Chapter 2

By the time the pain nearly knocked me unconscious, Xenia kept searching the room.

She was thorough and relentless. She won't leave a single corner untouched. She was determined to dig up every piece of evidence against me.

Finally, she kicked the bed aside and reached for a dusty metal box.

My heart seized.

No.

What was inside that box mattered more than my life.

"Don't touch that!"

I didn't know where the strength came from, but I crawled toward her.

My sudden desperation shocked Xenia into a pause. Then, the mockery in her eyes deepened. She kicked me aside with ease and flipped open the latch.

Inside the box was a word journal and a police badge carefully wrapped in red cloth.

She picked up the journal and flipped through it casually.

Every page recorded the pain and medication dosages during my chemotherapy.

"March 7th, clear. 80 milligrams of OxyContin. It hurts.

"March 9th, cloudy. Morphine injection. It hurt so much I wanted to die. I thought I saw Xenia on the street today. She's still just as beautiful as the first time I saw her.

"March 15th, rain. Increased dosage. It feels like my bones are going to break."

She let out a cold laugh and held the journal up to the camera.

"Look at what we have here. It's a junkie's diary."

She read the line about me seeing her. Her voice was dripping with ridicule. "Were you having hallucinations from being high? Why were you still thinking about me? You're disgusting, Caleb."

She tossed the journal straight into the trash can in the corner of the room.

Then, she picked up the badge wrapped in cloth.

It was my dad's. He had been her mentor.

The moment she saw it, her expression turned ice-cold.

"You don't deserve to keep this," she said, walking toward me. "You're the son of a fallen officer, yet you've turned into a parasite on society. What would your dad think?"

I shook my head desperately, tears mixing with sweat. "No… You're wrong…"

She didn't listen to me at all and pulled a lighter from her pocket.

A blue flame flickered to life.

She set the journal on fire right in front of me.

I lunged for it, but she stomped down on my hand and ground it into the floor.

Sounds of bone shattering filled the air as I let out a scream of agony.

"Watch," she ordered.

She forced me to look at the pages curled and blackened. "What's the point of keeping this journal? So people know what a piece of trash you were after you die? Or maybe you wanted everyone to know that I once dated a drug-addicted criminal?"

The flames devoured the paper. It felt like they were burning straight through my bones.

Aaron spoke up. "Ms. Jensen's right. That journal's just trash. Burning it is the right thing to do."

I lay on the ground with my hand pinned beneath her foot.

I stopped struggling and screaming.

I just stared at the fire until the last page of the book turned to ash.

That journal was the last thing I had left to prove I was innocent.

Now, it was gone.

…

At dawn the next day, two officers dragged me out of the apartment.

24 hours of forced withdrawal had left me too weak to even stand.