But I was so weak I couldn't even lift my arm.
Just as my fingertips were about to reach my phone, I heard footsteps.
Someone walked over and took my phone away.
I tried to see who it was, but everything went black.
I came to in a place that smelled like disinfectant and rust—a shabby clinic, fluorescent light buzzing above me, and Ernest sitting in the chair beside me.
"Agatha," he said, voice dripping with mockery, "I saved you again."
"So why are you always so ungrateful?"
I asked weakly, "How have I been ungrateful?"
He didn't answer.
He turned to the clinic doctor instead. "Finished? If the bleeding's stopped, we're leaving."
The doctor hesitated. "The bleeding has stopped for now, but..."
Ernest didn't wait for him to finish. He grabbed my arm and hauled me off the bed.
I stumbled, and he shoved me into the car.
"Where are we going?" I managed.
He didn't answer.
Everything blurred, swaying and dark, until the car stopped.
I saw Phoenix Terrace outside the window.
I froze. Phoenix Terrace?
Wasn't this where my birth parents were holding the banquet?
Where they were going to introduce me to high society?
Why had Ernest brought me here? Was he going to meet my parents?
Before I could think it through, he dragged me out of the car.
"Maggie, I brought Agatha." He walked into a private suite.
Something inside me went cold.
When I was thrown inside, I saw a group of women in gowns.
Maggie was beautifully dressed, the obvious center of them all, every eye already on her.
The moment she saw me, she recoiled as if something filthy had been dragged in. "Ernest, get this awful woman away from me. I don't want to see her."
But Ernest had me by the hair. "Maggie, I'm right here. Don't be scared."
He stared into my eyes, cold. "Agatha—you went online and called Maggie a mistress. What the hell is wrong with you?"
I shook my head weakly. "I didn't."
Ernest scoffed. "If it wasn't you, then who? You think making up garbage like that is funny?"
He stood up and pulled out a marriage certificate in front of everyone. "Maggie and I are legally married."
"She's my wife. And this one—" he pointed down at me, "—she's not even worth calling a mistress. Don't believe a word she says."
As if to prove how serious he was, Ernest bent down and slapped me hard across the face.
I collapsed onto the floor and didn't move.
That slap—fine. Call it repayment for what he did for me when we were children.
Maggie walked over, tears in her voice. "Agatha, Ernest and I are married. Why would you post those lies?"
I said quietly, "It wasn't me."
Maggie leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Of course I know it wasn't you."
"I posted it myself—so Ernest would hate you, so he'd humiliate you in front of all of them."
"You want to know why I had him bring you here?"
"There's a banquet tonight. All the upper-class families will be here."
"I'm going to make sure every single one of them knows you're a mistress. You'll never recover from this."
I stared at her, eyes wide.
Suddenly Maggie screamed, crying out, "Why did you bite me?!"
Ernest flew into a rage and kicked me in the lower stomach.
He beat me without mercy, as if every scrap of his rage needed somewhere to land.
