to sound casual as he looked back at Mom. “It’s getting dark. It’s not safe for her to be out alone in her condition.” “You two wait for me here. I’ll be right back.” Beneath the table, Mom’s nails dug so hard into her palms that her knuckles turned white. I never imagined Mom’s deepest, most painful secret would be whispered in bed to Amber as a joke. And I never imagined Dad would defend Amber, leaving Mom behind once again. Mom watched his retreating figure as he ran down the street, then quietly began packing our bags. As she locked the door behind us, I kept looking down the empty road. Mom took my hand, shaking her head softly. “Don’t look back, sweetie. He’s not coming back.” As we walked toward the train station, thin flakes of snow began to drift down from the gray sky. Suddenly, Amber stepped out from the shadows of an alley, blocking our path with a cruel, satisfied smile. “I knew you’d run. That’s why I waited here. See how well I know you?” Mom didn’t want any trouble. She picked me up and tried to walk past her, but several rough-looking men stepped out from the darkness, surrounding us. Amber’s eyes gleamed with malice as she stepped closer. “Do you remember these men, Meredith? You’re the one who rescued me from them in the first place.” “They made me a whore, and you took me into your home like a saint. You’re just too good to be true, aren’t you?” Mom held me tighter, her body tense. “What do you want, Amber?” Amber let out a sharp, cold laugh. “I want you to become exactly like me. That way, Wes won’t look at you like you’re some pure, untouchable angel anymore.” “I wonder what Wes will think when he gets here and finds you stripped and ruined in the dirt?” Her eyes shifted slowly toward me, a twisted grin spreading across her face. “Little Gemma is so small, but even little girls have a certain sweetness to them, don’t they?” Mom’s eyes went wild with terror. She pulled a small utility knife from her pocket, her fingers trembling violently. “Get back! Touch her and I will kill you!” It was the hunting knife Dad had given her years ago. I buried my face in Mom’s neck, crying in terror as the men laughed, closing the circle around us. I felt a cold, greasy hand brush against my cheek. Mom screamed, swinging the knife blindly into the air. A man cried out, clutching his arm, and curses filled the snowy air. Mom didn’t stop, slashing frantically to keep them away. Suddenly, Mom’s back hit a solid wall of chest. A familiar, stern voice boomed from above us. “Meredith! When are you going to stop this madness!” Amber was already on the ground, curled in a patch of blood-stained snow. She clutched her stomach, a tragic, fragile smile on her face. “Don’t blame sister… she saved my life once… if she wants to destroy me like this, I accept it…” “But my baby… he was so small… he hadn’t even kicked yet…” Dad looked down at Mom, his voice colder than the ice beneath our feet. “Meredith, you’d better pray to God that Amber’s baby survives.” He scooped Amber into his arms and ran toward the clinic. He ran so fast, never noticing that Mom’s hand was deeply gashed, blood dripping onto the snow. I dragged Mom to the clinic myself. The nurse on duty stitched her wound with brutal, careless tugs, making the skin tear further. I tried to blow on Mom’s hand to ease the pain, glaring at the nurse. “Listen here, you little brat,” the nurse snapped, wrapping the bandage roughly. “I’m doing your home-wrecking mother a favor just by stitching her up.” Mom immediately covered my ears, her voice sharp and cold. “Apologize to my daughter.” The nurse rolled her eyes, pointing toward the private recovery room down the hall. “Engineer Wesley and Amber are legally married. Their child is the legitimate one here. A mistress should learn to keep her head down instead of demanding respect.” Dad stood in the doorway, his eyes softening slightly as he saw the blood soaking through Mom’s fresh bandage. He sighed, walking over to gently re-wrap her hand. “Thank God Amber is going to be okay. But we can’t just let this go.” “There’s been a leak of proprietary blueprints from the design office. The ministry is investigating. I need you to take the blame for Amber.” Mom froze, staring at him as if he had struck her. “You want me to take the fall for Amber?” Dad frowned, his tone matter-of-fact. “Amber is young; a security mark on her record will ruin her career forever. But you… you’re a housewife. It won’t affect you. I’ll still provide for you and take care of you.” Tears streamed down Mom’s face, burning her cheeks. “And what about Gemma? She can’t have a mother with a criminal record! She’ll never be allowed to go to school!” Dad wiped her tears away, remaining silent for a long moment. “Don’t worry. I’ll have Amber legally adopt Gemma. That way, her records stay clean.” Mom went completely rigid. When she realized what he was saying, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around me in a desperate, suffocating grip. “Amber sent those men to hurt us! I was only protecting my child!” “I didn’t steal any data! You can’t take my baby away!” From the recovery room, Amber’s weak voice drifted out. “If sister doesn’t want to, forget it, Wes… I don’t want to make things hard for you…” The horn of an official vehicle honked outside the clinic. After a moment of hesitation, Dad stepped forward and began tearing me from Mom’s arms. “It’s just a routine inquiry, Meredith. They just need to ask you some questions.” I screamed for Mom, kicking and scratching at Dad’s face. Two security officers came in and dragged Mom out, her knees scraping hard against the gravel driveway, leaving a smeared trail of blood. She wept, crying out into the cold night air. “I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t!” “Gemma! My baby!” “Wesley, I hate you! I hate you!” The security vehicle sped away into the dark. It didn’t return until three days later. But Mom didn’t come back. Only the plant director did. He looked at Dad, who was currently sitting with his arm wrapped around Amber, and hesitated. Dad’s eyes fell to the white shirt the director was holding. It was the shirt Mom had been wearing when she was taken. It was stiff with dried mud and stained with dark, heavy blood. The smile died on Dad’s face, his heart leaping into his throat. “Meredith’s transport vehicle was caught in a flash mudslide on the mountain road. She died on impact.” “These are her belongings. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “459313”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Less than a year after I faked my death, Thomas Oswald found me. But no matter how he knelt on the cold ground, begging, I refused to go back with him. Until he used his power to throw my elderly parents into a state penitentiary. “Novia, if you don’t want me supporting Lydia, I won’t bring her into our lives anymore. Just come home. Can’t we go back to how we were?” Thomas’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice thick with desperation. “You don’t want your parents spending their remaining years rotting in a maximum-security prison in the frozen North, do you?” I screamed every curse I knew at him, but he only laughed, a sound raw and bordering on madness. “Novia, without you, I’ve been out of my mind anyway.” In the end, I broke. When I returned, Thomas really did seem like a changed man. He stayed by my side constantly. He even proposed sending Lydia away to a secluded clinic in Vermont. Right in front of my eyes, he burned the trust fund agreements he’d prepared for her. He handed me the keys to the entire Oswald estate, telling me that from now on, everything was mine to rule. Our son, Henry—who had once screamed that he wanted Lydia to be his mother—now trailed after me, desperately trying to win my favor with sweet words and shy smiles. I actually believed they had changed. I was just about to write a letter to my savior, telling him I had no further requests. But then, I saw them. At the secluded chapel on the estate grounds, I caught Thomas. He was holding Lydia’s arm with a gentle, protective reverence as she prayed. And my son, Henry, was clinging to Lydia’s leg, looking up at her with a sweet, adoring smile. “Aunt Lydia, when is my baby brother coming out of your tummy to play with me?” Thomas gently pulled the boy back. “Don’t play around, Henry.” “And don’t mention your brother. You almost let it slip in front of your mother last time.” I froze where I stood. After a long, breathless moment, I tightened my grip on my umbrella and stepped forward. 1 “Remember, your mother is also coming to the chapel today to pray for your grandmother. We can’t stay long,” Thomas said, keeping his voice low and solemn. “And not a single word about the baby in front of her. Do you understand?” Henry nodded, though his lower lip trembled. “Dad… when can we bring Aunt Lydia back to the house? It’s so cold out here, and she doesn’t even have anyone to take care of her…” Thomas stroked the boy’s hair, a sigh escaping him. “We can’t rush this. We have to plan carefully. I’ll figure out a way once she’s closer to her due date.” But Henry wouldn’t let it go, mumbling petulantly, “It’s all Mom’s fault. She’s so selfish and jealous! Aunt Lydia is so sweet, but Mom just wants to keep you all to herself. She hates Aunt Lydia!” “Quiet!” Thomas snapped, cutting him off. “That is your mother. Don’t let me ever hear you speak of her with such disrespect again!” Silence fell over the small chapel. Henry pouted, tears welling in his eyes. Lydia gently pulled the boy behind her, lifting her tear-rimmed eyes to look at Thomas. “Thomas, please don’t blame the child. It’s my fault,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “That night… you were so drunk. I was careless. I forgot to take the morning-after pill, and now we’re in this mess. I’ve made things so hard for you.” “I was fully prepared to spend the rest of my life in isolation, never disrupting your life with Novia.” “But… if this child is born in some hidden clinic, they will grow up branded a bastard. They’ll face nothing but cruelty and scorn.” She slowly sank to her knees, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I don’t care what happens to me. But please, Thomas, give this baby a chance. As long as you don’t abandon them, I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever…” “Get up,” Thomas said, reaching down to pull her to her feet, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ll find a way.” “There’s no need to find a way,” I said, closing my umbrella as I calmly stepped over the threshold. “There is no time like the present. You can bring Lydia back to the house today.” My sudden entrance made Thomas stiffen. Every drop of color drained from his face. Yet, his hand instinctively moved to shield Lydia’s stomach. “Novia… let me explain,” he stammered, his throat working hard as he searched for words. “This baby… it was an accident. That night, I drank too much. I thought she was you…” “It was only that one time. I swear to you, only once.” He spoke in a frantic rush, his eyes locked onto mine. “I only wanted to bring her back so she could have a safe delivery, and then I was going to find a quiet place in the countryside for them. If you don’t want her in the house, I won’t do it. I swear I won’t…” I cut him off softly. “Thomas, I didn’t say I disagreed.” He blinked, utterly lost. “Are you… are you angry?” “No,” I said, my voice smooth and level. “I was just thinking that Lydia always preferred the Lakeside Cottage. I’ll move my things out tonight so she can have it.” Thomas stared at me as if I were a complete stranger. Slowly, his brow furrowed, and the panic in his eyes turned into something darker, sharper. “Novia, can you stop being so damn passive-aggressive?” I met his gaze, offering a small, polite smile. “You’re overthinking it. I’m not being passive-aggressive. I simply sympathize with how difficult pregnancy must be for Lydia, and I want to help.” Thomas lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. His grip was so tight I could feel the bones grinding together. His eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving. “What do you want from me? I told you it was an accident! Why do you have to keep twisting the knife?” I looked down at his hand bruising my wrist. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t cry out. “You’re overthinking it, Thomas.” “I’m just doing what a good wife is supposed to do.” He violently flung my hand away, taking two steps back. With a sudden burst of rage, he swept his arm across the altar table, sending the brass chalice and offering plates crashing to the stone floor. “Fine! Beautiful!” “You’re burning with rage inside, but you’d rather die than show it. Who are you playing this saintly, uncaring martyr for?” I let out a soft breath, having no desire to argue with him. My silence only infuriated him more. He glared at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Suddenly, he grabbed Lydia’s arm, pulling her roughly to his side. “Fine. Since you’re so incredibly generous, I’m bringing Lydia back today.” “After all, your parents are still at my mercy. You wouldn’t dare run. Let’s see how long you can keep up this little act!” Lydia stumbled as she was pulled, glancing at me with a look of feigned terror, but as she lowered her head, I caught the swift, triumphant curl of her lips. Looking at the two of them, I felt a strange sense of detachment. I wasn’t surprised by her petty malice; I was surprised by myself. The girl who used to cry, shake, and lie awake all night at the mere mention of her name seemed to belong to another lifetime. “Of course,” I said, stepping aside to clear the doorway. “I’m a bit tired. I’ll head back to rest.” Thomas froze behind me for a second, then chased after me, his voice raw and heavy. “Novia, haven’t you punished me enough?” “I’ve done everything to accommodate you this time. I just wanted us to have a normal life. What do you gain by torturing me with this coldness?” I paused, but I didn’t turn around. His arrogance only existed because he was absolutely certain I could never leave him. But what he didn’t know was that during the year I had faked my death, I had saved the life of Governor Bradley. The Governor had promised me a favor—any favor. Originally, I was going to write to him to say I needed nothing. But now, I wanted to ask for a formal, legally binding decree of divorce and protection. I wanted to be truly free of Thomas Oswald. When I returned to the estate, I ordered the maids to move all my belongings to the carriage house at the far edge of the property. Mrs. Higgins, the old housekeeper who had once served Lydia, hurried in when she heard the news. She immediately began snooping around. “Ma’am, far be it from me to speak out of turn, but when Mr. Oswald furnished the Emerald Suite for Miss Lydia before, he cleared out three entire vaults of treasures for her.” “The cabinets were filled with fine imported porcelain, and the drapes were pure silk. This Lakeside Cottage… it’s a bit rustic. I’m afraid Miss Lydia won’t find it to her taste.” I set down my teacup and smiled. “Mrs. Higgins, take a few girls to the vault. Whatever Lydia likes, move it in.” “You can tear down and rebuild every brick of this cottage to match her exact taste.” Mrs. Higgins blinked, startled, before her face split into a wide, greedy grin. “Your generosity is a blessing to this household, ma’am. I’ll get right on it!” As Mrs. Higgins scurried away with a smug swagger, my maid Lucy ran to me, her eyes red and brimming with tears. “Ma’am, she’s just a widow! Why does she get to push you around like this over and over?” I stared out the window at the white magnolias in the yard. “It’s just a house, Lucy.” “If she wants it, let her have it.” Hardly had the words left my mouth when Thomas stepped into the courtyard. Mrs. Higgins was leading a group of maids carrying furniture. Running straight into him, she offered a fawning smile. “Mr. Oswald! You’ve come at the perfect time. The mistress is having us redecorate the cottage exactly to Miss Lydia’s liking.” “It’s just… the white magnolias in the yard are a bit of a problem. Miss Lydia has always despised the scent of magnolias; she says they give her a headache. What do you think…” I chimed in from the doorway, “Rip them out. Plant whatever she prefers. Peonies, roses—whatever Mrs. Higgins deems appropriate.” A suffocating silence fell over the yard. Thomas stood rooted to the spot, his face a mask of disbelief. “All of you, get the hell out,” he commanded. The servants scrambled to leave, terrified. Lydia didn’t leave immediately. Instead, she took a step closer to him, her voice soft and soothing. “Thomas, please don’t upset yourself. I can sleep anywhere, really. There’s no need to argue with Novia on my account…” “You too. Leave,” Thomas said, without even looking at her. Lydia’s sweet smile froze. Her lips parted, but she didn’t dare utter another syllable. She lowered her head and quickly retreated. Thomas strode over, towering over me. His chest rose and fell in violent, ragged breaths, the corners of his eyes so red they looked ready to bleed. “Novia Oswald. Do you have any idea that every single brick, every tree, every flower in this place was chosen because you loved them?” “I hauled these magnolias myself from three hundred miles away. I buried them in the dirt and watered them every day for weeks just to keep them alive. And now you’re telling them to tear them out?” “No matter how much you want to spite me, you shouldn’t stomp on my heart like this!” “Thomas,” I said, my voice empty of emotion. “Lydia is carrying your child. She should be kept comfortable. I am only thinking of the Oswald legacy.” He suddenly let out a laugh. It was a terrible, broken sound, uglier than any sob. “Novia… you are unbelievable.” “Since you’re so eager to give everything away, then get out! I’ll stay in this Lakeside Cottage tonight and sleep with Lydia.” I bowed my head slightly. “Enjoy your evening. I’ll take my leave.” The moment I turned, he lunged at me like a wild beast, locking his arms around my waist and pulling me flush against his chest. His fingers clamped onto my jaw, forcing my head back as his mouth crashed down on mine in a brutal, punishing kiss. The metallic taste of blood immediately spread between us. I didn’t struggle. I simply stood there like a block of wood, letting him tear at my lips. He must have felt my total lack of response, because he pulled back slightly, his eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate terror before he pressed down even harder. It was as if he believed that if he just forced it enough, he could spark the old warmth, the old passion we used to share. He carried me to the bed, tearing at my clothes. But when his fingers ripped at my silk camisole, a sudden, violent wave of nausea surged up from my stomach. I wrenched myself from his grip, leaned over the edge of the bed, and retched violently. “You…” Thomas froze on the mattress, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “For the year you were gone, I swear I didn’t touch another woman. Lydia’s baby… it was a drunken mistake.” “I’ve explained this a thousand times. Do you still not believe me?” He fell silent for a moment, then whispered, “Or is it… do you think I’m dirty? Because I touched someone else, do I disgust you?” I wiped my mouth with a handkerchief, slowly sat up, and pulled my torn shirt together. “You’re overthinking it, Thomas.” “I’m just not feeling well. I’m afraid I’ll make a poor companion tonight. You should go to Lydia.” Thomas stared at me, his gaze searching, trying to find a crack in my composure. Suddenly, he swept his hand across the nightstand, sending the porcelain water pitcher crashing to the floor. Shards of ceramic exploded everywhere. “Fine! If that’s how you want it!” He stepped back, his chest heaving, his voice grinding out between clenched teeth. “Since you’re so desperate to push me into her bed, I’ll give you exactly what you want!” He let out a cold sneer. “Novia, since you’re so noble, so entirely unbothered, you can kneel outside our door tonight and wait to bring us fresh water.” “I’m worried I might lose control with Lydia. It’ll give me peace of mind to have our resident doctor waiting just outside the door.” He stared intensely at my face, begging for even a flicker of pain. But I merely stood up and smoothed my skirts. “Then please wait a moment. I will go boil the water.” As the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, I heard the muffled sound of something heavy slamming violently against the bedroom wall. I didn’t look back. When Lydia brushed past me on her way in, she paused, her lips curving into a triumphant smirk. She leaned close, whispering, “Novia, just watch. This time, I’m taking everything you have left.” I didn’t even blink. “You don’t need to waste your energy on me, Lydia.” “Within three days, I’ll be gone from this place.” She turned to look at me, her eyes wide with disbelief, searching my face for any sign of a bluff. I didn’t look back at her. I simply adjusted my coat against the chilly night breeze and kept walking. I had already sent a trusted contact to the capitol with my token. It wouldn’t even take three days before I was completely free. That night, he called for fresh water seven times. And seven times, I stood outside the door, listening to the sounds from within, carrying heavy buckets of boiling water in and empty basins out. By the time dawn broke, my body was numb with exhaustion. As I turned to leave, my son came sprinting into the courtyard, practically bursting with excitement. “Dad! Mom! Look! Aunt Lydia got me an admission gift for my new school! I love him so much! He’s so good, he never bites!” Seven-year-old Henry was leading a massive mastiff, nearly as tall as he was. The beast’s tongue lolled out of its mouth, its dark eyes locked instantly onto me. My blood ran cold. They both knew—both my husband and my son—how deathly terrified I was of dogs. “Henry, stop…” But instead of stopping, Henry let go of the leash. The mastiff lunged. Instinctively, I scrambled backward, tripped over my own skirt, and crashed hard onto the stone pavers. As the dog bore down on me, I reached out toward Thomas, trying to hide behind him. But Lydia suddenly let out a shrill scream. “Ah! It hurts! Thomas, my stomach…” Thomas hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking between me and Lydia. Then, without a backward glance, he turned and ran to her. When the dog’s teeth sank deep into my calf, I didn’t scream. It turns out that when pain reaches its absolute limit, you lose the ability to make a sound. Blood began to pool beneath my leg. I lay flat on the cold ground, my entire body shaking violently. The raw, bone-deep terror was far worse than the physical pain of the bite. I curled into a ball, unable to even crawl. “Mom, you are so dramatic,” Henry said, standing a few feet away, his head tilted in disgust. “Aunt Lydia said Buster never bites. You must have let him do it on purpose just to make Dad feel bad for you.” My mouth opened, but no sound came out. Thomas had already scooped Lydia up in his arms, roaring at the terrified servants standing nearby. “What are you doing? Get the doctor! Get every single doctor on this estate right now!” Everyone was running toward Lydia. I lay on the ground, my skirt soaked through with blood, the mastiff still standing over me, growling, teeth bared. I couldn’t even cry. Terror clawed at my throat, cutting off my breath. Suddenly, Lucy threw herself over me, violently shoving the dog away with her bare hands. The mastiff stumbled, snarled in fury, and lunged again. With a desperate cry, Lucy pulled a heavy silver hairpin from her hair and plunged it deep into the dog’s front leg. The beast howled in pain, tucked its tail, and bolted toward the gates. “Ma’am! Ma’am, where are you hurt?” Lucy wept, her hands shaking as she tried to lift me. “Insolent wench!” Henry’s face flushed purple with rage. He pointed a finger at Lucy, screaming, “You hurt the dog Aunt Lydia gave me! That’s my dog! Someone drag this useless maid out and beat her!” Two heavy-set older housekeepers stepped forward, grabbing Lucy by her arms. “Don’t you touch her!” Where the strength came from, I didn’t know. I grabbed Lucy’s wrist with a death grip, refusing to let go. “She is my maid. No one touches her.” “What a touching display of loyalty.” Thomas’s voice dropped from above. I looked up. He had walked back, looking down at me with cold, detached eyes. “You throw my feelings in the dirt without a second thought, yet you care so much about a common maid?” He crouched down, pinching my chin tightly. “Get rid of her.” “No!” I grabbed his leg, my voice cracking. “Thomas, please… punish me. Don’t hurt Lucy…” I slammed my forehead against the stone floor. Once. Twice. “Lydia spent weeks picking out that dog for Henry. Your maid injured it. Don’t you think, as her mistress, you owe Lydia and the dog an apology?” I froze, staring at him in utter disbelief. He wanted me… to apologize to the beast that had just tried to maul me? “If Novia doesn’t want to apologize, I suppose there’s another way,” Lydia said, leaning on a maid’s arm as she walked over, her hand resting gently on her stomach. “I only want to prove that Buster doesn’t bite for no reason. If Novia is willing to sit in the dog’s pen for just fifteen minutes, we can call it even and let the maid go.” Slowly, I turned my head to look at Thomas. “From now on, Lydia will share equal status with you in this house,” he said, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. “What she says is my command.” I let out a hollow laugh. “Fine.” Without a single hesitation, I dragged my bleeding leg and stepped inside the iron dog pen. The moment the gate clicked shut, the cornered, agitated mastiff locked its eyes onto me. “No, ma’am! Please! You’re terrified of dogs! Lucy would rather die than see you humiliated like this!” Lucy screamed, fighting against the housekeepers holding her. With a sudden burst of desperation, she broke free and lunged toward the concrete pillar nearby, intending to end her own life. “Lucy, no!” I threw myself against the iron bars, my fingers clawing at the gaps, tears finally blinding my vision. At that exact second, the mastiff struck. Its massive weight slammed me to the ground, a heavy paw pinning my shoulder blade down, trapping me. Its hot, foul breath washed over my face. Outside the pen, Thomas’s voice came soft, almost conversational. “Be reasonable, Novia. Just swallow your pride, stop fighting me, and I’ll let you out.” “Everything in this house can go back to being yours.” But before he could finish his sentence, the heavy iron gates of the estate were thrown open with a resounding crash. A fleet of black government vehicles rolled into the courtyard, followed by a squad of armed federal marshals. The lead envoy stepped out of the lead car, holding a sealed document high in his hand. “Federal decree! Let Novia Oswald step forward to receive it!”

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It happened during Spirit Week. My son’s teacher had the class vote on the “most disgusting” student. My eight-year-old won. When Sam got home, he didn’t even drop his backpack. He ran straight into the hallway bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it. I knocked, my heart tightening at the sound of his muffled, ragged breathing. “Sammy? What’s wrong, sweetie?” Through the door, his voice cracked, thick with tears. “Mama… am I really disgusting?” My mind went entirely blank. A cold, sharp ringing started in my ears. It took me twenty minutes of gentle pleading to get the story out of him. That afternoon, Mrs. Geller, his homeroom teacher, had run a classroom poll. She asked the class to vote on the “Most Disgusting Kid.” Sam had won by a landslide. My hands shook so violently I could barely unlock my phone. I opened the parent-teacher group chat and typed: Did anyone else’s child participate in a classroom vote today? Mrs. Geller replied almost instantly: Mrs. Davis, let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. I stared at the screen, a cold, hard laugh bubbling up in my throat. A molehill? Fine. I’ll show you what a mountain looks like. I didn’t reply to her. I let my phone sit, but the chat was already a hornet’s nest. … Mason’s mom was the first to jump in: Sam’s mom, Mrs. Geller is usually so dedicated. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. Another parent quickly chimed in: Maybe we should look at Sam’s hygiene habits? Mrs. Geller is probably just trying to help him. Exactly. The school is deciding on the Citizenship Banner this week. Let’s not blow this out of proportion and ruin it for the class. That last message felt like a slap. I stared at the words Citizenship Banner, my palms turning icy cold. I ignored them all and knocked softly on the bathroom door again. “Sammy, I’m not going to ask any more questions. Come on out. I’m making your favorite chicken noodle soup.” The bathroom was quiet for a long time. Finally, the lock clicked, and the door opened just an inch. Sam stood in the shadow of the doorframe, his eyes red and terribly swollen. He was only eight. His school polo shirt was crumpled, and there was a sticky gray patch on his chest where his name tag had been torn off in a hurry. I knelt down so we were eye-to-eye. “You are not disgusting.” Sam stared down at the tips of his sneakers. His voice was barely a whisper. “But everyone raised their hand, Mama.” It felt like a physical blow to my chest. “Mrs. Geller said majority rules,” he whispered, looking up at me with raw, searching eyes. “Mama, if the majority says it… does that make it true?” I placed my hands on his small, trembling shoulders, swallowing the hot tears threatening to spill over. “No, baby. Even if a thousand people agree on a cruel thing, it is still a cruel thing.” Sam blinked at me, lost. “Tonight, I want you to remember only one thing,” I said, holding his gaze. “You are not a label voted on by a room of children. You are my son. You are Sam Davis.” His lower lip trembled, and then he finally collapsed into my arms, sobbing. I held him tight, rocking him on the living room rug for a long time. My phone kept buzzing on the coffee table. Mrs. Geller had posted a long, defensive paragraph in the group chat: Today was simply a small, lighthearted activity to address classroom hygiene. The children used humor to point out areas of improvement. The goal is progress, not public shaming. At the end of her text, she had added a passive-aggressive smiley face. I flipped the phone face down. Sam looked up, his eyes wide and anxious. “Mama, are you going to yell at Mrs. Geller?” “No, I’m not going to yell.” “Are you going to make me stay home tomorrow?” That question broke my heart more than anything else. I stroked his hair. “Let’s take tomorrow morning off. I’ll go to the school with you, and we’ll figure this out together.” Sam panicked. He grabbed my sleeve, his knuckles turning white. “Don’t go to my classroom! Please, Mama. They’ll say I’m a snitch.” I gently took his small hands in mine. “I won’t put you in that position. Adults made this mess, and adults are going to clean it up.” I made him soup and boiled an egg, but he only took two bites before whispering that his throat felt too tight to swallow. I didn’t push him. Once he finally fell into a restless sleep, I quietly went to his room and picked up his backpack. Tucked into the front pocket was a crumpled piece of wide-ruled paper. Written at the top in Mrs. Geller’s neat handwriting was: Hygiene Improvement Contract. Below it, Sam had written in his messy, uneven print: I promise not to make everyone think I’m disgusting. My fingers went cold. At the bottom right corner of the page, Mrs. Geller had written in red ink: To be shared at tomorrow’s class meeting for peer feedback. I sat at his desk, staring at the paper for a long time. When I unlocked my phone again, the group chat had become a one-sided lecture from Mrs. Geller about “parental cooperation.” Children do not harbor malice, she wrote. If parents overreact and overanalyze, it only damages class unity. I finally typed my reply: Mrs. Geller, I will be at the school tomorrow morning. Please have the lesson plan for yesterday’s activity, the names of the nominators, the exact wording of the poll, and your reasoning for making an eight-year-old sign this ‘contract’ ready for our meeting. I laid the crumpled contract flat on the kitchen table. Under the overhead light, the word disgusting looked like a scar on the page. The chat fell dead silent for three minutes. Then, Mason’s mom posted: Sam’s mom, you’re making things very difficult for the teacher. I stared at her profile picture and typed: It’s only difficult because she was wrong. No one else replied. The next morning, Sam woke up early. He didn’t put on his school uniform; instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, clutching his jacket. I asked him if he wanted to wait in the car with me. He shook his head, then nodded. “I just want to know if Mrs. Geller is going to call me a liar,” he whispered. I called the school to request a half-day excused absence, then drove him to a small diner down the street from the campus. He sat by the window, nervously spinning a straw, refusing to look toward the school gates. I didn’t rush him. I sent Mrs. Geller a text: I am outside the school. Are you available to meet? Eight minutes passed before she replied: I have class first period. If you are feeling emotional, I highly recommend taking some time to calm down first. I replied: I am perfectly calm. Two minutes later, she sent: Fine. Meet me in the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office was on the second floor of the administration building. A colorful banner hung outside the door: Where Every Child Belongs. The irony was suffocating. Mrs. Geller arrived quickly. She was in her mid-thirties, wearing a crisp white button-down, her district ID badge swinging from her neck. She didn’t look at the paper in my hand when she entered. Instead, she let out a long, weary sigh. “Mrs. Davis, I understand you’re acting out of maternal instinct. But parent-teacher communication is impossible when we let emotions dictate.” I slid the contract across the table. “This isn’t emotion. This is a fact.” Mrs. Geller glanced at it, her brow furrowing. “This is simply a tool for self-reflection. Sam’s hygiene has been a consistent issue. He leaves trash in his desk, gets food stains on his clothes, and keeps dirty tissues in his pockets.” “And your solution to that is a public class vote?” “I didn’t initiate the vote,” she corrected quickly. “The students did. It’s part of our classroom autonomy program. The children have a voice.” I stared at her. “An eight-year-old actively chose the word ‘disgusting’ to describe a classmate?” Mrs. Geller’s face hardened. “Children have a wider vocabulary than you think, Mrs. Davis. Let’s not underestimate them.” Beside her, the Dean of Students, Mr. Collins—a graying man with a practiced, diplomatic smile—cleared his throat. “Let’s find a middle ground here,” Mr. Collins said. “Mrs. Geller’s intentions were clearly positive. Perhaps the execution was a bit insensitive, but we can handle that internally.” “I didn’t come here to talk about ‘intentions,’” I said. I placed my phone on the table, showing the screenshot of Mrs. Geller’s text about the “humor style” of the activity. “Mrs. Geller claims this was a lighthearted exercise. Does this district permit the use of humiliating public labels as a tool for elementary classroom management?” Mr. Collins tapped his fingers rhythmically on the desk, looking uneasy. Mrs. Geller cut in, her voice rising. “Mrs. Davis, you’re twisting things. We’ve been using a peer-reminder point system all semester. Every child gets a turn to be reminded of things they need to work on.” A turn. The word chilled me. “You’ve done this to other children?” Realizing she had slipped up, Mrs. Geller quickly pivoted. “My point is, every child has to learn to accept feedback from the collective group.” Just then, there was a tentative knock on the door. A woman in a navy windbreaker stood in the doorway, looking incredibly anxious. “Mr. Collins? I’m Grace’s mom, Heidi. May I come in?” I recognized her. Grace was Sam’s desk mate. Her mother was usually entirely silent in the group chats. Mr. Collins looked surprised. “Are you here about yesterday’s incident as well, Mrs. Miller?” Heidi nodded. She stepped into the room, taking a deep breath as if gathering every ounce of her courage. “My daughter cried all night,” Heidi said, her voice shaking. “She told me Mrs. Geller forced every table group to nominate a candidate. She said any student who didn’t raise their hand to vote had to stand up and explain why. Grace didn’t want to vote for Sam, but the other kids were staring at her, so she got scared and raised her hand.” Mrs. Geller’s face drained of color. “Mrs. Miller, you need to be very careful with these accusations. Children’s memories are highly subjective.” Without a word, Heidi reached into her bag and pulled out a reading textbook. Tucked inside the front cover was a small pink sticky note. Written in a child’s shaky pencil print was: I didn’t want to vote for Sam. I was just scared Mrs. Geller would say I wasn’t being honest. The room fell dead silent. Mr. Collins’s diplomatic smile vanished. I didn’t touch the sticky note. I kept my eyes on Mrs. Geller. “Was this just ‘classroom autonomy’ too?” Mrs. Geller pressed her lips into a thin line. After a few agonizing seconds, she said, “Parents colluding behind the school’s back does not foster a productive educational environment.” I almost laughed. “I didn’t collude with anyone, Mrs. Geller. Grace’s mom is here today because her daughter was coerced into becoming your accomplice, and it broke her heart.” Heidi’s eyes welled with tears. “Grace told me that when Sam went to get water after the vote, the other kids plugged their noses and ran away. She wanted to go talk to him, but she was terrified the others would say she was disgusting too.” A heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. Yet Mrs. Geller remained defiant. “Which is exactly why we need to address his hygiene. Poor habits destroy peer relationships.” “You destroyed those relationships,” I said, my voice deadly quiet. “And now you’re blaming an eight-year-old for not fitting in.” Mr. Collins sat up straight, his tone suddenly very firm. “Mrs. Geller, do you have the lesson plan for yesterday’s class meeting?” She hesitated. “I have a brief outline.” “Go get it.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an authority that left no room for argument. Mrs. Geller didn’t move. She shot a look at me, then at the Dean. “The outline is in my office. Actually, today is Parent Observation Day. I was planning to showcase our peer-mentorship program anyway. We can review the materials then.” I caught the word immediately. “Showcase?” Mr. Collins frowned. “What showcase?” Mrs. Geller looked momentarily uncomfortable. “The district is reviewing candidates for the Exemplary Educator award. I prepared a case study based on our class. The topic is ‘Growth Through Peer Mentorship.’” Heidi let out a sharp gasp. In that single moment, everything clicked. Sam wasn’t just the victim of a poorly planned activity. He was the prop. He was the negative case study Mrs. Geller was using to prove her “management system” worked. When we stepped out of the office, Mr. Collins assured us the school would investigate. But I didn’t plan on leaving Sam’s dignity in the hands of a school investigation. The school had its bureaucracy, but a mother operates on a different timeline. Sam was still waiting at the diner. The moment he saw me walk through the door, he stood up, searching my face for clues. I sat across from him and pushed his warm milk closer. “Mrs. Geller didn’t call you a liar.” Sam’s small shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “And Grace’s mom came to the school too,” I added softly. “Grace doesn’t think you’re disgusting, Sammy. She was just scared.” He stared down at his cup, quiet for a long moment. “What about everyone else?” I didn’t want to make excuses for the other kids, but I refused to let him grow up carrying a grudge against the world. “Some of them made a mistake. Some of them didn’t understand. And some of them were just following what the adult in the room told them to do. We’re going to make sure they understand why it was wrong.” He nodded, a single tear slipping into his milk. “But do I have to go back to that classroom tomorrow?” I reached across the table, covering his small hand with mine. “Not until this is made right. You are not going back there alone.” That afternoon, I focused on three things. First, I booked an appointment with a child therapist. I didn’t want Sam to feel like he was “broken,” so I explained it to him gently: “Sometimes Mama’s heart hurts when I hear these things, and teachers will try to make excuses. Let’s find someone whose only job is to listen to kids.” Second, I called Heidi. She spent the first five minutes of the call apologizing. “I saw your message in the group chat last night,” she whispered. “But I was too terrified to speak up. I was so scared Mrs. Geller would target Grace next.” “I understand,” I told her. “The power dynamic between a teacher and a parent isn’t something you can dismantle with just a sudden burst of courage.” Heidi was quiet for a moment. “I want to go to the Parent Observation Day this afternoon. But I don’t want Grace to be singled out.” “She won’t be,” I promised. “We are going to talk about the teacher’s process, not the children’s choices.” Third, I called Toby’s father. Toby rode the bus with Sam every morning; they lived in our neighborhood. His father was a quiet, practical engineer who usually only posted “Received” in the school group chats. When I explained what had happened, Toby’s dad went quiet. “Toby told me last night that Mrs. Geller asked the class if Sam was holding the group back,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. My grip tightened on the phone. “Those were her words?” “Yes. He said she wrote ‘Hygiene Black Hole’ on the white board, then asked who needed help. When a kid yelled out ‘disgusting,’ she didn’t stop them. She told the class the word was harsh, but it would make the lesson stick.” He took a heavy breath. “I actually scolded Toby last night. I thought he was being a bully. But then he started crying and said that if he didn’t raise his hand, Mrs. Geller would accuse him of not caring about the class.” I closed my eyes. That was Mrs. Geller’s real genius. She didn’t order the children to be cruel. She packaged humiliation as a collective responsibility, framed silence as dishonesty, and let the children push each other down a path she had carefully paved. “I’m taking the afternoon off,” Toby’s dad said. “I’ll see you at the observation.” “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me,” he said quietly. “Today it’s your son. Tomorrow it could be mine.” At one o’clock, the observation schedule was posted in the parent group. Mrs. Geller’s tone had returned to its usual professional warmth: Dear parents, our third-period open house will proceed as scheduled. The theme is ‘A Clean Classroom, A Shared Responsibility.’ We look forward to showing you our students’ wonderful self-governance skills. Immediately below, the Parent Association President—Mason’s mom—posted: Please cooperate with the school’s schedule, everyone. Let’s keep our questions focused and professional. Our class is a frontrunner for the Citizenship Banner this month; let’s not let minor misunderstandings get in the way of the children’s hard work. Minor misunderstandings. I stared at those words, and the anger inside me suddenly cooled into a quiet, steady resolve. Too many people are willing to overlook a wound as long as it isn’t bleeding on their own child. They decide silence is a cheaper price to pay. I typed my response in the group chat: I will be there. Mason’s mom immediately sent me a private message: You’re being too idealistic. Every classroom needs discipline. If you make a scene, your kid is the one who will pay the price. It was the classic threat used to silence protective parents. Fear for your child, so tolerate the abuse. Protect the institution, so quiet the victim. Mind your own business, so call someone else’s pain ‘sensitivity.’ I locked my phone and walked into Sam’s room. He was sitting at his desk, working on a writing assignment. He had stopped at the prompt: I love my school because… I reached over, took the pink eraser from his pencil case, and gently rubbed out his half-hearted attempt. “If you don’t feel like writing ‘love’ right now, you don’t have to,” I told him. “Just write a fact.” Sam looked up at me. “What kind of fact?” “Like, ‘My school has a playground.’ Or, ‘My school has a sweet-olive tree.’” He thought about it for a second, then carefully wrote: My school has a big sweet-olive tree in the courtyard. He paused, looking at the pencil in his hand. “Mama, will I ever love my school again?” “Yes,” I told him, smoothing down his collar. “But not by pretending you weren’t hurt.” The parent observation began at three. I arrived twenty minutes early. The hallway was already crowded with parents whispering in hushed tones. A few of them glanced at me, then quickly looked away. Mason’s mom was wearing a neat pencil skirt, clipboard in hand. She walked over to me with a tight, practiced smile. “Sam’s mom, the kids are all inside. Let’s make sure we keep things professional today.” I took the pen from her and signed my name. “I will.” She let out a visible breath of relief. “I will make sure,” I added, looking her dead in the eye, “that no child in that room is used as a prop ever again.” Her smile froze. The classroom door was half-open. The desks had been arranged into small group clusters. On the blackboard, colorful letters read: A Clean Classroom, A Shared Responsibility. Directly beneath the title, three large sheets of paper were taped to the wall. The first: Hygiene Monitor Duties. The second: Peer Feedback Process. The third sheet had a single name printed in bold black marker: Focus Student of the Week: Sam Davis. My blood ran cold. Under his name, several “peer recommendations” were bulleted: – Do not touch shared classroom items without washing hands. – Do not spill soup on your shirt during lunch. – Do not keep used tissues in your pockets. – Please accept the classroom’s help and supervision. The word disgusting was gone. Mrs. Geller was smart. She had scrubbed the vulgar language away, leaving behind only the sterile, polite vocabulary of modern bureaucracy. Toby’s father walked up beside me and slipped a folded piece of paper into my hand. “Toby wrote this down for you,” he whispered. “He said he only wants you to read it. He’s too scared to have his name called out.” The note was short but devastatingly clear: Mrs. Geller said we needed to pick someone who needed help. When someone said Sam was gross, Mrs. Geller said that word was mean but it would make him remember. I handed the paper back to him. “Keep it. If the time comes, you decide if you want to use it.” He nodded, the veins on the back of his hand tightening. At three o’clock, the bell rang, and Mrs. Geller stepped into the classroom. She scanned the room, her eyes lingering on me for a fraction of a second before she turned to the audience with a bright, welcoming smile. The children sat perfectly straight. Sam’s desk was empty, but a clean sheet of paper sat on his desktop. I recognized it immediately. It was a rewritten version of his “Hygiene Improvement Contract”—the handwriting was far too neat to be his. Someone had made him copy it over. “Welcome, parents,” Mrs. Geller began, turning on the projector. “Today, we are showcasing how our students participate in classroom self-governance.” The first slide appeared: From Peer Evaluation to Self-Reflection: A Case Study in Grade 2 Hygiene Habits. “Children at this age require tangible, visual feedback,” Mrs. Geller explained, her voice smooth and practiced. “Simple lecturing has limited results. By transferring the responsibility to the peer group, we teach them accountability.” She clicked to the next slide, showing photos of the kids sweeping the floor. The third slide was a bar graph titled: Distribution of Peer Feedback Votes. The tallest bar on the graph didn’t have a name. It was simply labeled: Focus Student. But every single child in that room knew exactly whose name belonged there. From the second row, a small boy let out a snicker. The girl next to him quickly nudged his arm, pointing subtly toward the back of the room where the parents stood. “We are not here to punish,” Mrs. Geller continued smoothly, picking up the rewritten contract from Sam’s empty desk. “We are here to show the student that the collective class has expectations for them. Sam is absent today, but he prepared his reflection. Since his mother is here, perhaps she would like to hear the class’s suggestions on his behalf.” Heidi’s face went white. Toby’s dad took a sharp, angry step forward. Mrs. Geller pointed her laser pointer toward me, her smile tight and victorious. “Mrs. Davis, would you like to step up and hear what the class has to say?” I pushed the heavy wooden door open and walked straight into the classroom.

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We got caught in a sudden downpour during our weekend getaway. By the time we finally made it back to the hotel, my best friend was already shivering and complaining. “I swear my brain is completely waterlogged,” Polly grumbled, tossing her damp jacket onto the armchair. “Who in their right mind decides to go sightseeing in a storm like this?” “Then why don’t you just pour the water out?” I replied absentmindedly, throwing our room key onto the dresser. Polly paused and nodded seriously. Tilting her head to the side, she began wiggling her finger deep inside her ear canal, wincing slightly as if she were actually trying to drain her skull. I smiled, waiting for the punchline. But in the next second, my heart skipped a beat. A thick, steady stream of liquid began to pour from her ear. It wasn’t just a few stray droplets—it was a heavy, rushing flow. And it wasn’t clear. It was a dark, sickly crimson, thick with the unmistakable scent of copper. Blood. My eyes stretched wide, a cold knot of terror tightening in my chest. “Polly… what… what are you doing?” Polly stared straight at me, her eyes completely blank, though a flicker of mild confusion crossed her face. “What’s wrong, babe?” she asked, her voice perfectly casual. “We got absolutely soaked out there. Aren’t you going to drain yours?” 1 I stood frozen, barely two feet away from Polly. I could only watch in mute horror as the bloody water continued to cascade from her ear like a miniature, grotesque fountain, pooling onto the cheap carpet. Yet, she didn’t show even a flicker of discomfort. In fact, she looked at me with genuine, helpful encouragement, as if emptying a pint of bloody fluid from your skull was as routine as brushing your teeth. “What are you waiting for?” Polly nudged, tilting her head the other way. Another splash of crimson sloshed out, splattering onto the floorboards. “Doesn’t it feel heavy in there?” Every instinct in my body screamed that the thing standing in front of me was not human. I dug my fingernails deep into my palms, the sharp sting of pain anchoring me to reality. I forced my lips to stretch into a tight, artificial smile. “I… I had my umbrella up most of the time,” I stammered. “My head actually feels fine. I don’t think there’s any water in there.” It was just the two of us in this cramped hotel room. If she—if it—realized I was different, I had no idea what would happen. I had to play along. She shrugged, seemingly satisfied with my answer, and climbed onto the king-sized bed. Within seconds, she was scrolling through TikTok. When a video of a shirtless fitness influencer popped up, she gasped and giggled, turning the screen toward me just like she always did. “Oh my god, Mandy, look at those abs,” she sighed, shaking her head. “If I ever strike it rich, I’m buying a dozen of him.” In that moment, she was entirely normal. She was the same girl I’d grown up with, the hopeless romantic, the dork who shared her fries and her deepest secrets. I swallowed the lump in my throat, carefully sitting on the very edge of the mattress. “Hey, Polly? I’m kind of starving. I was thinking of ordering some oyster chowder from the place downstairs. Do you want some?” Polly immediately dropped her phone, her eyes narrowing in irritation. “Are you serious, Mandy? You know I have a massive shellfish allergy. Your family literally sent me to the ER for a week when we were kids because of those lobster rolls! How could you forget that?” I mumbled a frantic apology, but my mind was spinning out of control. This thing had Polly’s memories. It had her exact personality, her history, her outrage. What was it? Was I losing my mind? Was the bloody puddle on the floor just a stress-induced hallucination? No. The dark, copper-scented stain was still there, slowly soaking into the beige fibers of the hotel carpet. It was entirely real. I waited until Polly was distracted by another video, then grabbed an empty plastic water bottle from the nightstand. I knelt down, scooped a sample of the bloody water into it, and made a quick excuse. “I’m just going to run down to the lobby and grab a soda from the vending machine.” The moment the elevator doors closed, I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and dialed 911. “There’s something wrong… my friend, she’s not herself. I think she’s been replaced. Someone hurt her…” The dispatcher told me officers would arrive in ten minutes. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back up to the room, so I shrank into one of the plush velvet armchairs in the lobby, shivering. The middle-aged receptionist, a woman named Marsha, noticed my pale face and walked over. “Are you alright, dear? Do you need some help?” I nodded quickly, holding up the plastic bottle. I wanted her to look at it, to validate that it was indeed blood, to tell me I wasn’t crazy. But before I could utter a single word, Marsha reached out, took the bottle from my hand, unscrewed the cap, and drank it. 2 “What… what did you just do?” My voice cracked, a high-pitched squeak of pure terror. Marsha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking thoroughly refreshed. “It’s brain-water, isn’t it? Rich and metallic. Delicious. Why else would you offer it to me?” My stomach turned. I wanted to vomit. She had just swallowed a bottle of bloody brain-water like it was a morning juice cleanse. And no one else in the lobby even blinked. The bellhop, the couple checking in, the family sitting near the fireplace—no one cared. It was perfectly, terrifyingly normal to them. My head throbbed. It wasn’t just Polly. Everyone here was wrong. But what about the police? What about the officers who were on their way? Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream shattered the lobby’s quiet ambiance. “You’re all insane! This is sick!” I whipped my head around. A woman in disheveled pajamas burst out of the elevator, sobbing, her eyes wild with panic. Behind her, a man in a business suit casually walked out, holding his own eyeball in his hand, trying to pop it back into his socket like a loose contact lens. She was like me. A normal human. Terrified out of her mind. I wanted to run to her, to hold her, but my survival instinct screamed at me to freeze. What happened to the ones who broke character? Marsha and two other hotel staff members immediately lunged at the screaming woman, pinning her to the floor. Right then, the police cruisers pulled up, sirens wailing. The staff handed her over to the officers. “Officer, we’ve got another lunatic here,” Marsha said, smoothing down her skirt. “She’s hysterical, claiming we can’t take our organs out. Can you believe it? How else are we supposed to clean them when they get dirty?” The officer nodded grimly, clicking handcuffs around her wrists. “Don’t worry. We’ll take her to the facility for correction. She’ll be back to normal soon.” Correction. What did “normal” mean to them? Popping out eyes and washing them like dirty laundry? A cold dread settled deep in my bones. My phone suddenly buzzed in my hand, making me jump. It was the police dispatcher calling me back, but the officer standing in the lobby saw my screen light up. He walked toward me, his boots clicking heavily on the marble floor. “Are you the one who called about a domestic disturbance?” I swallowed hard, forcing my facial muscles to relax. “Oh… yes, Officer. But it was a complete misunderstanding. My friend is perfectly fine.” The officer’s eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating. “A misunderstanding? You sounded convinced she had been replaced. What exactly did you see?” 3 Panic gripped my throat. I didn’t know how to answer. When I called, I had told them there was a “strange creature” in my room. That meant they were already looking for anomalies. If they suspected me, I’d be thrown into that police car and taken to the “correction” facility. I had to speak their language. I had to pretend I was one of them. “I… I was just confused,” I stammered, offering a sheepish laugh. “We got caught in the rain, and I had already drained my brain-water. But when I looked at Polly, she was just sitting there, not doing it. I thought she was losing her mind, behaving like one of those ‘un-drained’ crazies. I panicked. But then I realized she was just wearing noise-canceling headphones, listening to an audiobook. Once she took them off, she tilted her head and drained her ears right in front of me. We had so much left over, we even shared some with Marsha at the front desk. Right, Marsha?” Marsha smiled, licking a faint smear of dried copper from her lip. “That’s right, Officer. Quite a tasty batch, too.” The officer’s tense posture relaxed slightly. “I see. Good. It pays to be vigilant. Those lunatics are a threat to public safety. Show me to your room, though. Just a quick welfare check and I’ll be out of your hair.” If he saw Polly, and she didn’t play along with my specific story, or if he saw through me… Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from outside. The pajama-clad woman had broken free from the police cruiser, her forehead bleeding as she scrambled across the wet asphalt. “I am not crazy! You’re monsters! All of you! If you rip out your heart, you die!” Her voice was raw, filled with a desperate, agonizing truth that echoed my own silent thoughts. But I couldn’t help her. To survive, I had to mock her. “Wow,” I said, forcing a mocking chuckle. “She really is far gone, isn’t she? Are there really that many of them, Officer?” “Not for long,” the officer muttered, turning on his heel to chase after her. The moment he was gone, I practically ran to the elevator, my clothes soaked in cold sweat. Back in the room, Polly was still scrolling on her phone. “Where’s the food?” she asked without looking up. “A crazy woman was making a scene in the lobby. The police locked the place down. Total nightmare,” I lied, collapsing onto my bed. I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time Polly snored, my heart leaped into my throat. Who was I living with? What had happened to my world? At 3:00 AM, staring at my phone screen in the dark, I searched desperately for any keywords related to the “crazy people.” Finally, deep in a hidden thread on an obscure forum, I found a post written in a complex cipher. Fortunately, my background in cryptography made it easy to crack. Is there anyone left out there? Anyone who hasn’t been turned into them? 4 My fingers trembled as I typed a reply. What do you mean? What monsters are you talking about? The reply came almost instantly. If you’re asking, you already know. If you don’t trust me, ignore this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I trust you. Please. The world has gone mad. I need to know what’s happening before I lose my mind. The user sent a coordinates link to an address in a neighboring state, then went completely offline. The next morning, I packed my bag with trembling hands. “Polly, my mom just called. There’s an emergency at home, I have to take the first train back,” I lied. “I’ll Venmo you for my half of the hotel.” I fled to the train station. Outside the terminal, my Uber driver finished his cigarette, casually unbuttoned his shirt, pulled his lungs out of his chest cavity, and shook them out to clear the soot before stuffing them back in. I swallowed my vomit, kept my face completely blank, and got into the passenger seat. At the station, I saw the pajama-clad woman from the hotel. Had she escaped? I felt a surge of hope and took a step toward her. But before I could speak, she paused, reached into her eye sockets, pulled out both eyeballs, wiped them on her sleeve, and popped them back in. The man from the elevator walked up, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Honey, thank god. You’re finally back to normal.” She smiled, looking slightly dazed. “Did something happen? I feel fine.” She had been “corrected.” Her memories of the truth were wiped. She was one of them now. I backed away, my blood turning to ice. I couldn’t let anyone know. Not my parents, who had texted me earlier saying, Your heart has been acting up, Mandy. Make sure you take it out and check the valves tonight. Not my boyfriend. No one. I arrived at the coordinates. It was a run-down diner in a quiet town. A man was sitting in the corner booth, wearing a heavy trench coat and a low-brimmed hat despite the warmth. His voice was a dry, exhausted rasp. “Are you BlueJay99?” I nodded, sliding into the booth. “I’m Mandy. Please, you have to tell me. What is happening to everyone?” He looked at me, his eyes hollowed out by a deep, eternal fatigue. “In forty-eight hours,” he whispered, “you’re going to become one of them, too.”

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Growing up in foster care, my roommate and I spent countless late nights reading stories about long-lost heiresses. Jessie was absolutely convinced that she was the secret, stolen bloodline of the Hamiltions, the city’s most untouchable dynasty. I’d always quietly assumed it was a harmless delusion, a coping mechanism for a girl who grew up with nothing. But then she actually showed me the DNA results. And then came the fleet of black town cars, sweeping her away to the Hamiltion estate in a flurry of flashing cameras and tinted glass. Every day after that, she posted video diaries in our private group chat. In the latest one, she was lounging on the sun-drenched deck of a private yacht, wind whipping through her expensive blowout. She leaned her head against the shoulder of a sharp-jawed man and beamed at the camera. “Babe, I talked to Tristan. Once my birthday passes next month, you are packing your bags and moving into the estate with me. We’re going to run this town together!” In the background, her newly found brother offered a warm, indulgent smile. “Any friend of my sister is a guest of the Hamiltions. Consider the black card yours to use.” A month later, my heart pounding with excitement, I stood before the towering iron gates of the Hamiltion estate, gripping the handle of my rolling suitcase. I beamed at the uniformed security guard at the gatehouse. “Hi! I’m Fiona. I’m Jessie’s best friend—your new heiress? She asked me to move in with her today.” The guard blinked, his brow furrowing. Then, his expression shifted into something bordering on pity—the way you look at a crazy person. “Who? Jessie? Look, lady, the Hamiltion family has eight sons. Mrs. Hamiltion had a tubal ligation twenty years ago. There is no daughter.” My hand slipped from the handle of my suitcase. The metal bar rattled against the asphalt. Cold sweat broke out across my collarbone, soaking into my shirt. If there is no Hamiltion heiress… then who has been sending me those videos every single day? And what kind of nightmare has she actually been living? 1. A bead of sweat traced a slow, icy path down my spine. I stared at the guard, my ears ringing so loudly it drowned out the rustle of the surrounding maples. “What do you mean?” I stepped closer to the intercom. “Jessie posted a video yesterday. From the yacht. I watched the Hamiltion town car pick her up from campus with my own eyes. How can she not exist?” The guard sighed, his irritation hardening. “Listen to me carefully. The Hamiltions have eight boys. No daughters. There has never been a girl born to this family.” He stepped out of the gatehouse and gave my shoulder a firm, dismissive shove. “Move along. We don’t do crazy here.” The force sent me stumbling back. My suitcase tipped over, its hard plastic shell scraping loudly against the driveway. The Hamiltion dynasty’s obsession with male heirs wasn’t exactly a secret in the city’s high-society gossip columns. Had they lured Jessie here under false pretenses? Had they locked her away to keep her from claiming her share of the inheritance? I swallowed the lump of panic in my throat, my trembling fingers fumbling in my pocket for my phone. “You don’t believe me? I have proof. I have the videos.” I swiped open the screen, my thumb jerking as I tapped into our saved chat. “This was yesterday. She was on your family’s yacht. Your boss’s son was right there with her.” The guard crossed his arms, letting out a dry, mocking chuckle. I pulled up the pinned video link and thrust the screen in front of his face. But instead of Jessie’s bright, laughing eyes, a gray warning icon flashed against a blank screen. This content has been deleted or does not exist. My breath hitched. That was impossible. With stiff, frantic fingers, I tapped the refresh icon. Once. Twice. Four times. The screen remained a dead, hollow gray. The guard sneered. “Nice try. Showing me a broken link? Look, kid, if you want a sugar daddy, find another gate to knock on.” “It wasn’t a broken link! It was there yesterday!” I frantically swiped out of the browser and opened our messaging app. “I have our entire chat history. I’ll call her right now. You’ll see.” I tapped her profile picture—a bright pink aesthetic shot of the two of us—and hit the call button. There was no ringing. No delay. Just the immediate, synthetic drone of an automated operator: The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again. I snatched the phone away from my ear, staring at the name Jessie hovering at the top of the screen. An out-of-service number. How could an account that was sending me memes just hours ago suddenly dissolve into nothingness? Heavy, measured footsteps echoed from the other side of the gate. A middle-aged man in a tailored charcoal suit walked down the paved path, a silver crest pinned to his lapel. “What seems to be the disturbance?” His voice was flat, carrying the practiced coldness of someone who dealt with high-society scandals for a living. His gaze swept over me as if I were a piece of stray litter blown in by the wind. The guard straightened up instantly. “Sir, this girl claims she’s a friend of a ‘Jessie Hamiltion’—says she’s moving in. She’s trying to force her way in with fake links.” The butler adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes piercing through the lenses like needles. “Miss, I assure you, there is no Hamiltion daughter. If you continue to trespass and harass our staff, we will have our legal team file charges for extortion and harassment.” “I’m not extorting anyone!” I squeezed my phone so hard my nails bit into my palms. “Where is she? Where is Jessie? She had the DNA test from Westside Medical! She walked through these gates! What did you do to her?” “Remove her belongings from the property,” the butler cut me off, turning on his heel without a single backward glance. Two other guards stepped forward, ripping my suitcase out of my hands. With a harsh, metallic rip, they tore open the zipper. My sweaters, toiletries, and the worn-out plush bear Jessie had bought me at a thrift store tumbled onto the hot asphalt outside the property line. “Beat it. Step over this line again, and we won’t be so polite.” 2. The heavy iron gates swung shut with a resounding, definitive clang. The midday sun beat down mercilessly, but my teeth chattered as if I were caught in a blizzard. I knelt on the pavement, scooping up my scattered clothes. My hands shook so violently I could barely grip the fabric. The deleted videos. The dead phone line. The Hamiltion family’s cold denial. It was as if they were systematically erasing Jessie from the face of the earth. I stared through the ornate iron bars, shoving my clothes back into the suitcase with frantic, clumsy movements. I couldn’t leave. If the staff was lying, I would wait them out. Someone important would eventually drive through these gates, and I would force them to tell me the truth. I don’t know how long I sat there before the deep, throaty growl of an engine vibrated through the road. The gates groaned open. A sleek, midnight-black Maybach glided out, its custom license plate ending in five eights. My pupils dilated. It was the exact same car that had picked Jessie up from the dorms. The final thread of my composure snapped. I abandoned my suitcase and threw myself into the middle of the road, right into the car’s path. The screech of burning rubber pierced the quiet afternoon. The Maybach jerked to a halt, stopping mere inches from my knees. The driver threw open his door, his face red with fury. “Are you out of your mind? You want to die?!” I ignored him, lunging past the hood to the rear passenger window. I pounded on the dark, tinted glass with both fists. “Open up! I know you’re in there! Where is Jessie? What did you do to her?!” The window rolled down with a soft hiss, revealing a sharp, aristocratic face etched with annoyance. It was Tristan—the youngest of the Hamiltion brothers, infamous in the city’s tabloids. Just yesterday, in the video diary, he had been standing by Jessie’s side, smiling warmly as he called me an “honored guest.” “Where is she?” I gripped the edge of the window frame, my knuckles stark white against the black trim. “Did you lock her up to keep her away from the family fortune?” Tristan turned his head, surveying me with a look of pure, unadulterated bewilderment. “Who the hell are you?” He frowned, his tone dripping with irritation. “And who is Jessie? I don’t have a sister. I don’t even have a female cousin.” “Stop lying!” I screamed, a sob catching in my throat, burning my sinuses. “You were on the yacht with her yesterday! You filmed a video! You said next month, for her birthday—” “Call the police,” Tristan cut in coldly, leaning back into his leather seat. The window began to glide back up. “Wait! Don’t you dare walk away!” I pounded on the rising glass, but the window closed completely, leaving me staring at my own terrified, distorted reflection. In less than five minutes, the wail of sirens cut through the quiet neighborhood. Two police officers jumped out of a patrol car, grabbing my arms and pulling me back from the Maybach. “Step back! Blocking traffic on a public road—are you trying to get yourself killed?” I lunged toward them, grabbing the older officer’s sleeve like a lifeline. “Officer, please! They’re holding her! My roommate, Jessie. They took her into that house and now she’s gone, her phone is disconnected, and they’re pretending she doesn’t exist!” The younger officer frowned, pulling out his tablet. “Okay, calm down. What’s your roommate’s name? Birthdate? Where does she go to school?” I swallowed hard, forcing my voice to stabilize. “Jessie Miller. She’s a senior at Crestview University, English Literature major. Her date of birth is October 12, 2001.” I rattled off the details I had memorized from years of filling out housing forms together. The officer typed the details into the database. He paused, squinted at the screen, and cleared the fields to type them in again. “Are you sure about this spelling and date of birth?” “Yes! We’ve been roommates for four years. I know her legal name like my own!” The officer turned the screen toward me. In the center of the database portal, a flashing red warning read: No Records Found. 3. My mind went entirely blank, as if a physical blow had struck my skull. “No. That’s impossible.” I grabbed the edge of the tablet. “Search her student ID at Crestview. Class of 2023, English Department. The ID is 4820—” The officer pulled the device back, tapped in the student database query, and stared at me with an increasingly stern look. “Still nothing. There is no student registered under that name or ID at Crestview. And there’s no record of a Jessie Miller with that birthdate in the state database either.” My knees buckled, and I nearly hit the gravel. “How… how is that possible?” I whispered. Then, I looked up at the idling Maybach. “It’s them! The Hamiltions own half the city. They paid someone off to wipe her records! You have to search the estate! She’s in there!” The older officer’s face darkened. “Alright, that’s enough, kid.” His voice held a sharp warning. “You think someone can just pay to delete a citizen from federal databases? You’ve been watching too many movies. If you keep causing a public disturbance and blocking the Hamiltions’ driveway, we’re going to have to take you to the station.” “I’m not making things up! She’s a real person! She is real!” The officers didn’t listen. They escorted me firmly to the sidewalk, keeping their hands on their holsters until the Maybach roared back to life and swept past me into the afternoon traffic. I collapsed onto the curb, watching the taillights fade into the distance. The Hamiltions deny her. The police database has no record of her. They didn’t just hide her—they erased her entire existence. How deep did the Hamiltion family’s reach go? My canvas bag had spilled onto the dirt during the scuffle. I reached out numbly, gathering my keys, lip balm, and loose change. My fingers brushed against a crumpled piece of paper. I paused, smoothing out the tight paper ball. It was a receipt from a local coffee shop on campus. The date was from two afternoons ago. And in the delivery note section, printed clearly in black ink, were the words: For Jessie. I stared at those letters until my vision blurred and a single, heavy tear dripped onto the paper, smudging the ink. A physical receipt. It was real. She was real. I shoved the paper into my pocket, grabbed my suitcase, and stood up. I had to go back to campus. I had to find irrefutable proof to shove in their faces. The taxi screeched to a halt outside the South Gates of Crestview. I tossed a fifty-dollar bill at the driver without waiting for change and bolted toward dorm building number seven. Mrs. Higgins, the dorm mother, was knitting in her small office. “Mrs. Higgins!” I slammed my hands onto the wooden counter of her window. “Room 302—where are Jessie’s things? Did someone come and pack up her side of the room? Why is her bed stripped?” Mrs. Higgins gasped, nearly dropping her knitting needles. She pushed up her reading glasses, staring at me with deep confusion. “Jessie? Sweetie, what are you talking about? You’ve lived in 302 alone for the last four years.” The warmth drained from my face, my blood turning to ice. “What kind of joke is this?” I tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled sob. “We walk past here together every single day. She literally brought you a bag of honeycrisp apples from her family’s orchard last week. Don’t you remember?” Mrs. Higgins set her knitting down, her expression softening into pity. “Fiona, honey… have you been sleeping? I know finals and job hunting are stressful. You brought me those apples. You told me you bought too many at the farmer’s market because living in that double room alone got lonely.” I stumbled backward, knocking over a recycling bin in the hallway. “No… no, that’s not true!” I spun around and bolted toward the administration building, the cold hallway air burning my throat like swallowed glass. I slammed open the door to my academic advisor’s office. Mr. Henderson was typing away, and his brow furrowed the second he saw me panting in the doorway. “Fiona? What have I said about knocking?” “Mr. Henderson, where are Jessie Miller’s student files?” I rushed to his desk, slamming my palms onto the mahogany wood. “I need to see her records. Right now.” Mr. Henderson sighed, pulling open a filing cabinet behind him. He retrieved a thick manila folder with my name on it and laid it flat. “Fiona… you applied for a single-occupancy waiver during your freshman orientation. You don’t have a roommate.”

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The day the Lawrence family—one of Chicago’s most formidable dynasties—arrived at our estate to fulfill the long-standing marriage alliance, my sister, Lindsay, chose that exact moment to stage her grand confession. “I used Norah’s photos to catfish a poor college student online,” she sobbed, her voice trembling with a rehearsed, fragile grace. “Today, he’s coming to our house to propose. A man that desperate, that destitute… he is the only one I deserve to marry. Mom, Dad, I’m not worthy of the Lawrence match. Please, just send me away!” She looked up through a veil of tears, a picture of stubborn, self-sacrificing innocence. My parents, who had always loved her best, didn’t hesitate. My father pointed a trembling finger at me where I sat, quietly watching the theater unfold. “Lindsay has been raised by our side for years,” he declared. “She has the grace, the social standing to handle a family like the Lawrences. Norah, you are the one who should marry into their house. And since Lindsay used your face for her online romance, you will be the one to marry this poor boy.” I opened my mouth to refuse. But then, three lines of glowing, translucent text materialized in the air, drifting right before my eyes. [Oh my god, I’m literally screaming! Don’t let Lindsay push him to her evil sister! That poor kid is actually Hogan Lawrence, the real heir to the Lawrence empire, hiding his identity! The Charles Lawrence who came today is just a useless cousin!] [Exactly! Hogan played poor online just to find a girl who wouldn’t love him for his billions, and Lindsay is just handing him over? The evil sister is definitely going to agree. She’s greedy; she takes everything she can get!] [Don’t panic, girls! Hogan doesn’t even know what the sister looks like in real life. He only came because of Norah’s photo. Once they spend a few days together, he’ll realize she’s an imposter and humiliate her! We have to watch closely and help Lindsay!] I stared at those bizarre, floating words for three seconds. So that was how it was. I changed my mind. I tilted my chin up slightly, letting a quiet, compliant smile grace my lips. “Fine,” I said. “A poor student? I’ll marry him.” 1 “Don’t go thinking we’re being unfair,” my mother chimed in, her voice dripping with a practiced, soothing condescension. “You spent all those years in the foster system, Norah. A dynasty like the Lawrences is simply too high-class for you. It wouldn’t suit your… background.” She was mid-sentence when my words finally registered. “Wait—what? You’re agreeing to marry him?” I nodded meekly. “Yes, Mom.” My father blinked, stunned. “You aren’t going to fight Lindsay for the Lawrence match?” “No,” I said, looking down to hide the cold gleam in my eyes. “I’m the older sister. She’s my younger sister. I shouldn’t be greedy.” The collective sigh of relief in the room was almost comical. They had expected me to scream, to tear down the curtains, to make a scene like I always did. Ever since I had been brought back to this cold mansion, my life had been a series of endless, exhausting battles. A fight every three days, a war every five. I fought Lindsay for everything. For allowance. For the bedroom with the window. For the food on the table. My parents always told me to be generous, to be the bigger person. They sighed and told me I was too proud, too resentful. But they conveniently ignored the facts. Lindsay’s monthly allowance was five thousand dollars. Mine was fifty. Lindsay lived in the master suite with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view of the lake. I was tucked away in the drafty, windowless maid’s quarters on the first floor. Lindsay’s favorite seafood platters covered the dinner table every night, even though I was severely allergic to shellfish. Every time I fought, every time I screamed, I was only begging for a shred of fairness. I had never wanted to steal anything from her. But now? I changed my mind. The floating text called me the “evil sister.” They said I was greedy, that I wanted to steal everything. Fine. I’ll show them what stealing actually looks like. The floating comments kept scrolling frantically: [She agreed! The evil sister actually agreed! Is she crazy? She’s trying to steal our male lead!] [It’s fine, it’s fine. Hogan doesn’t love her anyway. She’ll just live a lonely, sexless life. The moment Hogan finds out the truth, he’ll dump her on her face!] [Girls, watch closely. The male lead is about to walk through the door. He’s definitely going to recognize Lindsay as his true love!] Following the guidance of the floating text, I turned my eyes toward the foyer. Right on cue, our butler led a young man into the drawing room. He wore a washed-out flannel shirt with frayed cuffs, and his jeans were slightly too short, exposing his ankles. Yet, his face was striking. He had sharp, deep-set features, a high brow, and a posture so impeccably straight it betrayed an innate, quiet nobility that no cheap clothes could mask. “Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Morrison,” he said, his voice a low, steady baritone. “My name is Hogan Lane. I’m Norah’s boyfriend.” The floating text erupted: [Oh my god, he is so hot! He and Lindsay are literally made for each other!] [Ugh, it’s so frustrating! His real name is Hogan Lawrence! He only changed it to hide his identity. Lindsay, baby, please don’t think he’s actually some poor kid!] [Yes, Lindsay! Hurry up and tell him you’re the one who talked to him online, not Norah!] No matter how frantic those floating voices were, Lindsay couldn’t see them. My mother stepped in front of her, shielding her protectively, and pointed a trembling hand at me. “Hogan, was it? Norah is right there.” When Hogan’s gaze landed on me, the floating text wailed. [Oh no! He recognized her face! He doesn’t know the girl he fell in love with online is actually Lindsay!] [I believe in him! He’s too smart to be fooled! Our Lindsay is so sweet and pure, he’ll definitely realize this evil sister isn’t his real soulmate!] [Exactly! He wouldn’t be so shallow that he only cares about a face. He fell in love with Lindsay’s beautiful soul!] I watched as Hogan’s ears flushed a faint, endearing pink. I tilted my head and let my lips curve into a slow, deliberate smile. These floating commenters were far too imaginative. From where I was standing, it looked like this “male lead” of theirs was simply utterly, hopelessly captivated by my face. 2 Without a shred of shame, and completely ignoring the furious red text screaming in front of my face, I stepped forward and wrapped my hand around Hogan’s arm. “Hogan,” I murmured, looking up at him. “You actually came for me.” Every muscle in his arm tensed beneath my touch. He swallowed hard, a low, raspy “Yeah” escaping his throat. Seeing how nervous he was—his free hand twitching as if he didn’t know where to put it—I couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh. Lindsay peeked out from behind our mother, her voice laced with a subtle, toxic sweetness. “Well, it looks like Norah really does have a soft spot for the underprivileged. You two actually look… perfect for each other.” Her passive-aggressive “congratulations” were so blatant that even our parents shifted uncomfortably. Fearing she might provoke me into throwing a tantrum and ruining this convenient arrangement, my mother pulled Lindsay back by the arm. Lindsay rolled her eyes, offering a lazy, insincere apology. “Sorry, Norah. I’m just so jealous that you’ve found your… perfect match.” She put a sharp, deliberate emphasis on “your,” as if marking a boundary. I knew exactly what she was doing. She was quietly gloating. Like the floating commenters, she believed that even if she let this poor boy go for now, he would eventually discover the truth and come crawling back to her. She thought I was nothing but a thief destined to be caught. My smile faded slightly, but my grip on Hogan’s arm tightened. Sensing the sudden shift in my mood, Hogan’s brows knit together. He took a subtle step forward, his broad shoulder cutting off my family’s view of me, shielding me completely. Lindsay merely scoffed at his protective gesture. She turned her head toward the foyer, practically vibrating with anticipation for the real Lawrence heir to arrive. When Charles Lawrence walked in, Lindsay looked ready to throw herself into his arms. He was dressed in a bespoke Italian suit, a million-dollar watch gleaming on his wrist, looking every bit the ruthless corporate executive. But the floating text was already sighing in collective despair. [Why is Lindsay being so warm to Charles? This is painful to watch!] [Charles is just a parasite! He’s a trust-fund playboy who has nothing to do with the actual Lawrence conglomerate. Lindsay, turn around and look at our real male lead!] [Yes! If she doesn’t fix this now, the evil sister is going to walk away with the prize!] [Wait, look! Charles looks like he recognized Hogan! Oh my god, if Hogan’s identity is revealed now, Lindsay will definitely take him back!] I looked up. Charles had walked into the room with an air of arrogant authority, but the moment his eyes fell on Hogan, his face went utterly pale. He took a step forward, his mouth opening to speak, but Hogan gave him a single, ice-cold shake of his head. Charles froze mid-step, his boots practically glued to the floor. Lindsay, whose eyes had been glued to Charles, flicked her gaze between the two men. “Charles? Do you… do you know Hogan?” Terrified of saying the wrong thing under Hogan’s piercing gaze, Charles quickly stammered, “We… we’ve crossed paths once. Briefly.” Lindsay’s expression curdled into instant disdain. “Oh, really? I suppose someone like Charles gets hounded by all sorts of people trying to climb the social ladder. You’re far too polite, Charles.” Charles cleared his throat, sweating slightly. “Let’s just… let’s not talk about that. Aren’t we here to discuss the engagement?” Lindsay’s sour mood instantly vanished, replaced by a triumphant grin. Our parents, too, beamed with pride. “We were thinking of holding the engagement party on the eighteenth of next month,” my father said, eager to please. “We’ve already booked the Grand Ballroom at the Grand Regent. We’ll be inviting every major player in Chicago. We certainly won’t let either of our families lose face.” Lindsay’s eyes-darted to me, where I stood silently in the corner with Hogan. “Dad, Mom,” she said, her voice dripping with mock concern. “What about Norah’s engagement party? When is she having hers?” My parents cast a dismissive, impatient glance at Hogan’s simple clothes. “Norah only recently came back to us,” my mother said coldly. “She doesn’t have many social connections. A small dinner at that diner on the North Side should do. Three tables is more than enough. Norah, you don’t have an issue with that, do you?” The floating comments mocked me relentlessly: [Hahaha, the evil sister must be dying inside! A cheap diner engagement compared to a Grand Regent ballroom! Crushed!] [And Hogan isn’t even defending her. He probably knows she doesn’t deserve anything better.] I looked at Hogan. His head was slightly bowed, his expression unreadable. “It’s fine,” I said softly, my voice clear in the quiet room. “As long as I’m with Hogan, I don’t care where we celebrate.” Hogan’s head snapped up. He stared at me, his dark eyes wide with a quiet, arresting intensity. I offered him a small, reassuring smile and gently squeezed his hand. He looked at me for a long moment, as if making a silent, monumental decision. Then, he turned to my parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Morrison,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying an undeniable weight. “I will not let her be humiliated. I will give her the absolute best, within all my power.” Lindsay covered her mouth, letting out a sharp, mocking giggle. “Mr. Lane is such a gentleman. Good luck with your unforgettable diner party, Norah. I truly hope it’s… memorable.” 3 I didn’t let Lindsay’s petty taunts get to me. I simply led Hogan up the stairs to my room. “My sister is always like that,” I said as I opened the door. “Don’t take it to heart.” Hogan was looking around the sparse, cramped room. There was nothing but a twin bed, a worn-out wooden desk, and a single closet. It looked more like a storage closet than a daughter’s bedroom. A flash of sharp pain and anger crossed his features. “Have you always had to live like this?” he asked, his voice tight. “Compromising on everything?” I let out a bitter, quiet laugh. “It’s not really a compromise when you don’t have a choice. My parents love Lindsay. Even if I fought, I’d never win.” The tenderness in his eyes deepened, softening the hard lines of his face. “Why didn’t you ever tell me before?” he whispered. I didn’t answer. The floating text, however, was in a frenzy: [Oh my god, she is totally playing the victim to get his sympathy! Hogan, don’t fall for it! She’s just trying to seduce you!] [When is this evil sister going to get exposed? I’m literally going to pop a vein. Can Hogan please find out she’s an imposter and throw her out already?] To their absolute horror, over the next few days, Hogan didn’t expose me. If anything, we only grew closer. The burner phone Lindsay had used to chat with him had been tossed onto my desk like a piece of trash. But Hogan didn’t care about the phone. He came to see me every single day, riding a beat-up Vespa, waiting at the gates to take me out. Every time Lindsay saw that Vespa, she made sure to laugh. Today was no exception. She stood on the front porch, watching Hogan hand me a helmet. Rolling her eyes, she raised her voice so the gardeners could hear. “Look at you two, so sweet! Love on a Vespa, how incredibly romantic.” She smirked. “Are you going to ride that to your engagement party too?” She turned to Charles, who was standing beside her looking deeply uncomfortable, and purred, “Charles, honey, I’m not like my sister. I’m not that hopelessly naive. If you don’t pick me up in a Maybach on our big day, I’m not getting in.” She was too busy preening to notice the sheer terror flitting across Charles’s face. I ignored her entirely, stepping onto the back of the Vespa and wrapping my arms tightly around Hogan’s lean waist. Leaning my cheek against his broad back, I murmured, “You know, you don’t have to ride all the way here to pick me up every time. I can meet you there.” Hogan was silent for a long moment as the engine idled. “Norah,” he said quietly. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” The floating text went strangely quiet for a second. [Why does he sound so vulnerable? This is… weird.] [Uh, guys, don’t hate me, but… does it look like Hogan is actually falling for the sister?] [No, absolutely not! He’s meant for Lindsay! He only feels this way because he thinks she’s his online girlfriend!] I ignored them, shaking my head against Hogan’s back. “No,” I whispered. “I just think it’s a long ride for you. I don’t want you to tire yourself out, only to come here and be ridiculed by my family.” The tension in Hogan’s shoulders instantly melted. I couldn’t see his face, but when he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “Norah. I promise you, when you marry me, I will never let you lose.” The comment section cracked wide open: [Wait, what? Did he just confess to her?] [Hogan, wake up! Lindsay is right there watching you!] [Honestly, I kind of ship them now. They’re kind of cute.] [Are you blind? The sister is so manipulative, she doesn’t deserve him!] Their constant chatter meant nothing to me. But before I could reply to Hogan, Lindsay let out a sharp, mocking laugh from the porch. “A boy with nothing to his name sure knows how to make big promises.” 4 Lindsay strolled down the steps, her iced latte swirling in her hand. As she passed Hogan, she deliberately tilted her wrist, letting the cold, brown liquid splash all over his clean flannel shirt. “Oh my goodness, I am so, so sorry!” Her mouth formed an apology, but her eyes danced with absolute malice. “That shirt doesn’t look very expensive, does it? I’ll buy you a replacement. Is a hundred bucks enough?” She pulled a crisp bill from her designer wallet and let it flutter carelessly to the dirt at Hogan’s feet. Hogan’s face remained entirely blank as he brushed the wet fabric off his cuff. “No need.” Lindsay shrugged. “Well, aren’t you gracious. Thank you for being so understanding.” As she turned to walk away, she muttered under her breath, “Pathetic.” The word was quiet, but in the morning air, Hogan and I heard it perfectly. My chest tightened with sudden, white-hot anger. I stepped forward, blocking her path. “Apologize.” Lindsay blinked, clearly shocked that the quiet, compliant daughter who had tolerated her abuse for months was suddenly showing teeth. But she had looked down on me—and on Hogan—for too long to back down. She scoffed, “What did I say that wasn’t true? He is pathetic.” My parents, hearing the commotion at the gates, hurried down the driveway. Before they even knew what was happening, my mother’s voice rang out in sharp accusation. “Norah, what on earth are you throwing a tantrum for now?” I was so used to their immediate, unquestioning blame that it didn’t even sting anymore. But Hogan’s face darkened instantly. “Lindsay has repeatedly insulted and humiliated me,” Hogan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. “And you, as her parents, don’t even care to ask who is in the wrong?” It was a remarkably bold statement for a supposedly poor student to make to a wealthy patriarch. My parents’ faces flushed red, then pale, before they turned their fury right back onto me. “Look at the kind of man you’ve brought into this family! Just as petty and defensive as you are!” I ignored them, reaching down to take Hogan’s hand, lacing my fingers firmly through his. “Hogan is a good man,” I said, standing tall beside him. “You’re just too blind to see it.” Hogan’s grip on my hand tightened, hard enough to bruise, but I didn’t care. My parents practically vibrated with rage, but there was nothing they could do. I had already agreed to the match, and they couldn’t afford to lose the Lawrence connection Charles provided. I didn’t want to waste another second on them. I pulled Hogan toward the Vespa, carefully inspecting the dark stain on his chest. “Let’s go. I’ll wash it for you when we get back.” Hogan shook his head, a soft look returning to his eyes. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about something so trivial.” “It’s not trivial,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “Anything that concerns you is important to me.” Hogan stared at me, his chest rising and falling. He seemed to be absorbing the weight of my words, processing a feeling he had never experienced before. Suddenly, he leaned in, his breath warm against my ear as a deep flush crept up his neck. “Thank you, Norah. You’re the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met.” The floating text, which had been silent for some time, suddenly flickered back to life with a few quiet lines. [As much as I hate the sister… she and Hogan are actually kind of sweet.] [Yeah, me too. Honestly, Lindsay was being a total brat just now, and the parents are incredibly toxic. I can’t imagine how miserable the sister must have been if she actually cared about them.] [But Hogan is supposed to be Lindsay’s! She shouldn’t have stolen him…] [Lindsay literally threw him away because she thought he was poor! Did you guys forget that? She catfished him, used her sister’s face, and then forced Norah to take her place. She thought she was being clever, and now she’s mad it backfired.] The tide was slowly starting to turn. The commenters were beginning to see through Lindsay’s fragile, victimized facade, starting to feel a shred of empathy for the “evil sister.” I rested my cheek against Hogan’s warm back, listening to the rapid, steady thrumming of his heart. I let a small, private smile play on my lips. I had taken him. And Lindsay was about to find out exactly what that meant.

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Three years after my death, the police finally caught the fugitive behind the organ trafficking ring. From his possession, the authorities recovered a ledger—a meticulous, chilling record of 1,198 victims. Every single line detailed a donor and a recipient, matching stolen lives with purchased ones. Except for line 999. That row was entirely blank. In the compound where the bodies had been harvested, they couldn’t find a single trace of whoever belonged to that number. No bone fragments, no ashes, nothing. It was as if person 999 had never existed at all. An anomaly like that was bound to draw attention. Inside the interrogation room, Greg’s anger simmered just beneath his badge. “Talk,” he demanded, his voice dangerously low, hands flat on the table. “Who was Donor 999? Whose name goes in that blank space, and who bought her organs?” Zack leaned forward, his eyes tracking the tremble in Greg’s fingers as they pressed against the paper. A slow, mocking smile crept onto his face. “Detective,” Zack purred, “you shouldn’t bite the hand that fed you. I left Lora’s name off that list out of mercy. I didn’t want to break your heart.” He leaned in closer, his breath fogging the glass between them. “But tell me… what’s it like to be physically whole with the woman you loved? To have her inside you?” … The words hung in the sterile air. In an instant, a face flashed in Greg’s mind—beautiful, delicate, and entirely ruined by the bitter hatred he had harbored for her over the last three years. Lora. Greg slammed his hands onto the metal table, the screech of his chair echoing in the small room. He stood, towering over the suspect, his chest heaving. “What kind of sick game are you playing, Zack? I am a detective! I don’t make deals with monsters who harvest people for profit!” His pulse was spiking too high. Beside him, his mentor, Chief Henderson, placed a firm, steadying hand on Greg’s forearm. “Greg. Keep it together.” Greg forced a breath through his nose, his jaw clenching so hard it looked ready to crack. “I don’t have time for your mind games, Zack. Give me a name. Who is 999?” “I already told you,” Zack said, his eyes glittering with sadistic amusement. “Lora.” “Detective, I know it hurts, but some truths are meant to be swallowed.” Greg’s fist hit the table with a deafening crack. “One more time, Zack. Give me the real name. Or I swear to God—” Zack didn’t flinch. Instead, he slowly straightened his orange collar, drinking in Greg’s unraveling state. “I am telling the truth,” Zack whispered, his voice dripping with venom. “It was Lora. And you, Detective—the big, noble hero of the department—aren’t just a hypocrite. You’re the single biggest benefactor of our little operation.” Greg snapped. He lunged across the table, grabbing Zack by his collar, lifting him half out of his chair. “Lora again!” Greg roared, his voice cracking. “What the hell was your connection to her? Was she one of you? Was she helping you run this goddamn ring?!” Hovering in the cold air of the room, my spectral body stiffened. Years ago, if he so much as knit his brow in worry, I would have reached out to smooth the creases of his forehead. But now, when my translucent fingers brushed his brow, they slid right through him. I could touch nothing. I could soothe nothing. Zack slapped Greg’s hands away, his grin widening. “You really don’t know, do you? Lora didn’t have to die. She was only supposed to donate a kidney to save your pathetic life. But her sweet little sister, Natalie? Oh, she paid a hefty price to make sure Lora never walked off that operating table. A sister paying to have her own sister slaughtered. Pretty poetic, don’t you think?” The sheer weight of the confession pressed down on the room, crushing the air out of it. For a long, agonizing moment, there was absolute silence. Then, Greg let out a harsh, dry laugh. “You almost had me,” Greg whispered, a shake of his head turning into a bitter scoff. “But telling me my kidney came from Lora? Telling me Natalie hired you to kill her? That is the most pathetic, desperate lie I’ve ever heard.” Of course he didn’t believe it. Everyone in the precinct knew the story of Greg’s heartless, mercenary ex-girlfriend, Lora. When Greg was a rookie, he had a fierce, reckless drive that helped him crack several major cases. But it also earned him dangerous enemies. One evening, when we were out on a date, those enemies tracked us down. To protect me, Greg had thrown himself in front of the blade. He was stabbed multiple times, bleeding out on the pavement, barely clinging to life. His kidneys failed. And the girlfriend he had nearly died to protect? The moment she found out she was a perfect match for his transplant, she emptied his bank account and vanished without a trace. Greg had refused to believe it at first. Sick, feverish, and weak, he dragged himself out of his hospital bed to search for me. But all he found was a security tape from a high-end hotel: me, draped over the arm of a wealthy stranger, smiling as he escorted me into a luxury car. In that single moment, Greg’s entire world collapsed. He stopped taking his anti-rejection meds, gave up on physical therapy, and practically tried to drink himself to death. It was Natalie who stepped in, weeping, begging him to live. She said she wanted to atone for her sister’s cruelty. She volunteered to be tested, proved to be a match, and gave him one of her own kidneys. She stayed by his hospital bed night after night, pulling him out of the abyss. Today, she was his devoted fiancée. How could Natalie—sweet, self-sacrificing Natalie—ever be associated with a ring of black-market butchers? Watching the veins throb against Greg’s temples, a sharp, familiar ache bloomed in my chest. If Greg ever found out that the kidney keeping him alive right now belonged to me… that it had been harvested in blood and agony from Zack’s basement… how would he survive the guilt? How could he ever look at his own reflection again? The heavy door to the interrogation room clicked open. The lead medical examiner, Dr. Evans, stepped in and whispered something into Chief Henderson’s ear. Minutes later, we were in the sterile, fluorescent glow of the forensics lab. Dr. Evans pointed to a sealed evidence bag on the metal counter. “Forensics just brought this in from the basement of Zack’s lake house. According to our intelligence, that basement was a torture chamber for anyone who crossed him. We extracted these blood samples from the floorboards and the concrete walls.” Greg’s throat tightened as he stared at the dark, dried stains on the fabric. His fingers curled into fists. “How long for the DNA match?” Greg asked, his voice barely a whisper. He paused, his gaze drifting away from the bag. “I mean… can you run those samples against Lora’s DNA records? Just to rule her out. No other reason.” Dr. Evans gave him a long, pitying look. “I’ll try, Greg. But some of these stains are years old. The DNA might be too degraded. If we can’t extract a viable profile, we’ll need to search the property again for more physical evidence.” “I’ll go,” Greg blurted out immediately. “I’ll search the house myself.” Before the words fully left his mouth, Chief Henderson blocked his path. “Greg, stop,” the Chief said gently. “I know how deep your history with Lora goes. But look at yourself. You are too close to this. You’re benched. Go home, get some sleep, and let the team handle the search.” “I don’t care about Lora!” Greg snapped, his eyes flashing with desperate denial. “I’ve been on this case for months. I need to know who 999 is. I need to find her family. I need to bring her home!” As the word home left his mouth, a memory from our college days broke through his defenses. During our senior year, I had gone on a geology field trip in the mountains with my professor. A sudden flash flood had washed out the trails, and I got separated from the group, losing all cell service. The moment Greg heard, he didn’t wait for the search and rescue teams. He threw on a rain jacket, grabbed a flashlight, and sprinted into the dark, stormy woods alone. He searched for hours in the freezing downpour. It was almost dawn when he found me huddled beneath a muddy ridge, shivering, my ankle badly sprained. I was covered in dirt, but the moment his flashlight beam hit my face, I smiled through my tears. “Greg,” I had whispered, reaching for him. “I knew you’d find me. Just like my dad used to.” My father had been a veteran police officer who died in the line of duty when I was a child. He was my hero, the standard by which I measured all good men. That night, Greg had held my freezing hands against his chest and made a promise. “Lora,” he had said, his voice thick with emotion. “No matter where you are, no matter how lost you get, I will always find you. I’m going to join the academy. I’m going to become a cop so I can bring lost people back to the families who are waiting for them.” Tears I could no longer physically shed poured down my spectral cheeks. Greg was brilliant. I knew he would eventually piece together the truth. But that truth would drag him into a darkness far worse than the mountain storm we once survived. And I was completely powerless to stop it. I was just a ghost, forced to watch him drown. Greg sat on the wooden bench outside the precinct, chain-smoking. A small pile of white ash gathered between his boots. He only smoked when the world was collapsing around him. He had quit years ago because I hated the smell. He had gritted his teeth and gone cold turkey just to keep me happy. Now, the habit was back with a vengeance. Suddenly, a pale, slender hand reached down and snatched the cigarette from his lips. Natalie threw it onto the pavement and crushed it beneath the heel of her designer pump. She wrapped her arms around his neck from behind, her voice dripping sweet, manufactured warmth. “Look at my handsome detective! The news is saying you busted the whole ring. I’m so proud of you!” Perhaps the seeds of Zack’s words had already begun to sprout. Greg stiffened, subtly shifting his shoulder to slip out of her embrace. “What are you doing here, Natalie?” Natalie’s perfect smile faltered for a fraction of a second. “It’s all over the news,” she said, quickly recovering her sweet demeanor. “Everyone at the hospital is talking about it. A few of my colleagues were wondering… have they started identifying the victims yet? Where is the investigation headed next?” Greg stared at her face, studying her features as if looking at a stranger. Natalie reached up to stroke his hair, her shirt riding up just enough to reveal the thin, faded scar on her lower abdomen—the mark of her “sacrifice.” Greg flinched, as if the sight of the scar burned him. His voice softened, though it lacked any real warmth. “Natalie, you know the rules. I can’t discuss active investigations.” She pouted, shaking his arm playfully. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I was just excited.” Greg caught sight of Chief Henderson’s sedan pulling out of the garage. He quickly extricated himself from Natalie’s grip. “I have to go. Fieldwork. I’ll call you when I’m done.” Without waiting for her reply, he sprinted toward the parking lot. I hovered above, watching Natalie’s face. The moment Greg turned his back, the sweet, doting fiancée vanished. Her features hardened into a cold, venomous mask. This was my baby sister. The girl I had raised, the one I had protected from every harsh corner of the world, even at my own expense. No matter how many times I replayed our lives, I couldn’t understand how she had come to hate me so deeply. After our father died, it was just the two of us. Times were incredibly lean, but Natalie was proud; she refused any charity. To pay her tuition for medical school, I dropped out of college and set up a late-night food cart on the street corner. My back ached every single night from standing over the hot grill, but every penny went into her tuition fund. I didn’t mind the exhaustion. I was building a future for my sister. Then came the night a group of drunk men tried to harass me at the cart, forcing me to drink with them. Greg, who was patrolling nearby, stepped in. He handled them easily, then draped his warm, heavy jacket over my shivering shoulders. “You okay?” he had asked, his voice steady and calm. “You shouldn’t be out here alone so late.” To thank him, I started packing him extra food whenever his patrol car went by. Small gestures turned into long conversations, which turned into five beautiful years together. Greg loved me completely. He remembered my fears, kept track of my cycles, and quietly paid off Natalie’s remaining school loans so she could focus on her residency. Thanks to that support, Natalie graduated at the top of her class and secured a coveted position, quickly becoming their rising star. A tiny, overlooked detail suddenly sparked in my mind. In all those five years, Natalie had never once called Greg her brother-in-law. Even though he treated her like family, she always addressed him formally as “Detective.” When had the obsession started? Before I could piece it together, the police cruiser pulled up to Zack’s secluded suburban house. A young officer met Greg at the police tape, looking defeated. “Greg, we’ve gone through the main house. There’s nothing. He cleaned it out.” Greg’s jaw clenched. “Zack is arrogant. He would have kept a trophy. Search it again. Focus on the basement.” He pushed past the officer and strode down the hall, throwing open the heavy steel door to the basement. A wave of cold, stagnant air rushed up to meet him—smelling of bleach, damp earth, and a faint, metallic trace of blood. Greg grimaced, holding his breath. Greg had walked through dozens of horrific crime scenes, but the atmosphere in this cellar made his stomach twist. Cold metal restraints hung from the wooden beams. Despite the frantic scrubbing, dark stains remained trapped in the cracks of the concrete floor. It was a factory of pain. Greg knelt down, sweeping his flashlight over the concrete floor. Near a drainage grate in the corner, his beam caught a tiny speck of color. He leaned closer and picked up a broken piece of an acrylic nail. As the light caught the delicate lavender-and-silver pattern, Greg’s breath caught in his throat. It was the exact manicure I had gotten for our anniversary date. The last night he saw me. The stoic professional mask he wore cracked. In his eyes, a terrible, desperate panic took hold. Standing right behind him, looking at the damp walls, my spirit trembled. This room. This was where Zack had pinned me down. Where he had torn my nails out one by one, mocking my screams. Day after day, locked in the pitch black, I had whispered Greg’s name like a prayer, begging him to open that door. But now, looking at his breaking face, I prayed he wouldn’t find me. I didn’t want him to see what was left of me. It wasn’t even a body anymore. It was… Greg clutched the broken acrylic shard so tightly it cut into his palm. He stormed back to the precinct, his boots echoing loudly in the lobby. Natalie was still waiting there, sitting on a bench. “Why are you still here?” Greg demanded, his voice raw. Natalie stood up, pulling a heavy, cream-colored envelope from her bag. “I was so excited about your case that I forgot why I came,” she said, her voice dropping into a soft, sympathetic tone. “Greg… look what arrived in the mail today. Lora is… she’s getting married.” She watched his eyes closely, tracking his reaction. Greg stared at the elegant cursive lettering of the bride’s name. A bitter, ugly laugh escaped his throat. “Of course,” he muttered, his jaw twitching. “She’s too selfish to ever be a victim.” “What did you say?” Natalie asked, blinking. “Nothing,” Greg said, ripping the invitation in half and tossing it into the trash can. “I have a case to solve.” He threw open the door to the interrogation room again. Before he could speak, Zack smirked from across the table. “Well, look at that. The great Detective Greg isn’t as smart as they say. Still haven’t found your girl?” Greg lost his grip, slamming both hands onto the table. “Cut the crap, Zack! Lora is alive. She’s in the city. She’s getting married next month!” Zack’s laugh was cold and sharp. “Is that what they told you? That’s funny. Because last I checked, she was still in my basement, waiting for her white knight to rescue her. Oh, and by the way… that kidney in your side? She begged me on her knees to make sure it went to you. Want me to tell you what she had to do to convince me?” Greg dragged his hands down his face, his voice sounding hollowed out. “You’re trying to get under my skin using her name. It’s not going to work. The day she walked away from me for some rich guy’s car, she died to me.” He leaned over the table, his eyes burning. “I am giving you one chance to cooperate and save yourself from a needle in the arm. Don’t waste it.” Zack didn’t flinch. He leaned back, his handcuffs rattling against the metal bar. “Detective, we both know I’m never walking out of here. Your department has bled my business dry and locked up my crew. I hate you, and you hate me. So when your beautiful girlfriend fell right into my lap… did you really think I’d just let her go?” Greg stiffened. He could claim he didn’t care all he wanted, but the old, deep wound in his chest was bleeding all over again. Zack crossed his arms, wearing a look of absolute triumph. “I’ve given you the clue, detective. Whether you find her before she rots to pieces… well, that’s up to you.” Greg spun on his heel and slammed the heavy door behind him. Through the glass, Zack’s hysterical laughter followed him down the corridor. “Go find her, detective! I can’t wait to see your face when you do! It’s going to be beautiful! Hahaha!” I drifted beside Greg as he stumbled down the hallway. I reached out to grab his sleeve, but my hand dissolved into mist. “Greg, please, stop! Don’t look for me!” I cried out to him with everything I had. I wanted to tell him that I would rather be buried in the dark forever. I would rather have him hate me, remember me as a selfish runaway, than watch him break into pieces when he found the truth. But he couldn’t hear me. He was already running back toward the lake house. The floodlights of the lake house burned through the night. Greg and a dozen officers tore the estate apart, lifting floorboards and checking hollow walls. By dawn, they had found nothing. Greg slumped against the living room wall, dark stubble covering his jaw, his eyes hollow. Chief Henderson walked over and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Greg, Zack is playing with your head. You’re a damn good cop, but you’re not a miracle worker. Even if we never identify 999, Zack’s going away for life. The prosecution has enough to put him under the prison.” Greg raised his bloodshot eyes. “I know he’s lying, Chief. Lora is alive. She’s out there somewhere.” He paused, swallowing hard. “I just don’t want 999 to be left in the dark forever. Whoever she is, someone is out there waiting for her. Just like I was waiting for Lora in the mountains. If we find her, at least they’ll have closure.” The Chief sighed, seeing the stubborn light in Greg’s eyes. He knew there was no stopping him. “Alright,” Henderson said. “You wanted to canvas the neighboring properties today. Let’s go. I’ll walk the line with you.” They reached the third house on the block when Greg stopped on the porch, looking back at Zack’s property. “Chief,” Greg said slowly, squinting. “Look at the layout of these houses. They were all built by the same developer in the nineties. But the basement footprint in the other two houses… they look much deeper than Zack’s.” Chief Henderson frowned, studying the concrete foundations. “You’re right. The exterior wall on Zack’s basement is set back about four feet compared to these.” “He didn’t shrink his basement,” Greg said, his voice dropping. “He built a false wall. Get the sledgehammers.” Standing in the damp basement, Greg swung the heavy sledgehammer himself. With a deafening crack, the drywall split, revealing a hollow space behind the concrete-board facade. He swung again, clearing a larger opening. The officers behind him gasped, several of them covering their mouths. “What the hell is that?” someone whispered. Greg’s hands began to shake, the sledgehammer slipping slightly in his grip. Inside the hidden cavity, suspended against the back wall, was a large bundle tightly wrapped in layer after layer of industrial plastic wrap. Through the foggy plastic, the grotesque silhouette of a human form was visible—but the limbs and torso were pieced together at unnatural, impossible angles. A wave of decayed tissue and chemical preservative hit the air, sending several officers stumbling back toward the stairs, gagging. Greg stood frozen, his flashlight beam trembling as it illuminated the top of the plastic wrap. He stared at the shape of the skull inside.

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