Chapter 4

I was nothing but a tool to them, a pawn they used to keep their daughter in line. Those 14 days of torment, those days when death would have been a mercy, were nothing in their eyes but a means of sending Talia a message.

I stood frozen in place, cold to the core, every breath a sharp ache in my chest.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to throw my head back and howl with it. To laugh at my own stupidity, at how I had still dared to hope they loved me, at how I had actually believed they were just misguided, that they genuinely thought they were doing it for my own good.

Yet before the smile could even reach my lips, the tears fell first, hitting the cold ground and shattering into nothing.

The laughter and celebration around me carried on. Colored lights played across every face in the crowd, and those cheerful expressions, so bright a moment ago, suddenly twisted into something grotesque. They looked exactly like the instructors at the camp.

Every last one of them was wearing a false smile, pushing me closer to hell.

I could not hold it together any longer. The pain in my chest was tearing me apart. I shoved past the people beside me and staggered out of the crowd, running as hard as I could toward the abandoned building where no one went.

The wind screamed past my ears, biting to the bone.

I ran all the way to the rooftop without stopping, gripped the freezing railing, and stood there listening to the distant laughter, looking back in the direction of what was supposed to be 'home'.

There was no longing, no reluctance—only the endless promise of release.

The fireworks split the sky open in that same instant, their light flooding the entire rooftop. I closed my eyes and stepped off the edge.

Pain erupted through every part of my body, as if every bone had shattered on impact. My vision went black, and my consciousness began slipping away, piece by piece.

In the next second, the pain vanished. My body turned weightless, light as a feather, as though it had no substance at all.

I opened my eyes slowly and found myself drifting in midair. I had become a spirit.

There was no grief, only an overwhelming relief that it was finally over, that I would never have to go back to that hell or have to face that family and their lies again.

What I had not expected was that anyone would come to this deserted stretch near the abandoned building.

A young couple walked up hand in hand. The moment they reached the base of the building and saw what was on the concrete, the girl froze for a split second before letting out a piercing scream.

The boy went white and grabbed her, pulling her away as they ran, leaving even their sparklers behind on the ground.

I hovered in the air, watching them flee, and felt a pang of guilt.

I had not meant to frighten anyone. All I wanted was to leave this world quietly. If I had known someone would come by, I would have chosen somewhere else, somewhere they would never have had to see something like this.

I tried to drift farther away, but my body felt tethered by invisible threads, keeping me circling the abandoned building with no way to leave.

Before long, I spotted the same couple huddled under a streetlight by the road. The girl was still crying. The boy held his phone in a shaking hand, his voice trembling as he called the police.

The sirens grew from a distant wail to a blare.

Officers and forensic workers filed in one after another, pulling on white gloves as they approached my body with careful, measured steps.

A little while later, I saw Mom, Dad, and Talia.

They had followed the neighbors over. They must have heard that someone had fallen from the abandoned building and came to see what the commotion was about.

Talia's face drained of color in an instant. Her hands shook as she pulled her phone from her pocket and called my number over and over, but all she got was the same cold, automated voice telling her the number she had dialed was powered off.

She stood rooted to the spot, clutching the phone, her fingertips trembling violently, the same words spilling from her lips again and again.

"It's off. His phone is off..."

Dad swayed on his feet, nearly collapsing, and Mom reached out to steady him. His face was ashen and his eyes wild with panic, but he forced the words out through clenched teeth.

"No. That's not Tommy. Tommy would never do this. He's so well-behaved, and he loves us so much. He'd never jump. He wouldn't leave us. He would never."