"Enough!"
Sarah Winfield froze where she stood, pinned by the disappointment in Judy Winfield's eyes.
Judy pressed a hand to her chest, her voice breaking with grief. "If I'd known you couldn't stand the sight of Jocelyn, I'd have rather my own daughter had died!"
The words landed like a stone. Sarah went rigid.
When she'd first been brought back into the family, Judy had been kind to her too, gentle and tender. Even so, it had never come close to how she treated Jocelyn.
Sarah understood now. Even if she played them the recording, they wouldn't repent. They'd only despise her for being a scheming, calculating thing.
She drew in a slow breath. If that was how it was, then there was no reason left to spare their dignity for the sake of some so-called family ties.
She switched on the camera built into her recorder.
The barbed rattan cane came down on her without mercy, and her skin was soon torn to a bloody mess.
She forced her head up and saw their faces clearly. Cold. Contemptuous.
By the ninety-ninth stroke, Sarah was soaked through with cold sweat. Only once she was sure the whole punishment had been captured did she let herself pass out, at peace.
She woke in the hospital. Ralph Sanchez was gently dressing the wounds on her arm.
"Sarah, you're awake. Does it still hurt? I had the doctor give you painkillers."
He tended to her with painstaking care, bringing her the chicken soup from her favorite place, trying to feed her.
Sarah knocked the soup aside and turned her face away.
"You saw it. You saw the whole thing. You saw Jocelyn fall on her own. Why? Why did you lie?"
Her voice was ice as she demanded it. Before, she could still convince herself that none of them knew she'd been falsely accused, that that was why they always took Jocelyn's side.
But now Ralph had watched every second of it, and he'd still chosen Jocelyn. It left her lost in a deep, bewildering fog.
Then what had those five years of suffering been for?
"Why? Just tell me why," she said at last, no longer sure whether she was demanding it of Ralph or of her father and mother.
"Ralph, I'm your wife. I'm a person too. Why do you all defend Jocelyn, over and over again? Why?"
Sarah was in agony, and she was demanding an answer for the woman she'd been in her last life.
When she moved as if to tear out her IV line, Ralph caught her hand. "Sarah, calm down."
He pulled her in to soothe her, his voice low. "Listen to me. I had my reasons. You're the Winfields' real daughter. No one will ever do anything to you. But Jocelyn was adopted. If Uncle and Aunt Winfield found out, how would she go on living?"
"So?" Sarah steadied herself and asked it back, cool on the surface, though something in her face was quietly coming apart. "So you chose to let her slander me, chose to make my life miserable. Is that it?"
"You knew. You knew none of them like me!"
Ralph held her tighter, promising it again and again. "Don't cry. You still have me, Sarah. I'll never betray you. I won't ever let you get hurt again."
Liar. All of them, liars. Ralph was Jocelyn's accomplice.
Sarah scoffed inwardly and pushed his hand away, exhausted. "Get out. I'm tired. I want to rest."
"And there won't be any 'again' for us."
There hadn't been in her last life. There wouldn't be in this one.
Ralph didn't catch the second part. He tucked the blanket around her and said gently, "Then rest well."
At the door, Ralph suddenly pressed a hand to his chest, gripped by the feeling that he'd lost something important.
He turned and stared, unwavering, at Sarah's serene, sleeping face.
It was fine. Sarah loved him to the bone. Whatever he did, she would forgive him.
Once the door shut, Sarah opened her eyes, transferred the footage to her phone, and sent a copy to Lawyer Simmons.
"Once the divorce goes through, I'm suing Rolf Winfield for domestic abuse."
The pain she'd endured last life, she would pay back this time, piece by piece.
