Chapter 2

"No!"

Summer jolted awake from the excruciating pain of being burned alive.

"What's wrong, Summer?"

A familiar face loomed before her.

Rose?

Summer's eyes wavered. Something wasn't quite right. It had been years since she saw Rose looking barefaced and innocent.

She scanned her surroundings quickly and froze. It seemed she had returned to the day before her 18th birthday—six years ago. On that day, Rose took her to a bar to celebrate her birthday.

She stared down at her hands, expecting to see them wrinkled and wounded, only to find them looking fair and smooth.

It dawned on her that she had traveled back to the start of her tragic life.

"I've gotten you a glass of lemonade from the bar. Take some lemonade. You'll feel better." Looking concerned, Rose handed Summer a drink.

Summer stared at the drink as chills traveled down her spine. In her past life, she recalled blacking out after taking that drink.

When she pieced together fragments of her memories, she recounted being dragged to a filthy alley by a group of men, who proceeded to undress her and took many photos of her.

She was too naive and too trusting of Rose at that time. Hence, she never thought Rose would spike her drink.

Not only that, but she did not even tell her family that it was Rose who brought her to the bar on that fateful night after Rose pleaded with her to keep it a secret.

Memories from the last six years flashed across Summer's mind. The nude photos of her from that night in the alley were leaked on the day of her coming-of-age ceremony. Anyone could find those photos via a quick search online.

As such, rumors of Summer being gang-raped spread like wildfire across the city, and no one believed that she was still unsullied.

Following that, she lost her parents in a deadly car crash, where their bodies were badly mangled. Then, she had a fallout with Henry over her decision to marry Anthony.

Finally, she was sent away to a mental institution, where she was subjected to unspeakable torture every day.

At the end of her life, she remembered her dying, the despairing Henry in the hospital, and the fire that took their lives. Her chest tightened in resentment. She vowed not to repeat her mistakes now that she was blessed with a second chance.

"Rose, I'm feeling a little cold. Could you grab me a shawl?" Summer requested.

"Sure!" A hint of annoyance flashed across Rose's eyes. She set down the drink and looked for the shawl for her.

Summer lowered her gaze with a smirk on her lips. Before Anthony tricked her into signing the stock transfer agreement, Rose had always fulfilled all her requests.

With a poker face, she swapped her drink with Rose's.

A while later, Rose returned with the shawl, which she gently and carefully draped across Summer's shoulders. At present, she looked nothing like the depraved woman who tortured Summer at the mental institution.

"Rose, I am grateful to you for always being so nice to me and taking care of me." Summer raised her glass with an innocent smile. "Let's make a toast with our non-alcoholic drinks! Cheers!"

Rose, anxious to see Summer chug the spiked drink, enthusiastically raised her glass and clicked it against Summer's. She snickered inwardly, thinking Summer was a fool for even suggesting to toast.

On the surface, she said to Summer, "I'll always treat you well, Summer. We are sisters forever!"

With that, she downed the contents in her glass.

Summer watched on and slowly finished her own drink.

Rose's eyes sparkled with excitement and glee. She mistakenly thought her evil plan had succeeded.

It was that moment that Summer suddenly smiled at Rose. Her smile looked rather haunting and eerie under the illumination of the dazzling lights in the bar.

Taken aback, Rose did a double take, but Summer had returned to her annoyingly naive and innocent self.

…

In the downpour, a few men dragged Rose into the filthy alley behind the bar. She was motionless and limp.

Summer watched from afar in her cap. In her past life, those men had been hired by Rose to drag her into the same alley where they took the appalling photos of her.

To win Summer's trust, Rose did not instruct the men to sully Summer. All they did was take photos of her. When the whole world believed Summer was sexually assaulted, only Rose "stood by her side".

Summer nearly retched when she thought back on how touched she was by Rose's "support".

Back in the present, she handed one of the greasy men a note. She stated, "I've changed my mind. Do whatever you want to her, as long as you don't kill her. By the way, I don't want photos. Take videos instead and send them to this email address."

After what Rose had inflicted on her, she wouldn't be satisfied with getting even. She wanted Rose to suffer a worse fate than her!

"Don't worry! We have some pretty potent drug here, and we promise we'll keep her alive." The disgusting man immediately perked up when he was told to do whatever he wanted to Rose.

Summer walked away without another word as the men's lewd conversation continued behind her.

The neon lights from afar cast a long shadow behind her. She glanced at her shadow and realized it was shaped like a devil. But that did not bother her, as she was indeed a vengeful spirit from hell.

This was just the beginning.

Right as Summer was about to step out of the alley, a pair of hands reached out for her. Before she knew it, the man had pulled her into darkness and dragged her into a narrow space between two buildings—the buildings on the bar street were built very closely next to each other.

Pressing Summer against the textured surface of the wall, the man covered her mouth. "Shh!"

Their bodies almost pressed against each other in the narrow space.

In the confusion, she soon heard some footsteps passing by outside. The man shot a sharp, predatory glare at the commotion outside.

In that split second, a ray of light flashed through the space between the buildings and illuminated his face.

Summer had seen that charming face once in her past life. He was Mason.

Although she disliked Mason at that time, she was in awe of his good looks.