Chapter 4

The wind tangled my hair. Standing alone, I finally felt free.

For the first time, I allowed myself to think about the hospital.

When they had stripped and humiliated me, a madwoman shielded me, wielding a knife against those monsters.

Her embrace was warm, just like Mother's used to be.

She would protect me from Dad, whispering, "Clara, don't be scared. Mother's here."

But the guards shoved the madwoman down, and her head struck a cabinet.

The blood flowed endlessly, pooling like a river.

That day, my mind was perfectly clear.

A single thought took root: *They deserve to die. Kill them all.*

I had planned to destroy that place, but Julian showed up.

His presence always unsettled me, both then and now.

I didn't want to go back.

I had already fed them enough slow poison, and I had no desire to watch their rotting ugliness unfold.

I closed my eyes and spread my arms, savoring the cool breeze.

In my next life, I just wanted someone to love me—truly love me.

And I would love them back with everything I had.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me from behind. They were panting heavily, their breath thick with panic, their hair wild against the wind.

"Let go!" I screamed.

The man's arms were like iron, completely unyielding.

I writhed as fear surged through me. Memories of the hospital flooded back—my limbs pinned down, utterly helpless under their torment.

My teeth began to chatter.

"I won't let go," he said. He was trembling, holding me as if he had nearly lost something precious.

"Lunatic!" I bit down hard on his arm. He groaned in pain but refused to release his grip.

"If I let go, I'll never see you again."

"Let go! I wasn't going to jump!"

"Clara, please don't die," he pleaded. His voice broke as he buried his face in my neck, and his cold tears burned against my skin.

I froze, slowly turning around.

My eyes widened in shock.

"Rowan?"

Rowan Hayes—a name buried deep in my heart, a faded dream I had tried so hard to forget.

Forgetting was the only way to ease the pain.

During my senior year of high school, someone posted online that Mother was a homewrecker who had driven Julian's mother to her death.

Classmates whispered that I would grow up to be a mistress too, sneering at me as if I were vermin.

I tried to explain that Mother had married Dad only after his divorce, but my voice was quickly drowned out by their insults.

I hated the rumors, and I despised their vicious attacks on Mother.

Desperate for the truth, I scoured the school forum and traced the digital clues.

The culprit was clever, but a careless "like" on a post exposed his identity—Tristan Vance, Julian's best friend.

Had Julian put him up to it?

The very thought crushed me.

I confronted Tristan in the classroom after school.

In the fading dusk light, he leaned back in his chair and smirked. "Was it Julian?" I demanded.

He dodged the question, sneering, "Your mother is a mistress. That's obvious. Are you really in denial?"

"Stop lying about her," I snapped.

He laughed. "When your mother seduced Julian's dad and killed his mother, you didn't think that was wrong?"

"Don't talk about my mother like that."

He leaned closer, his tone venomous. "You and your mother are exactly the same—shameless, filthy homewreckers."

Rage completely blinded me. Words like *filthy* and *shameless* echoed endlessly in my mind.

When I finally came to my senses, Tristan was groaning on the floor, blood pooling from his cracked skull.

An ambulance took him away, and shortly after, a heavily edited video of me attacking him went viral.

The internet quickly branded me a violent lunatic and the deranged daughter of a mistress.

Tristan's parents stormed into the school, demanding that I be thrown in jail.

Mother was called in. She burst into the classroom, slapped me across the face, and yanked my hair, screaming about why I always caused trouble and why she had ever given birth to me.

She kicked me in the knees. I stumbled, but I forced myself to stand tall.

"Kneel down and apologize!" she shrieked.

A sharp pain stabbed at my heart, and tears threatened to spill. "Why don't you even ask what happened?"

Her voice turned shrill. "Ask? That video humiliated me!"

She glared at me as if I were her worst enemy, a permanent stain on her life.

Defeated, I collapsed, kneeling before Tristan's parents.

In that moment, I learned that a heart could die without shedding a single tear.