Chapter 4

Only silence answered him.

Ralph, his eyes red, rushed into the room, yanked the blankets off the bed, then threw open the wardrobe and flung all my clothes out.

At last his gaze landed on the family photo on the table.

It showed Mom and Dad holding me when I was five, with my two brothers standing beside them. It was the only photo of all of us together.

"No! Don't!"

I spread my arms to try to block my furious brother, but I couldn't touch him.

Ralph walked straight through my body and tore the photo to shreds.

"Jean Henson, you wicked seed! You ruined Grandma's resting place—what right do you have to keep this family photo? You don't deserve it!"

He roared at the empty room, his voice nearly overflowing with hatred.

Then he threw the little dress and the bracelet Mom had given me into the fire, and the flames swallowed the things that carried my precious memories.

I clutched my chest, my heart turning cold inch by inch.

So it turned out the most painful revenge wasn't the beating or the cursing—it was their certainty that I was guilty, while I didn't even get a chance to defend myself.

Cassandra pulled the same trick again, pretending to comfort him. "Ralph, don't make yourself sick over this. The most urgent thing right now is to find Jean. Maybe she has some reason for all this."

"It's raining so hard out there, and you hurt her too. I'm afraid something might really happen to her."

"Forget about her!" My second brother, who had been silent this whole time, spoke up. He looked calmly at the wreckage all over the room, then turned and picked up my cat.

This was the kitten Samuel had given me to help heal my post-traumatic stress disorder. It had kept me company through every hard day and night.

Panicking, I knelt on the floor and kowtowed again and again. "Samuel, I was wrong—please, spare it."

But he couldn't hear me, and he couldn't see me.

He lifted the kitten high and hurled it off the twelfth floor.

"Jean Henson, a person as vicious as you doesn't deserve to keep a cat! I'm going to make you taste what it's like to lose what you love most."

I stood frozen in place, too grief-stricken to make a sound.

The next second, a familiar ringtone broke the silence of the room, and Ralph answered the phone.

The voice on the other end was rushed and grating. "The girl who was tending the grave with you earlier today—she's dead up on the mountain!"