Chapter 2
713 Words
But Lucian still would not back down, and he gritted his teeth before laying down his final ultimatum.
He said, "Three more days, that's it. If nothing changes, we will just have to settle for Nina."
That was when the truth finally hit me like a punch to the gut.
All those accidents over the past three months were not accidents at all.
Every cut and every cruel twist had been carefully orchestrated by the family I had loved with every fiber of my being.
Their only goal was to bring back that soul-stealing witch named Sussie.
I wanted to scream and rage, but all that came up from my throat was the copper taste of blood.
The rising and falling wail of an ambulance siren shattered the quiet night.
They rushed at me with their faces contorted in panic as they loaded me onto the stretcher, and their voices broke as they begged the medics.
They said, "Save her. She has to wake up exactly how she was."
Their trembling hands and red-rimmed eyes mirrored the panic they had shown a year ago, when I had been crushed beneath that beam.
The memory hit me like a freight train, and suddenly I was eighteen years old again.
My parents had turned the city upside down to book a century-old banquet hall, one that had stood for as long as I had lived.
Under the gilded dome, crystal chandeliers drenched the room in a glow that made every guest seethe with envy.
I heard someone whisper, "God, Nina's birthday bash puts fairy-tale princesses to shame."
Another guest added, "Straight-A student, loaded family, treated like a damn crown jewel. Ugh, talk about being born with a silver spoon."
That was my perfect eighteenth year.
As Ruth and Joseph led me toward the cake tower, my brothers flanked me like twin bodyguards.
I blinked back happy tears, and then I glanced up just in time to see the cracked beam swaying overhead.
I moved before I could think, and I shoved hard.
Ruth's shawl brushed against my palm as I pushed her aside, and Joseph's glasses went flying through the air.
My brothers' shouts died in their throats as the world turned black around me.
Back then, they had huddled around me just like this, and their voices had shaken as they pleaded with the doctors.
They had begged, "Save her. Please, you have to save her."
Now everything looked the same, but the person they were begging to wake up was no longer Nina.
It was that scheming little fox, Sussie, instead.
Right then and there, I decided to give them exactly what they wanted, so I summoned the system in my mind and hissed my question.
I asked, "That deal you offered after my life got hijacked, is it still on the table?"
The system's robotic voice crackled to life as it answered me.
It said, "The offer remains valid. A new data entity can be generated that will retain your original memories and personality, though all social ties will default to orphan status."
I asked, "Will this take over someone else's body?"
It replied, "No. This is a standalone fabricated identity with no ties to others. The registration will be complete in three days."
I swallowed hard and rasped out a single cracked word, "Okay."
Three days was all I would give them, and then this body would be theirs as a gift-wrapped shell for the girl they would move heaven and earth to spoil.
Molten tears seared down my bloodless face like trails of betrayal.
Someone whispered, "Look, is she waking up?"
Lucian's sharp gasp yanked everyone's focus toward me, and chairs clattered and crashed as they jolted upright.
A stampede of footsteps surged toward me, and I felt their eyes boring into my skin.
My eyelids fluttered open slowly and deliberately.
Four pairs of eyes pinned me with hopeful and trembling gazes while they held their breath.
For one stupid and heart-squeezing second, I dared to hope for something better.
Then a sharp sound cut through the quiet like shattering glass, and Silas's voice broke the silence with a single name.
He said, "Sussie?"
That cloying name was the slap I needed, and it welcomed me back to reality, Nina.
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