Chapter 4: The Grotesque Vance Family

Huddled in the cramped, bouncing seat of the public bus, Skylar "Skye" Vance watched the world crawl by—the dust-choked country roads, the endless, identical rows of low-slung, ugly houses. The visual assault of this familiar, yet utterly despised, small town finally dragged her from the dizzying reality of her time-traveling escape. This was it. She had truly returned. She had cheated fate, subverted her own brutal destiny, and was granted a second, chillingly potent life.

Even a soul as hardened and glacially cold as Skylar’s—a heart encased in fifteen years of blood and betrayal—felt a momentary, overwhelming rush of sentimentality. The sheer weight of existence, the impossible gravity of time reversal, settled upon her.

But that fragile sense of awe shattered the moment the bus pulled into her stop and she began the short, dreaded walk to the family home. The sentimentality only lasted until she reached the warped, paint-peeling front door. Though nearly fifteen years had passed since she last saw them, Skylar remembered every agonizing detail of her life in the Vance household: a life of utter subservience, crushing labor, and pathetic, relentless emotional starvation.

Squeak.

The sound of the old door protesting on its hinges echoed in the narrow, dim hallway, instantly silencing the forced laughter and false conviviality emanating from the living room.

Linda Hollis, the woman who carried the title of ‘mother,’ sat heavily on the worn sofa. Her eyes—eyes that held a lifetime of ingrained discontent—flickered toward the entrance. Spotting Skylar, frozen in the doorway, a flash of undisguised, profound disgust crossed Linda’s face.

Before Linda could even frame a suitable insult, the two younger daughters—Tina Vance and Mia Vance—spoke up, their voices high-pitched and aggressively demanding. “Skylar! Shut the door immediately! It’s freezing! Are you trying to give me pneumonia?” Tina whined, tossing her head, her entitlement radiating like cheap perfume.

Linda Hollis’s brows furrowed further, her gaze dropping to Skylar’s travel-stained clothing—the physical evidence of her ordeal in the train bathroom and the escape. “Have you lost your mind out there, running around like a stray dog? Your clothes are filthy. You have absolutely no sense of being a respectable girl. Get in here, now.”

The patriarch, George Vance, the man who never lifted a finger and demanded constant servitude, sat in his armchair, assuming his usual posture of self-important detachment. He didn't speak, but his silence was a weapon, a deliberate, cruel refusal to even grant his eldest, unwanted daughter a glance.

Behind Skylar’s untidy, concealing fringe, her eyes iced over. A heart that had momentarily been lightened by the miracle of rebirth sank like a lead weight. Fifteen years had vanished, yet the hateful faces of the Vance family were just as poisonous as she remembered. Their cruelty was a stagnant, festering pool of malice.

She pressed her lips together, swallowing the automatic, foolish words Mother and Father. She slammed the front door shut, a barely-contained act of defiance, and walked silently toward the single, miserable bedroom she shared with her sisters. Predictably, Linda’s voice followed her, sharp and laced with bitter resentment:

“Don’t you dare ignore me! Don't you think this is a hotel or a refuge? You know we barely scrape by, yet you run off on some ridiculous trip and come back smelling like a sewer! You are nothing but a spoiled, wasteful child!”

Her words were punctuated by the eager, confirming echoes of her two sisters. Even through the flimsy bedroom door, their mocking, self-righteous voices carried clearly.

Skylar paused inside the narrow room, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. The small, claustrophobic space was a landscape of neglect and laziness. The narrow beds—a bunk setup, typical of a house too small for its inhabitants—were strewn with discarded clothes and dirty socks. Tina and Mia had always claimed the wider, more comfortable lower bunk, leaving Skylar to the cramped, airless upper bunk where she had to hunch over to avoid hitting her head.

The room’s current chaos was a testament to the three days she’d been gone. In her former life, the cleanliness of the Vance home, the washing of all their clothes, and the preparation of their meals had been Skylar’s sole, thankless responsibility. Now, the space was a fetid monument to their sloth. Her own upper bunk was piled high with Tina’s and Mia’s soiled garments and stinking socks.

In the previous life, she would have started cleaning instantly, without complaint, driven by a fear of Linda’s next outburst. But the woman who had survived an underwater detonation, who held the blood of dozens on her soul, would not tolerate this humiliating treatment again. The knowledge of her destiny, the painful realization that their petty tyranny had led her to the human traffickers, solidified the cold, murderous resolve in her heart.

Never again. The thought was a promise carved in ice.

Finally finding a secluded moment, Skylar reached into her new spatial dimension—the pocket of impossible, unseen air—and retrieved the raw jade stone. She held it under the dim, dusty light filtering into the room, examining it meticulously.

It was a piece of Black Sand Skin, hard, fine-grained, and clearly a coveted, high-quality old-pit raw jade. In her assassin life, she had moved through the shadows of the underground jewelry trade, learning enough to know that this stone, which the goat-bearded trafficker had hidden so carefully, held immense value. It was a piece of gambling stone—an object that could bring instant, staggering wealth or utter ruin. Even the most advanced scanners struggled to determine its true value beneath the dark skin.

Skylar toyed with the stone, her mind settling on her strange, tactile ability. She had a purpose now: test the power, confirm the value, and obtain the capital she needed to leave this toxic nightmare forever.

She focused her will. Instantly, the pitch-black exterior of the stone dissolved in her mind’s eye. Her consciousness slipped effortlessly past the dense outer layer. Suddenly, the image in her mind was flooded with a clean, translucent emerald green.

It has color!

Skylar’s heart jolted—a flicker of pure, unadulterated excitement. She focused her Metaphysical Eye deeper, analyzing the jade’s clarity, luster, and color saturation. Her preliminary analysis was stunning: this was old-pit, glass-type jadeite, possessing incredible clarity and quality, second only to the legendary Imperial Green.

She had snatched an incredibly rare and expensive treasure. Her eyes, usually cold and detached, shone with a fierce, ambitious fire. She glanced around the miserable upper bunk, the filth of the Vance family suddenly feeling inconsequential. She needed to liquidate this asset immediately.

Just as she began calculating which city markets to target, a sharp, whining voice ripped through the thin wall.

“Hello? Is the princess going to remain in her room all day, waiting for someone to serve her?” Tina Vance’s voice was as acidic and unpleasant as her mother’s, a stark contrast to her superficially delicate appearance.

“Second Sister, she’s probably busy cleaning up her own filth,” Mia Vance cooed, though her voice was laced with a calculating sweetness. The fourteen-year-old was outwardly cute, but her eyes held the same petty calculation as the rest of the family. She was pleased that the mess would finally be taken care of. She then called out louder, addressing the room, “Skylar! Dinner is ready!”

This was the family’s routine, a ritual of humiliation. They treated Skylar like a servant, demanding she perform chores while they ate, ensuring that by the time she finished, only pitiful scraps of leftover food remained. She would then eat the cold, unappetizing remnants, followed by the compulsory task of washing the dishes. It had been the standard procedure since her earliest memory.

But today, looking at the miserable, half-empty plates on the table—the three or four dishes picked clean of any desirable food—Skylar felt a wave of icy revulsion. Her life as an assassin, often characterized by long periods of deprivation, had paradoxically left her with an intense, almost religious demand for high-quality food. Seeing these scraps, she found them utterly, sickeningly inedible.

After standing by the table for a silent, measured three seconds, she turned abruptly. “I’m not hungry. I need to go out for a while.”

With only that cryptic, utterly defiant statement, she moved toward the front door. Just as her hand reached the knob, the stunned silence in the room fractured.

“STOP!” Linda Hollis’s shriek was ear-splitting, a high-decibel protest that made the air vibrate, signaling the peak of her rage.

Skylar froze, but did not turn back, her non-compliant posture further enraging Linda. The woman's face twisted into an ugly mask of pure spite. “Skylar Vance, did that trip give you wings? Are you too high and mighty for the food we provide? You can starve for all I care, but before you leave, you will clean every single dish in this kitchen!”

The food is optional, the servitude is mandatory.

Skylar had never felt the crushing weight of their contempt so acutely. Slowly, deliberately, she turned, fixing her cold gaze on Linda Hollis. Her voice was devoid of emotion, a flat, chilling statement of fact. “I have important business outside. There are enough hands in this family; the dishes do not require mine alone.”

The words were a direct challenge. Slam! Linda brought her hand down hard on the table. “Skylar Vance, are you defying me now? You dare to talk back after I ask you to do a simple chore? You are the eldest sister! You set a disgusting example! You clearly need a lesson!” She lunged toward the corner, grabbing the heavy, stiff-bristled broom—the same broom Skylar used to clean the house—and rushed toward her.

The broom was Skylar’s exclusive tool: she used it to clean; Linda used it to beat her. Any perceived slight, any minor setback in Linda’s life, was reason enough to take out her frustration on the eldest daughter.

In the past, Skylar would have braced herself, whimpered, and accepted the beating before meekly retreating to the kitchen. But this time, everything was different. The hunter was now in the body of the prey.