Chapter 4

I'd been living inside one massive lie this whole time.

Seeing my bloodshot eyes, Kate smiled smugly. Then, right in front of me, she slipped the shoes onto her feet.

As Oliver's and Tim's footsteps drew closer, she suddenly screamed, "Ow! Sienna, why would you put a thumbtack in my shoe?"

The two men kicked the door open and burst in.

"Kate!"

Oliver carefully eased off her ballet shoe. Sure enough, a thumbtack was stuck in her foot, smeared with her blood.

"Sienna, you still can't stand Kate? I see you haven't fixed that rotten attitude of yours!"

Tim yanked me over and slapped me hard across the face. "Did you throw everything Mom and Dad taught you to the dogs? You have no manners at all!"

Immediately, the coppery taste of blood spread through my mouth.

I stubbornly glared into his eyes. "I didn't put a thumbtack in her shoe. She did it herself!"

He froze. Kate immediately dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the floor in front of me. "Sienna, if you say it was me, then it was me. I'll do whatever you say.

"Just please don't treat me like this anymore. I'll never dance again. I'll give you every honor I've ever won, okay?"

Oliver hurried to help her up and glared at me viciously. "You still dare to argue? Tell me, what did you threaten Kate with? Do you want me to send you back to prison?"

In the heat of the moment, he didn't even realize what he'd let slip. All he cared about was whether a few more tears had rolled down Kate's face.

All at once, my face turned ghostly pale. Beads of sweat as big as peas formed on my forehead and dripped onto the floor one after another.

My vision blurring, I fumbled for my pill bottle, but a leather shoe stomped down on it.

Seeing that the label identified the medication as a painkiller, Oliver's lips stiffened. He tipped the pills onto the floor and ground every last one to powder under his heel. "You think you can fool us with painkillers? If you're really suffering, Sienna, prove it!"

With that, he waved someone over to pour an entire box of thumbtacks into the ballet shoes, then forced them onto my feet.

My bloodcurdling scream echoed through the entire dance studio.

The pain inside my body and the pain in my feet hit me like ten thousand arrows at once. I wished I were dead.

Through my blurring vision, all I could see were their backs as the two of them escorted Kate away.

After they left, the men who'd kidnapped me back then showed up one after another. They forced me to dance for them in those tack-filled shoes.

Gritting my teeth, I stood and was made to spin in place.

The floor was covered in blood.

The studio's big screen showed Oliver gathering the city's top doctors to examine Kate together. "If this wound keeps Kate out of the competition, I'll tear this hospital apart!"

Tim kept texting me, telling me to go die somewhere far away and not show my face before Kate's competition.

Looking at my reflection swaying in the mirror, on the verge of collapse, I smiled, finally at peace.

When I woke up again, the specialist I knew best was standing over me.

He said a lot of things to me and told me not to be afraid.

Those might have been the last kind words I'd ever hear in this world.

Around the corner in the hallway, a crowd of reporters swarmed Kate, interviewing her about the upcoming dance competition.

Oliver and Tim flanked her, one on each side like a pair of devoted bodyguards, smiling at her with a tenderness in their eyes I'd never seen before.

But when they saw the doctor hurriedly wheeling me past, the color drained from their faces. Their voices came out hoarse, as if squeezed from their throats. "Sienna?

"Where... where are you taking Sienna?"

I had no strength left to answer. I gave them one disappointed look, then let my eyes fall shut completely.