Chapter 4

"Chloe, what is that on your neck?"

Julian’s voice was dead cold.

I instinctively reached for my neck, only then realizing I had forgotten to take it off.

"Victoria... Victoria put it on me..." I scrambled to explain.

"I put it on you?" Victoria looked up, her face drenched in tears, looking at me in utter disbelief. "Chloe, how can you lie like that? I just asked you to hold it for a second. How could you put it on, and then... and then tear your room apart like this..."

She pointed to my messy room, sobbing harder.

"I know you like the necklace. If you wanted it, you could have just asked me. I would have asked Julian to buy you one... How could you steal it?"

Steal?

I didn't.

"I didn't!" I cried out. "I didn't steal it! Victoria told me to go get her medicine, and I forgot—"

"Medicine? When did I ask you to get medicine?" Victoria looked baffled. "I feel perfectly fine. Why would I need medicine?"

She was acting. She was acting so well that for a second, even I wondered if I had imagined it.

Julian looked at me, the sheer disappointment in his eyes threatening to drown me.

He walked over, step by step, and personally unclasped the necklace from my neck.

His touch was gentle, but it felt like a blade slicing my skin.

"Chloe," he said, his voice quiet and heavy. "I am so disappointed in you."

He handed the necklace back to Victoria, then grabbed my arm and dragged me into my room.

The door slammed shut, and I heard the lock click from the outside.

"Lock yourself in and think about what you did! You are not coming out until you realize your mistake!"

I banged on the door, crying hysterically. "Julian! I didn't steal it! Open the door! Julian!"

But there was no reply.

Only Victoria’s fake, soft pleadings from the hallway.

"Julian, don't be too hard on her, she's still a child..."

"She's old enough to know right from wrong! If I don't correct her now, she’ll end up a criminal!"

Then came Julian’s comforting murmurs to her, and their footsteps fading away.

I was locked in the pitch-black room.

Darkness and isolation swallowed me like a cold tide.

I cried until my throat was raw, then curled up in the corner, clutching my knees, shivering.

Why?

Why didn't Julian believe me?

I tried so hard to be good.

Why did he only believe Victoria?

In the mirror on the wall, I saw my pathetic reflection.

A girl with messy hair, a tear-stained face—a broken little freak.

I stared at my reflection, looking into my own bloodshot eyes.

But underneath the terror and the hurt, there was... a spark.

Something long forgotten, buried deep in the recesses of my mind, was beginning to wake up.

Suddenly, flashes of the fire from five years ago rushed into my brain.

The roaring flames, the suffocating black smoke, the searing heat...

Julian didn't carry me out.

It was me. I had used every ounce of my strength to push his larger body out of the collapsing doorway.

And then, the burning support beam fell, crashing directly onto my skull.