Ten months I carried her. A piece of my own flesh, torn from my body.
How could it not hurt?
And still,
her own father had killed her.
Even had the skin stripped from her face and given to someone else.
The pain was unbearable. I held her until her body went cold, then stumbled home in a daze and found the little white dress she'd loved most when she was alive, and changed her into it.
The next morning, at the cremation, I placed my daughter into the furnace with my own hands.
The girl who used to run to me calling “Mommy! Mommy!”
was now a handful of ashes, sealed inside a tiny box.
I couldn't hold back anymore. I broke down sobbing.
Then a shadow fell over me.
I looked up, dazed, and saw Effie Swanson walking toward me with two small children in her arms, her face bright with triumph.
She glanced at the box in my hands and sneered：
“Oh, so she's finally dead. I guess it was worth hiding the twins in that toy-store cabinet after all. Almost suffocated them!”
“Oh, and did you know? Yesterday, when I had people take the skin off your daughter's face for the graft, Julius didn't even blink. He was too busy fussing over a little scrape on our baby's foot!”
“Doesn't that just make you sick, Eve?”
She clapped her hands together as she spoke, delighted with herself.
Something detonated inside me—a white-hot rip through my gut, my vision flooding red. I grabbed a fistful of Effie's hair and slammed her head into the wall.
Again and again, without mercy.
Blood covered her face. The children in her arms were screaming.
But she didn't care. She just smiled, taunting：
“You think this is revenge for your daughter? Dream on.”
Before I could react, she shoved both children's hands into the furnace. Their fingers blackened instantly.
Then she dropped to her knees in front of me, sobbing：
“Eve, I was wrong. I know I shouldn't have let Julius fall for me, but the children are innocent……Please, just let them go. You can punish me however you want……”
Julius arrived to exactly that scene, and without a word, backhanded me across the face.
“Eve Henson!”
“How dare you keep hurting them—did I give you permission to act like this?”
I lay sprawled on the ground, and a bitter laugh scraped out of me.
Such pathetic acting. But Julius didn't even ask. He'd already convicted me.
Seeing me like that only deepened the disgust on his face：
“It's that rotten character of yours—no wonder your daughter turned out just like you, selfish through and through!”
The mention of my daughter split something open inside me, and I screamed at him：
“Don't you dare speak her name, Julius Gilbert! You killed her! You don't get to say her name!”
My grief was too raw to be faked, and he hesitated, just for a moment, as if about to say something.
But Effie shrank into his arms, her voice small and pitiful：“Julius, the babies are so upset. Their little chick died today and they were already heartbroken, and then she did this to them.”
“And I can barely breathe—she said she put something filthy in that box to curse me, something she got from outside. It has to be working.”
The doubt on his face vanished. In its place, cold stone.
He picked up the box from the floor, opened it, and saw the ashes inside. Rage overtook him.
“You did this on purpose, didn't you, Eve?
“Brought this disgusting stuff just to scare them!”
“I really misjudged you—you're not just selfish, you're rotten to the core!
Julius looked at the urn, and his face went cruel.
I shook my head frantically, begging, pleading：
“Don't——”
“Julius, that's our daughter's……”
Before I could finish, his arm swung wide and the urn dropped straight into the fire basin beside us—gone in an instant, without a trace.
“No——!”
I screamed until something in my throat gave out, threw myself at the basin and shoved my hands into the flames, clawing desperately for anything at all.
Blisters swelled across my arms, scorched skin splitting open,
and still I couldn't find a single grain of my daughter's ashes……
I collapsed flat against the ground, screaming until my throat tore. Julius looked at me the way you'd look at a lunatic, then turned, wrapped his arms around Effie and the two children, and left.
He left me with one line：：
“Enough! Cut the act. I found a donor for Stella—she's getting her heart transplant next week.”
I said nothing.
I just held the charred, discolored wooden box against my chest.
Once he was gone, I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in a long time：
“You've always wanted to bring Julius Gilbert down. I can help you. But you have to agree to one condition.”
One week later, Julius arrived at the hospital with the donor heart, heading straight for the ward.
He pushed open the door. The room was empty.
His stomach dropped.
He was reaching for his phone when Noah Carter burst in, face white as paper.
“Mr. Gilbert, I asked the doctors. They said your daughter passed away a week ago!”
