Chapter 2

My other classmates also came up to me and pulled me along.

"Belle's about to die, and you're still in the mood for studying?"

"The entrance exams aren't as important as Belle's life!"

"If anything happens to Belle, I don't even want to live my life anymore, let alone sit for the entrance exams!"

Mom and Dad were working overtime at the office, and there was nobody else at home. My neighbors never came out to check on the commotion either.

With the bunch of boys pushing and pulling me along, I nearly tripped and fell.

"I really don't know where Isabelle is! There's no point for you to drag me along!"

Tyson didn't believe me. "You definitely know where she's at! You'd better come with us to look for her!"

Thinking about the bloody scene that happened the last time I protested in my previous life, I immediately said, "If you keep doing this, I'm going to call the police!"

Just as I took out my phone, Tyson snatched it from my hands. He then glared at me and yelled, "What are you calling the police for? All that studying has obviously made you go crazy!

"I'll only give this back to you after we've found Belle!"

The gang of boys then forcefully dragged me along to look for Isabelle everywhere. However, we spent the entire night looking, and we still couldn't find a trace of her.

At that moment, Tyson's phone buzzed for a while. He looked at it and suddenly yelled, "Belle is in the mountains! We'd better hurry there and save her!"

Isabelle had sent Tyson a photo in the mountains.

When I heard that they were going into the mountains to look for her, I began struggling even harder. However, Tyson still grabbed tightly onto my arm and refused to let go of me.

I was forcibly taken into the mountains as well.

When we were halfway up the mountain, everyone started complaining that it was too tiring and voted to rest for a while before continuing uphill.

It was a hot evening to start with, and I was completely covered in a layer of sweat.

Suddenly, my phone rang loudly.

I reached my hand out to Tyson. "That's my mom. Give me back my phone."

Tyson's eyes grew steely as he flung my phone onto the ground in rage.

"Alicia Rosewood, don't even think about getting your mom to bring you back. I'm telling you, I'll never let you return without finding Belle!"

I stared at the shattered screen of my phone lying on the ground and felt my heart sink.

I'd been studying so hard for years, especially in my senior year, because I wanted to ace my entrance exams and pass with flying colors.

Mom and Dad worked hard all day and night to earn enough money to send me to a decent high school. They worked so much that the hair on their heads was beginning to turn gray. All they wanted was for me to do well in my examinations and make them proud.

I had to go and sit for my entrance exams tomorrow, by hook or by crook. Nothing was going to stop me.

I refused to let Tyson ruin my life again. I had to find a way to get off this mountain!

As the thought crossed my mind, I pushed Tyson away with all my might and said, "I'm going back down!"

"No way. We'll only let you go back down after we've found Belle."

Just as soon as he was done speaking, the sky turned dark as ominous clouds gathered overhead. It looked like there was going to be a storm coming.

A few classmates were starting to chicken out when they saw the overcast clouds.

"Maybe we should stop looking for Belle. The weather doesn't look so good. What if it starts to rain?"

"That's right. The roads are going to be very slippery, and it'll be hard to get back down the mountain. It would be bad if we miss the exams tomorrow."

"Mom just sent me a text. She asked me where I was and told me to come home earlier to bed. Maybe we should just go back home."

Tyson glared at me and told everyone else, "What are you all getting anxious about? We usually score the highest marks of our year in mock tests anyway. We're all top-performing students at school. Even if we're late for the exams, the teacher's still going to have to let us in no matter what."

I wanted to call him a moron for that.

The entrance exams were so much more different than the mock tests we sat for in school. And even if they were indeed the best students in school, they still wouldn't be treated any differently from the others come examination time.

However, the rest of the classmates believed him and nodded.

"He's right. Tyson's the best student in the entire school. Even if we're late, the teachers will still have to let us in because of him!"

"We're top students ourselves too! The entrance exams will have to wait for everyone to arrive before starting anyway!"

"We're saving someone's life today. The school's even going to brand us heroes when they learn about it. What are we afraid of?"

I had just thought about warning them that the entrance exams weren't something to be messed with, but I immediately recalled how Tyson chopped off my limbs and buried me alive in my past life, and how the other boys just stood around watching me with cold, deserving eyes.

None of them offered to help me. In fact, they even told me that I deserved everything that was happening to me, and that killing me was letting me off easy for the gravity of my sins.

Even when the police investigated my death afterward, they all rallied behind Tyson and gave him fake alibis, confirming that he wasn't at the scene of the crime at that time.

They allowed him to get away with murder, literally.

And that made me turn in my grave even after my death, because I simply could not rest in peace.

The more I thought about it, the more it hurt.

When I realized that Tyson was about to forcibly pull me up into the mountains again, I shook his hand off forcefully and took a few steps back. Then, I grabbed a random shard of glass lying on the ground and held it against my neck.

"Tyson Sutherland! If you still refuse to let me go back, I'm going to kill myself now!"