Chapter 4

AMBER 

I gripped the steering wheel so hard my hands hurt. I kept thinking about Jade’s face when I threw her against that red car. I kept thinking about Evelyn’s shocked expression in the restaurant. I had won those battles, but the war was still happening. My heart felt like a drum beating inside my chest.

I looked at the rusty key sitting on the passenger seat. Who sent it? Who knew about the accident? Who knew about the lake house? It felt like someone was watching me from the shadows, playing a game. But I did not care. I needed the truth more than I needed to be safe.

The lake house was a place Justine and I bought three years ago. We used to go there to hide from the world. It was supposed to be our happy place. But after the baby died, we never went back. Justine told me he lost the keys. He told me it was too painful to go there because it reminded him of the future we lost.

"Liar," I whispered to the empty car. 

"Everything you said was a lie."

I turned onto the dirt path that led to the house. The tires of my car made a crunching sound on the dry leaves. The house stood at the edge of the dark water. It looked sad and old. The wooden walls were peeling, and the windows looked like empty eyes. I parked the car and stepped out. The air was cold and smelled like wet wood and dead leaves.

I walked up to the front door. My legs felt heavy, like I was walking through water. I put the rusty key into the lock. It made a loud clicking sound. The door creaked open.

The inside of the house was dusty and smelled like old paper. I used the flashlight on my phone to see. The light bounced off the covered furniture. It looked like a graveyard of memories. I walked past the kitchen and the living room. I was looking for the door to the basement.

I found it behind a heavy curtain. The door was made of thick wood. I pushed it open and a cloud of dust hit my face. I coughed and stepped onto the wooden stairs. Each step I took made a loud *groan*. It felt like the house was warning me to turn back.

But I didn't turn back. I couldn't.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, the air became even colder. I moved the light of my phone around the room. There were boxes piled high and old tools hanging on the walls. In the corner, I saw a small metal desk. It was the only thing in the room that didn't have a thick layer of dust on it.

I walked to the desk. On top of it sat a black laptop and a stack of medical papers. I picked up the papers first. My breath caught in my throat.

They were my medical records from the night of the accident. But they were different from the ones I had at home. These papers had notes written in red ink. I read the words slowly.

*Patient was stable upon arrival. Internal bleeding was manageable.*

Wait. That was not what Justine told me. He told me the doctors said the baby was already gone before I even got to the hospital. He told me there was nothing anyone could have done.

I flipped to the next page. There was a signature at the bottom. It wasn't a doctor's name. It was a name I knew very well.

**Evelyn.**

My mother in law had signed off on a "private transfer" of my medical files. She had used her money and her power to change the story. But why?

I opened the laptop. It wasn't locked. The screen flickered to life, showing a video file saved on the desktop. The title of the video was just a date. The date of the accident.

I clicked play.

The video was from a dashboard camera of a car. It showed a dark road. Rain was pouring down. I saw a white car driving slowly ahead. It was my car. I remembered that night. I was in so much pain, trying to get to the hospital because Justine wouldn't answer his phone.

Then, I saw another car enter the frame. It was Justine’s black car. He wasn't behind me. He was parked on a side road, hidden by the trees. I saw the door open. Justine stepped out, and then Jade stepped out after him. They were arguing.

In the video, I saw my white car swerve. I saw it hit a tree. The sound of the crash on the video made me jump. I saw the smoke rising from my hood.

On the screen, I watched Justine. He looked at my crashed car. He took a step toward it. He saw me slumped over the steering wheel. He saw the blood.

But Jade grabbed his arm. She pointed at the road, shaking her head. She was shouting at him. I couldn't hear the words, but I could see her face. She was terrified of being caught with him.

Justine looked at me one last time. He didn't run to help me. He didn't call 911. He got back into his car with Jade and they drove away in the opposite direction. They left me there to die.

I felt a scream building up in my throat, but I couldn't let it out. I was frozen. They didn't just ignore the crash. They watched it happen and chose their secret over my life. Over our baby's life.

"Do you like what you see, Amber?"

I spun around. The flashlight of my phone fell to the floor, rolling toward the stairs.

Justine was standing at the bottom of the steps. He was leaning against the wooden beam, watching me. He didn't look scared anymore. He looked tired. He looked like a man who was tired of running.

"You were here," I whispered. My voice was shaking. "You watched me hit that tree. You watched our baby die."

Justine took a slow step toward me. "It wasn't that simple, Amber. Jade was panicking. She said if we stayed, everyone would know. My brother would kill us. My mother would lose everything. I thought you would be okay. I thought someone else would come by soon."

"Someone else?" I walked toward him, my hands curled into fists. "I was your wife! That was your child! You left us there like we were trash on the road!"

"I didn't want to!" Justine shouted. He looked angry now. "But what was I supposed to do? Throw my whole life away for an accident that already happened? The baby was gone the moment you hit the tree, Amber. Staying wouldn't have changed that."

"You don't know that!" I screamed. I grabbed the medical papers and threw them at his face. "These papers say I was stable! If you had called for help sooner, if you had gotten me to a doctor ten minutes earlier, my baby might be alive today! You killed him, Justine! You and that bitch killed my son!"

Justine’s face went dark. He walked closer until he was standing right over me. "And what are you going to do about it? You have a video. You have some papers. You think that's enough to take down my family? My mother owns this town, Amber. Those papers will disappear before you even get to the police station."

I looked at him. I saw the man I used to love. I saw the man I thought was my hero. He was nothing but a shadow.

"You are right," I said. My voice was suddenly very calm. "Your mother has a lot of power. And you have a lot of secrets."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I showed him the screen.

"But you forgot one thing, Justine," I said. "I am not the only one who saw that video tonight."

Justine looked at the screen. His eyes went wide.

"What did you do?" he asked, his voice a whisper.

"I started a live stream the moment I opened that laptop," I said. "Three thousand people are watching us right now, Justine. Your brother is watching. The police are watching. Everyone in this town is watching you admit that you left me to die."

Justine’s face turned white. He looked at the phone, then back at me. He realized that it was over. There was no way to hide this. There was no way to buy his way out of this.

"Amber, turn it off," he said, reaching for the phone. "We can talk about this. I can give you money. I can give you anything!"

"I don't want your money," I said. I backed away toward the stairs. "I want you to feel what I felt that night. I want you to feel the world closing in on you while no one comes to save you."

I turned and ran up the stairs. Justine tried to follow me, but he tripped on a box in the dark. I reached the top of the stairs and slammed the basement door shut. I grabbed a heavy metal bar that was leaning against the wall and slid it through the handles.

"Amber! Open the door!" Justine screamed from the other side. He started banging on the wood. "Amber! You can't do this!"

I stood there for a second, listening to him scream. It was the most satisfying sound I had ever heard.

I walked out of the house and into the night. I got into my car and started the engine. I looked at my phone. The comments on the live stream were flying by so fast I couldn't read them. People were angry. People were calling for justice.

I looked at the lake house one last time. Justine was trapped in the dark, just like I had been trapped in that car.

I drove away, heading toward the police station. I felt like the weight of the world was finally off my back. I was going to lose everything—my house, my marriage, my old life. But I didn't care. I had the truth.

But as I reached the main road, a car pulled out in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes.

It was a black SUV. The window rolled down.

It was Justine’s brother, Mark. His face was covered in tears, and his eyes were full of a rage I had never seen before. He had a gun sitting on the passenger seat next to him.

He looked at me, then he looked at the road leading to the lake house.

"Is he still in there?" Mark asked. His voice was low and scary.

I looked at Mark, then I looked back at the house. I knew what would happen if I told him the truth. I knew what a man like Mark would do to a brother who betrayed him like that.

I had a choice. I could stop the violence, or I could let the fire burn everything down.

I looked Mark in the eye and gave him a small nod.

"He's in the basement," I said. "And the door is locked."

Mark didn't say another word. He stepped on the gas and flew toward the lake house.

I sat in my car, the engine idling. I looked at the dark trees. I looked at the stars. I realized that the nightmare wasn't ending. It was just moving into a new house.

I put my car in gear and drove toward the city, leaving the two brothers to finish what they had started. I was done being a victim. Now, I was just a witness to the end of the world.