My Sister Framed Me, I Joined The Army

Chapter 3

By the time I reached the Ravenwood Psychiatric Institute, Daisy was strapped down to a hospital bed.

She was so thin I barely recognized her. The restraints had rubbed her wrists raw, and her hair was plastered in tangles against her face. Her eyes were hollow, as if her soul had been drained out of her. I rushed to her side, my fingers shaking too hard to undo the straps.

"Daisy, it's me. Your sister is here!"

At the sound of my voice, she flinched violently, like a small animal that had been frightened past its limit.

"Sister, don't shout at her. Don't shout at Liana. It hurts. It really hurts!"

My heart felt like it was being sliced open over and over with a dull blade. I rounded on the doctor. "Why is she like this? Who told you to tie her down?"

The doctor's eyes slid away from mine. "Ms. Whitmore, she's emotionally unstable. This is for the sake of her treatment."

"Treatment?" I pointed at the raw, bleeding marks on her wrists, my voice trembling. "You call this treatment?"

The doctor wouldn't meet my eyes. From behind me came Liana's voice, soft and gentle.

"Don't make things hard for the doctor. Daisy is in this state. It's not their fault."

I went rigid. Tristan and Liana were standing shoulder to shoulder at the end of the corridor. Liana wore his coat draped over her shoulders, her face pale, as though she were the one suffering here. The moment Tristan saw me, his brows drew together.

"What kind of scene are you making this time?"

"This time". I almost laughed out loud. My sister had been tortured to this state, and in his eyes, I was still the one making a scene.

Liana walked slowly to the side of the bed, looked down at Daisy, and sighed softly. "Poor Daisy. After what happened at the engagement party, after that video was seen by so many people, anyone in her place would lose their mind."

Daisy's whole body convulsed.

"No, don't look at me. I didn't, I didn't...!"

She thrashed wildly, her nails digging into her own arms, scoring them with bloody welts. My eyes went red in an instant.

"Liana!"

I lunged at her and clamped my hand around her throat. "It was you, wasn't it? You drugged us at the engagement party, and you released the video!"

Liana's face went white, but she didn't struggle. She only turned her reddened eyes toward Tristan. "Tristan, I didn't..."

The next instant, a tremendous force slammed into my abdomen. I crashed into the wall, the breath knocked clean out of me. Tristan was standing in front of Liana, his eyes cold as ice.

"Selene, are you done with this madness?"

I clutched my stomach and lifted my head to look at him. "Tristan, did you ever check it out? Even once?"

There wasn't a flicker of hesitation in his eyes. "All I've ever seen is you hurting Lia, again and again."

Liana burrowed sobbing into his chest. "Forget it. Selene hates me, I understand. But Daisy can't take any more shocks. If she keeps making scenes like this, Daisy will only get worse."

Tristan looked down at me and spoke each word with deliberate weight, "Apologize to Lia."

I stared back at him. "Not a chance."

He was silent for two seconds, then turned to the doctor behind him. "Take Daisy to the Treatment Room."

A roaring filled my head. "Don't you dare touch her!"

Several nurses moved forward to wheel the bed away, and Daisy screamed in terror, "Sister, save me! I don't want to go in! I don't want the shocks! It hurts!"

I lunged toward her, but hands clamped down on me, pinning me in place. Tristan bent down, his voice cruel in a way I had never heard before.

"Selene, every word you spit at Lia earns her one more round."

The blood in my veins turned to ice. The door of the Treatment Room swung open, the cold instruments inside humming under the lights. Daisy was sobbing herself hoarse, "Sister, I'm scared..."

I sank to my knees, my nails digging into my palms until blood trickled out. The last shred of dignity in my chest was being trampled into the dirt, ground down, pulverized into dust. I looked at Liana. She was standing behind Tristan, and the triumph in her eyes was impossible to hide.

I forced the words out one at a time, scraped from my throat, "I'm sorry."

Liana bent down and brought her lips close to my ear. Her voice was very low, low enough that only I could hear it.

"Selene, look at you. Even when you know it was me, what can you possibly do about it?"

My face was full of hate, but I didn't move. I only lifted my eyes to the security camera blinking its red dot in the corner of the corridor. And then, I memorized everything. The doctor's face. The nurses' name badges. The smile at the corner of Liana's mouth. The coldness in Tristan's eyes. Every single one of them. All the scores. I would remember them all.

By the time I left the asylum, the sky had gone fully dark. I sat on the curb, my abdomen too sore to let me straighten up, when my phone buzzed. A message from Section 9.

Section 9: Extraction procedure for the Binding Pins confirmed. The process is excruciating. Survival is uncertain. Confirm?

I looked at the screen, my fingers smeared with blood, and there was no hesitation at all.

Confirmed. The more it hurt, the better. I was afraid I'd forget how to hate.