Blood Trap: When Bullies Fall into My Father's Deadly Game

1 "Dad, they hit me, and... told the teacher..." The moment my daughter walked in, I could hardly recognize her. Her long hair, once cascading past her shoulders, was now cut to less than half its length. Her face was covered in horrific scars, and she trembled slightly as she spoke. "Ruby, does it hurt?" I stood frozen, struggling to lift my hands as I moved closer to her. My heart felt like it was shattering, a pain spreading from my chest throughout my entire body. "A lot..." At that moment, I couldn't hold back any longer. I pulled my daughter tightly into my arms, and tears streamed down my face, landing on her shoulder in countless drops. Ruby went to a boarding high school. Today was her day off, and I was supposed to take her out for a nice meal and enjoy our family time. But my daughter's tragic situation was right in front of me. At that moment, I was consumed by one thought: once I find out who did this, I will make them pay. I carefully let her go and rushed to the hospital with my daughter.  She must be treated now. Even though it was past nine at night, the roads were packed with cars, all stuck in a never-ending traffic jam. I sat at one intersection for over ten minutes, honking my horn frantically—beep, beep, beep. I squeezed through any gaps, racing toward the hospital. "Are you f*****g crazy?" In a panic, it was easy to cause an accident. I found myself jostling for space with a small truck, nearly getting pushed off the bridge. 2. The truck driver was completely rattled, cursing under his breath. I could see beads of sweat clinging to his forehead. "Sir, my daughter..." Before I could finish, he suddenly stopped ranting and gave me a sympathetic look. That's when I noticed a little girl's charm hanging from his rearview mirror. "Bro, take it slow!" he urged, his tone warm and understanding. I smiled back at him thankfully, as sweat soaked my back. I was taking deep breaths when my daughter patted my shoulder with her battered hand from the back seat. "Dad, drive slowly! I'm fine!" Her clear voice cut through my worry, and through the rearview mirror, I saw her eyes full of concern for me. My heart ached even more. 'How could anyone be so cruel to such a caring girl?' Red light. Red light! It was red light again and again! I was trying hard to hold it together, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. I had never noticed so many red lights on this road before. On top of that, some oblivious riders on e-scooters were making a complete mess of the road. My heart, which had just settled by Ruby's words, was racing again. I always believed I was calm and collected, unshaken by sudden changes. I never thought I had such an impulsive and irritable side. An hour and a half later, I rushed her straight to the emergency room. Even the experienced doctors gasped when they saw her. During the more than an hour of examinations, I glanced at my phone but still couldn't bring myself to press the call button. 3. After the examination, the doctor told me her face would heal, but it would only be about 70% to 80% back to normal, and the rest would have to be covered with makeup. Her stomach had also developed a serious issue from her poor eating habits. It was no surprise, really. Ever since she started boarding school, she'd been binge eating every vacation. Plus, she had multiple soft tissue injuries, and her left middle finger and right thumb had minor fractures. 'What on earth has my daughter been through?' Despite everything, she still managed to come home from school on her own. I could hardly imagine how much she suffered. As I looked at her lying in the hospital bed, my fists clenched tightly, my fingers almost crushed by my grip, but the ache in my heart didn't ease at all. Those monsters were trying to ruin my daughter. Instead of rushing back to the hospital room, I called her teacher, Lila Simmons. "Hello, may I ask if you are..." A clear and tired female voice came through. "Hello, Mrs. Simmons. This is Ruby Foster’s father. I'm sorry to bother you so late. I want to know what happened to Ruby at school. She's hurt badly but why haven't I received any news?" I blurted out the words in one breath. My voice wasn't loud, just a bit rushed. But Mr. Simmons's response didn't sit well with me. She let out a cold snort as if dismissing me. "Mr. Foster, it's quite late. Ruby, you say? I can't quite recall; let me ask the class monitor!" Her indifferent reply shattered my last bit of calm. 4. Even if my daughter wasn't the best student, her homeroom teacher couldn't be so blind to everything that happened. "Mr. Simmons! Please, get a grip! You better be quick!" I said ominously into the phone before hanging up. I wanted to see how she'd react. And I did get an answer. My daughter had been attacked by a group of girls from her class and other classes—about seven or eight in total. The scars on her face appeared just half an hour before school ended today, and that teacher had left early for personal matters. What made me even angrier was what Lila said next. She claimed she had just received the calls from the parents of those bullies. According to her, they insisted that all of this was my daughter's fault because of her repeated provocations. They claimed they could no longer tolerate it, which led them to resort to violence. They even stated that Ruby was affecting the grades of their "outstanding" students and that they planned to come to the school for an explanation from me when classes resumed. "An explanation? Why wait until the day after tomorrow? Tomorrow! Tell them to come to school. At eight in the morning!" I spat each word out, my anger echoing through the hospital corridor. Lila, clearly taken aback by my tone, didn't sound as dismissive as she had before. She said the school wouldn't allow any teachers or students on campus tomorrow, as they wanted to ensure a peaceful holiday for everyone. 'Peaceful holiday?' 'After letting my daughter get hurt so badly, they want quiet?' "It has to be tomorrow! Tell them! Either at the school or the police station!" I shouted. I was fed up with their nonsense. Just because she was a teacher at a prestigious school didn't give her the right to act this way. 5. After I finished speaking, I hung up the phone before her response. I used to believe teachers held a higher moral standard than those in other professions, but it seemed some were just as bad. "Keep it down! This is hospital!" My voice on the phone echoed in the hospital corridor. So, I startled the duty nurse, who came over to give me a stern talking-to. Even though I was upset, I had to admit it was my fault. I quickly adjusted my tone, and the nurse, still looking haughty, left. That night, I sat by Ruby's bed, gripping her delicate hands tightly, terrified that something might happen to her again. Before I left the hospital the next morning, , I dialed the number I had meant to call yesterday. It belonged to Ruby's grandmother—Tessa. If I weren't worried about my daughter, I wouldn't want to bother her at all. When Tessa arrived at the hospital, I set off on my mission to seek justice for my daughter. I got to the school by 7:00, but to my dismay, there were no teachers around, just a few security guards on duty. Looking at the impressive teaching buildings and the emblem representing the city's top high school, I couldn't help but feel sarcastic. The entrance had a sign that read: [Those who seek knowledge and progress must enter this place; those who seek comfort and avoid work must not enter.] 'So hypocritical!' Here was where my daughter faced such great injustice, and today I was determined to make things right for her. Tick-tock! I leaned against the car door, watching the watch on my left arm. The hands moved steadily with each tick. 6. The ticking hands of the clock seemed to urge me on, telling me I absolutely couldn't let those culprits slip away. 10 minutes passed. 15 minutes... 20 minutes... Just when I thought they wouldn't show up and was about to dial 911, they finally arrived. Watching the group emerge from several cars, it hit me that they had clearly colluded. No one else could do this besides Lila, the homeroom teacher. "Mr. Foster, sorry to keep you waiting." Lila was the first to greet me, striding toward me confidently. Dressed sharply in a black dress and wearing deep red lipstick, she seemed to be trying to present herself as a powerful woman. She didn't even raise her hand in acknowledgment. After her quick greeting, she headed straight for the school gate. The other teachers were less pretentious. They nodded at me and gestured for me to follow. 'What the hell?' But I shifted my focus from her to those parents, scanning their faces and determined to remember each one clearly. "What are you looking? Looking for trouble?" A burly man in butcher's attire glared at me with beady eyes and barked a challenge. "Don't mind him! Let's see what he has to say later!" Just as I was about to roll up my sleeves to show that big guy who was boss, a man in plaid short sleeves with gold-rimmed glasses stepped in to block the butcher. The butcher snorted, revealing his yellowed teeth, and walked in alongside the man with glasses. Seeing there was no more drama to witness, the others followed them into the school, looking disappointed. 7. However, as those people passed by me, I could see their disdainful and arrogant expressions clearly. 'Just you wait. I will punish you all!' The school was large, and Lila led the way, taking over ten minutes to reach the senior-year teaching building. But due to the special circumstances today, we weren't meeting in the office. Instead, we were in a conference room at the school. Lila and a few other homeroom teachers sat at the front, while several parents shot sidelong glances at me from across the room. "Mr. Simmons, you know my child has been studying hard, but some people just can't help causing trouble!" The butcher first glanced at Lila, and then, with his big belly, he pointed at me and mocked. I had some memory of his daughter—she was about five feet tall but weighed almost 180 pounds, and was always at the top of her class. But I knew that was only one side of her. I scoffed dismissively and waited to see what the others would say. "My daughter, too. Ruby saw my daughter studying and took the chance to write all sorts of mean things in her notebook." This time, it was a woman with frizzy hair, heavy with cheap perfume, who spoke up. As she talked, she pulled out evidence—a stack of brand-new papers that indeed had my daughter's handwriting on them. But I knew exactly my daughter. She would treat even a beggar kindly, so she couldn't have done something like this. Moreover, the words were all crooked and messy, likely forced on her by that woman's daughter. 8. "How malicious! Just as expected, a motherless child has no upbringing!" The first two guys were annoying, but I could tolerate them. However, this guy in glasses took his attack too far when he directed it at my wife. I immediately stood up and slammed my fist on the table. The loud bang startled everyone present, those hypocrites looking at me in shock. "Say it again!" I stepped closer to him, my eyes filled with rage and killing intent. My wife was an excellent police officer, but tragically, she was injured during an arrest operation. She died in the line of duty from excessive blood loss while protecting a hostage. This was a wound that had never healed in my heart; if it weren't for this, my daughter couldn't have turned out like this. "Ha! Trying to hide the truth, huh?" The guy in glasses moved closer to the butcher and continued to shout snidely. Without thinking, I stepped forward, grabbed his right arm, and yanked him out of his seat, throwing him hard to the ground. With a thud, he fell straight down. "Ah!" He was weak. He twisted around, rolling in pain from the impact. "Do you have the guts to say it again?" I had no intention of letting him off just because he fell. I lifted my right leg and kicked him in the ribs. "He's crazy!" Seeing the guy in glasses writhing on the ground, the big-haired woman thought she could take advantage and squeaked out a shout. Others began to follow his lead. "Everyone calm down! Calm down!" A male teacher, sensing the situation was escalating, quickly stepped between me and the big-haired woman, clearly worried I might cause even more trouble. 9. Lila no longer had the calm demeanor she had during yesterday's phone call. Fear now filled her eyes. "Apologize!" I pressed my foot down on the back of the man wearing glasses, pinning him to the floor. "I... I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I promise I won't!" Under my "instruction", the man begged for mercy, repeatedly slapping the floor in desperation. "Okay, you say my daughter wrote it . How can you prove she wrote them voluntarily, huh? "Do you even know what your beasts did to Ruby? They disfigured her! She's disfigured!" My anger flared again. I grabbed a stack of papers, rolled them up, and threw them at the woman with big hair. With a loud smack, the papers hit her nose, and blood gushed out. She touched her nose and screamed. "Do you dare to call your daughter over for a face-off, huh?" After giving those two a lesson, my murderous intent faded a bit, and I sat back down while shouting at the woman holding her nose. The big-haired woman kept glaring at me, clutching her nose, but she didn't respond. "And you all, come on, tell me what my daughter has done! Yes, you!" I glared coldly at another woman adorned with cheap jewelry. She froze when I called her out, clearly not expecting it. "Your daughter shakes the bed all night, making noise on purpose! Creaking and squeaking. She disturbed everyone in the dorm!" She probably couldn't come up with a better excuse, so that lame reason just slipped out. For the next ten minutes, I heard all sorts of ridiculous reasons, even one person saying my daughter smacked her lips while eating. 10. These bastard couldn't even come up with any decent excuses. "I just want to ask, even if she did these, does she deserve to be disfigured? Does she deserve to have her fingers broken? Huh!?" I didn't hold back, and my tone grew heavier with every word. By the end, my eyes felt so bloodshot they might burst. Those people clearly had no idea what had happened to my daughter. Just a few words made them visibly uneasy. Though they remained seated, their confidence had been completely crushed. Especially the butcher; despite his tough appearance, he was all talk. When I had thrown the test paper at the big-haired guy, some of it had splattered into his eyes. Now, he wouldn't even dare to look at me. "Enough! Mr. Foster, you've gone too far!" Lila observed as I took control of the situation. Instead of supporting me in seeking justice for my daughter, she unexpectedly changed her tune and openly sided with the parents who had twisted right and wrong. "What do you mean by that?" I had respected her as a teacher, but she didn't deserve that title anymore. I turned my gaze toward her, curious about what nonsense she was going to spout next. "Mr. Foster, this is a school!" Lila slapped the table and pointed around the room. From her tone, it was clear she believed a school wasn't a place to solve problems with force. But no one stood up for my daughter when she had been treated like this. She kept insisting this was a school. But she acts based on the situation instead of upholding justice. "What a school! My daughter has developed a serious stomach condition, and the doctor said it was due to long-term malnutrition!" "I want to ask you, what's going on? Have you even paid attention? Huh?" I directed my sarcastic question at Lila, making sure to include the other parents as well. 11. When Lila heard what I said, she crossed her arms and acted like it had nothing to do with her. This wasn't how a teacher should behave. One of the female teachers next to her even nudged her with her shoulder, but clearly, she wasn't paying attention at all. "With so many students, how can I take care of each one individually? Besides, they're high-school students. If they don't eat properly, who can they blame?" I wondered how this woman could say such things without a hint of guilt. Her eyes practically stared at the ceiling as if something above was so important that she couldn't notice anything below. 'Is it possible that today's teachers only cared about test scores?' 'Isn't the most important role of a school to teach students how to be good people?' 'Does a student with poor grades deserve to be bullied? Don't they deserve the attention of a teacher?' At that moment, I realized that my daughter's situation wasn't just caused by the bullies. Lila wasn't innocent either. If it weren't for her indifference and tolerance, my daughter would not be in this position. "Shut up! None of you are getting away today, including you! Lila Simmons! You piece of trash!" I shouted angrily, pointing at Lila. If she barked again, I wanted to rip that lipstick-covered mouth of hers apart. Someone who has lost the original intention of being a teacher doesn't deserve to hold that title. "How... How dare you!" She must have been provoked, her face twisted in anger. "My daughter is in hospital right now! If you want to see her, anytime! I came here today to see your attitude! But you're all heartless! So don't blame me!" After I finished speaking, I was ready to confront them again. "Mr. Foster, can we talk this over? This is a school. What do you want to do?" The male teacher, noticing my actions, clearly didn't want escalate things further and tried to stop me.