Chapter 3

Before Jeremy even sat down, he saw that more than half the food was gone.

He was about to snap, but May shot him a warning look.

He could only sit down and stew in silence.

Hannah looked at May’s family gathered around the table and thought it was a shame.

If they waited a few more minutes, she could have finished everything herself.

"Mom, can you buy me a tablet? Everyone at school has one. Yesterday, Sean and the others showed theirs off and said we’re too poor to afford one. They said they won’t hang out with me anymore!"

“Here it comes,” Hannah thought.

Miles had barely sat down when he noticed how little food remained.

He was annoyed, but he remembered why his mother invited Hannah to dinner.

He put on a wounded expression.

Although he spoke to May, he kept glancing at Hannah, who was still busy eating, to see how she would react.

Unfortunately for him, Hannah only had eyes for the food.

She paid him no attention at all.

"Buy you a tablet? Do you know how expensive those are? Hannah, yours cost around fifteen hundred dollars, didn’t it? We can’t afford that."

May set down her utensils and nudged Hannah beside her.

"Seventeen hundred. There are cheaper ones, though. Plenty cost less than a hundred."

May touched her arm, so Hannah could hardly pretend she did not hear.

"I don’t want some cheap, off-brand tablet! What would Sean and the others think? I’d be embarrassed! I want one like Hannah’s. I want that one!"

Miles threw down his utensils.

His hand knocked a shrimp off a plate and into the trash can beside the table.

Hannah looked at the shrimp and thought it was a shame.

If someone other than Miles or his family dropped it, she would have picked it up and eaten it.

So what if it fell in the trash?

After the apocalypse, there were times when even the trash held nothing to eat!

She wondered whether Miles would remember that shrimp after he learned what real hunger felt like.

"Seventeen hundred dollars! Easy for you to say. How could we afford that?

"We aren’t rich like Hannah. Mum can only buy you one for less than a hundred dollars, Miles. You’ll have to make do. If your friends laugh at you, there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s all our family can afford. Right, Hannah?"

Sherry was a junior in high school, and she envied Hannah more than anyone.

Hannah was beautiful and had a great figure.

Her parents were dead, but they left her a substantial inheritance.

Sherry did not know how much, but her mother said Hannah’s parents were artists.

One painted, and the other danced.

They earned plenty of money!

Hannah must have inherited well over a million dollars.

Sherry saw Hannah dance in her room several times. Her graceful movements made Sherry burn with envy.

She secretly filmed Hannah and tried to copy her later, but she could not even make her arms and legs move together.

"Didn’t I buy you a tablet for over a thousand dollars a few months ago? Miles can use yours. You’re graduating next year anyway, so you should focus on school!

"If you study hard this year and get into a good college, I’m sure Uncle Jeremy will buy you an even better one than mine. He got a raise and a big bonus, didn’t he?"

Hannah burped.

Only a little food remained on the table, so she finally set down her utensils and smiled.

May gave her a puzzled look.

Since when did Jeremy get a raise and a bonus? Why didn’t she know?

And how did Hannah find out?

"What are you talking about? When did I get a raise? What bonus?"

Jeremy’s utensils paused in midair.

He saw the confusion in his wife’s eyes and immediately raised his voice at Hannah.

"Yesterday was Saturday, and I went out with a classmate. I saw Uncle Jeremy at the Gildcrest Hotel. He was checking into a room with a woman from work. I figured they had business to take care of, so I didn’t interrupt."

Hannah scratched her head, then lowered her voice as if she were uncertain, though everyone at the table could still hear her.

"Did I mistake him for someone else? But I’m sure it was Uncle Jeremy. How could I get that wrong?"

The moment Hannah mentioned the Gildcrest Hotel and the check-in desk, Jeremy’s mind went blank.

He wanted to slap Hannah and shut her up!

Then he saw May beside Hannah.

Her eyes were red, and her anger looked ready to erupt.

May trembled all over, as though she might lunge at him at any moment.

Hannah spent yesterday in her rented apartment studying her storage space.

She had no time to visit the Gildcrest Hotel.

She learned about the affair in her previous life, when Jeremy’s mistress came to the apartment and told her herself.

Hannah did not know whether the hotel visit happened yesterday.

She did not even know if the woman worked with him.

But it happened before today for sure!

The affair was real, and May could find out the details for herself.

Hannah did not need to worry about that.

She finished most of the food and lit the fuse.

Hannah rubbed her full stomach. She couldn’t bear to stay with this family a moment longer.

She pulled out a napkin, wiped her mouth, then went straight to the entryway, grabbed her suitcases, and left.

She knew the family was too distracted to stop her. The tablet was no longer her problem.

Hannah closed the front door and looked back one last time.

If the complex stood on higher ground and her apartment were above the fifth floor, Hannah never would have left.

Hannah did not know that by the time she stepped into the elevator, the apartment had become a battlefield.

May saw the guilt on Jeremy’s face and could no longer contain her anger.

She lunged at him and clawed his face.

Jeremy kept insisting that Hannah lied to turn them against each other!

He really went away on business yesterday. He never set foot in the Gildcrest Hotel.

May refused to listen. She snatched his phone.

As she searched through it, she discovered a locked private folder.

May threatened to divorce him unless he opened it.

What she found inside was obscene.

Her husband’s messages with his mistress were lewd enough to make anyone blush.

They even took photos and videos of themselves fooling around in hotel rooms.

May flew into a rage.

She grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to chop off Jeremy’s manhood.

Sherry and Miles pretended not to notice their parents fighting.

In Sherry’s room, the siblings fought over the tablet Hannah bought Sherry for more than a thousand dollars.

They even came to blows!

Hannah did not see any of this, but she could guess what happened.

After living through the apocalypse once, she knew exactly what kind of people they were.

Hannah’s parents died shortly after she turned eighteen.

At the time, she resented them.

She thought they abandoned her for the thrill of climbing a snowy mountain, only to be buried beneath the snow.

May did not share her surname.

After Hannah’s grandmother died, her grandfather remarried.

May was his new wife’s daughter.