Chapter 3

"Clara, let’s not talk about this. Can you call Hazel for me? Please, beg her to donate the kidney. For Chloe’s sake."

Chloe’s face was pale, and she still hadn't woken up. My mother’s heart was breaking; she wished she could take Chloe's place on that hospital bed.

Sarah was a good mother.

Just never to me.

Clara sighed, pulling out her phone to call my number.

It had indeed been a long time since we last spoke.

"Hello? Is this Hazel’s family?"

Clara said yes, but an officer's voice answered.

"I am so sorry to inform you... Hazel has passed away."

"We need you to come down to the precinct. There are some details we need to clear up."

My mother snatched the phone from Clara’s hand, instantly snapping:

"Tell Hazel that if she keeps playing these pathetic games, she can forget about ever coming home!"

"Selfish, manipulative brat! Don't you dare call yourself my daughter!"

She slammed the phone down before the officer could respond.

My mother was shaking with rage. "You see that? She’ll invent any lie, even her own death, just to get out of donating her kidney!"

"She’s just as selfish as her useless father. I should have thrown her in a dumpster the moment she was born!"

Floating in the air, I shook my head violently, tears pouring down my face.

No, Mom. No. I didn't lie.

Four years ago, when she demanded my kidney, I told her I had cancer. I told her I couldn't donate.

But she had screamed at me:

"Why do you think I raised you for eighteen years?!"

"If your organs weren't a match for Chloe, I would have dumped you at an orphanage the day you were born!"

"You're just like that animal who fathered you. You want everything, but you'll give nothing!"

Chloe had been sickly since birth. To be safe, my mother had me thoroughly tested when I was a child.

I remember being so happy, thinking my mother finally cared about my health. I couldn't sleep a wink from excitement.

Only when I grew up did I realize those tests were to see if my organs matched Chloe’s. I was only four years old.

My mother marched back into the precinct. "Officer Davis, I want to file a report."

Her face was dark.

"My daughter, Hazel, is missing. She’s twenty-five. She’s not answering her phone or texts. She’s completely off the grid."

She refused to believe the police couldn't track me down.

This time, she would force me to give up that kidney, whether I wanted to or not.

"Hazel?" Davis blinked. "Do you have a photo?"

How could my mother have a photo of me on her phone?

Her gallery had thousands of photos, every single one of Chloe.

Eventually, Clara found an old photo of us from a few years ago on her own phone.

Seeing me smiling so happily in the picture only fueled my mother’s disgust.

I always had a straight face around her, but I knew how to smile for Clara.

I only ever called her for money, and now that Chloe needed me, I went missing.

Just like my biological father, who fled the moment he found out she was pregnant, moving overnight so she couldn't find him.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.

"Wait..." Davis’s eyes widened in utter disbelief.

"Dr. Sarah... she was your daughter?!"

The girl with late-stage cancer who just committed suicide in the park... was your daughter?!

My mother’s brow furrowed, a sudden, chilling dread washing over her.

"You know her? How do you know Hazel?"

Her eyes darkened, and she grabbed Davis’s arm in a vice grip.

"Speak! How do you know her? Where is she?!"

Had I really run to the police station? Had I brought my pathetic begging for money to her workplace?

Her gaze turned lethal. If I were standing there, she would have torn me to pieces.

"Dr. Sarah!"

Marcus and Luke rushed over, their faces grim.

"Dr. Sarah... we just confirmed. The female body found in the park this morning... is your daughter, Hazel."