Chapter 2

I could only watch as they dumped my body into the basement.

The bodyguards shut and locked the heavy iron door behind them.

The basement fell silent.

I hovered above my body and reached for my pale face.

My hand passed straight through it.

I froze and stared at my translucent hands.

So it was true. I was dead.

I had died on Christmas night, a night when families were supposed to be together.

I had died right in front of the people I loved most.

Grief swallowed me whole, but I no longer had tears to cry.

An invisible force pulled me upstairs.

Warm light filled the living room, where my family sat together on the couch, safe and comfortable.

The coffee table was covered with delicious cakes and fruit.

Edward knelt beside Lillian with a first-aid kit, carefully bandaging the tiny scratch on her wrist. It hadn't even bled.

"Does it hurt? I'll be gentler."

Lillian bit her lower lip and shook her head, her eyes red.

"It doesn't hurt. It's just... why would Chloe do this to me? If I left, would she stop being angry?"

She pretended to get up.

Katherine grabbed her arm and burst into tears.

"Don't be ridiculous! This is your home. You're not going anywhere."

Arthur cut in angrily, his face grim. "If Chloe hadn't thrown a tantrum over ice cream that day, you never would have gone missing. And now she has the nerve to attack you? She's rotten to the core!"

I hovered near the ceiling, listening to them tear me apart. Every word cut deeper.

To my parents, I had always been the bad child. Lillian had learned young that crying could get her anything. Whenever she did something wrong, she blamed me and played the victim.

When she ruined Katherine's favorite lipstick, she shoved it into my hand and cried that I'd done it.

When she broke Arthur's favorite model, she pointed at me and swore I'd smashed it.

When Lillian accidentally ate peanuts and had an allergic reaction, she claimed I had made her eat them.

At first, I fought desperately to clear my name. But all Lillian had to do was cry, and everyone believed her.

Gradually, the love in Arthur's eyes turned to disappointment.

They always said, "You disappoint us more every day. Why do you keep bullying your sister?"

But Lillian had been chasing a balloon vendor that day.

I chased her as fast as I could, but someone knocked me down in the crowd.

By the time I got up, she was gone.

I was eight years old.

I ran home crying. Katherine gave me a hard slap across the face.

"And you're still lying?! Lillian is such a good girl. How could she possibly have wandered off on her own?"

From that day on, I became the villain in my family.

They blamed me for Lillian's disappearance.

At ten, I came down with a high fever in the middle of the night.

Katherine opened my bedroom door. Instead of taking me to the hospital, she stood beside my bed and stared down at me coldly.

"Faking another illness to make me pity you? Don't even think about it."

Even after Lillian came home, nothing changed.

I watched Edward gently wrap gauze around Lillian's wrist, anger burning in his eyes.

"People like Chloe don't deserve sympathy. A few days in the basement will teach her a lesson."

Lillian leaned into Katherine, a smug smile barely touching her lips.

She said softly, "Edward, don't talk about my sister that way. The basement is freezing. What if Chloe gets sick down there?"

Edward scoffed, ruffled her hair, and turned to our maid, Amy Carter. "She's tough. A little cold won't kill her. Amy, shut off the heater and water in the basement. If she's going to learn her lesson, she might as well learn it the hard way."