Chapter 2

"Jack, Sophie has gone way too far!"

"Little One is a baby I raised with my own two hands. He may only be a lizard, but he understands everything!"

"Make her apologize to Little One right now!"

Marjorie clung to Jack's arm, pouting.

The skin where my body met the floor scorched and smoked in the heat.

"Did you hear her?"

"Sophie. Apologize."

Jack's voice came, cold. Before I could react, Marjorie suddenly pulled out her phone and started recording.

"I'm going to film this and send it to Sophie's mother, so she can bear witness for my Little One!"

"And let her get a good look at how the daughter she was so proud of lost to me, a bastard child."

Marjorie's mocking laugh cut into my head.

I froze for a few seconds, then threw my arms up over my head.

A large strip of skin tore off my arm.

The pain choked me.

"Jack, you can't let my mother see me like this!"

"She won't survive it!"

"Jack, you can't—"

Tears kept spilling from my eyes as I thought of my mother, already in the late stages of stomach cancer.

I curled myself as tight as I could, trying to block Marjorie's camera.

The next second, Marjorie simply placed a video call to my mother.

"Ms. James, it's Marjorie Weiss, the bastard daughter you despise most."

"I'm calling today just to show you something."

Marjorie's sneer had barely faded.

My mother's panicked voice broke in.

"Sophie? Is that you?"

"Tell Mom where you are, quick!"

"Sophie, does it hurt—"

"Mom's coming to save you right now!"

My mother, kept going only by massive doses of painkillers, long since drifting in and out of awareness.

Somehow, from that blurred shape.

She recognized me.

My heart hurt so much it nearly stopped.

I lifted my head and screamed toward Jack.

"Jack!"

"My mother was your teacher too!"

"I'm begging you, don't put her through any more of this fear—"

I screamed with everything I had. The words had barely left my mouth.

Through Marjorie's video call, the sound of my mother collapsing hard to the floor came through.

"Oh no! Ms. James fell down!"

"Jack, we need to call 911, quick!"

Marjorie said it out loud, but the phone camera stayed fixed on the wounds all over my body.

"Sophie, Mom's coming to save you—"

"Is it those people at school again, using your father's affair to bully you?"

My mother murmured, the words slurring together.

But her body was moving, step by step, toward the window. One foot stepped out.

My tears had nearly run dry.

I screamed until my voice broke.

"Jack, I swear I'll never cling to you again!"

"You hate me, you're disgusted by me—I deserve all of it!"

"I never should have loved you. I was wrong!"

Screaming with everything left in me, I dragged myself up and pounded on the scalding glass.

Something flickered across Jack's face.

But it was quickly buried under a wave of hatred.

"Then kneel and apologize to Little One."

"Fine, fine, fine!"

"I apologize! I'll kowtow!"

I dropped to my knees in panic, knocking my head against the floor, thud, thud, thud.

When I lifted my head again, my forehead was covered in blood.

"Jack, I've apologized."

"Now get someone to save my mother—"

Before I could finish.

My eyes went wide, my pupils shaking violently.

My mother jumped, from the twenty-third floor.