Chapter 4

The crowd grew livelier by the minute. Neighbors came over and started to strike up a conversation with Mom, Dad, and Ethan. No one noticed me.

This was my best chance. With so many people around, I could quietly slip away and make my way to that unfinished, abandoned building.

I took a deep breath, clenched my bleeding hands, and was just about to head toward the building.

But just then, Mom, Dad, and Ethan's voices drifted into my ears. Each word I heard stabbed straight into my heart like a sharp blade.

Mom spoke first in a voice tinged with concern. "Where did Eva go? Why is she suddenly gone?"

Ethan's voice followed, sounding as though he was trying to defend me. "Cut her some slack. She probably just feels overwhelmed by the crowd and went somewhere nearby to get some fresh air. She'll be back in a little while."

Then, Dad's voice suddenly rose, and it carried restrained anger. Clearly, Ethan's words had enraged him.

He said contemptuously, "Cut her some slack? Now you're speaking up for her. If you hadn't insisted on dating that girl, your sister wouldn't have been sent to that place! If you'd just broken up with her back then, we would never have sent her there.

"You never spoke up for her back then. Now only you finally got around to doing it."

Dad's words struck me like a bolt of lightning, leaving my entire body rigid. It felt as though the blood in my veins had run cold instantly.

Dad boomed, "If not for the fact that you were the only boy in this family, it wouldn't have been Eva who was sent there. It would have been you!"

The words pierced into my heart like a knife, twisting inside me until every organ seemed to ache.

So, that was what happened.

It wasn't because I'd said "goodbye" to a male classmate. It wasn't because I didn't know how to behave as a girl. I'd been sent to that hell simply because of my own brother, simply because he refused to break up with his girlfriend.

They hadn't sent me to that place to correct my behavior. They had sent me there to make an example of me—to send Ethan a warning.

I was nothing more than a tool to them, a pawn they used to discipline their son. For my parents, those two weeks of torment—those days when living felt worse than dying—were nothing more than a warning meant for Ethan.

I stood frozen, feeling cold from head to toe. Even breathing hurt.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to laugh out loud at my own stupidity and at how I'd still hoped for their love. I'd ridiculously believed they'd merely been brainwashed, and that they genuinely thought they were doing what was best for me.

But before I could even pull my lips into a smile, tears had already begun falling. They fell onto the cold ground and scattered into even tinier droplets.

The fireworks continued exploding around me. Their multicolored light illuminated everyone's faces, but the cheerful faces that had seemed so happy moments ago suddenly became grotesque in my eyes.

They eerily resembled the faces of the instructors at the boot camp. Every one of them wore a hypocritical smile as they pushed me toward hell.

I could no longer hold myself together. The anguish and pain in my chest were tearing me apart. I shoved past the people around me, stumbling my way out of the crowd before running desperately toward the unfinished building, where hardly anyone ever went.

Behind me, fireworks continued exploding, each one louder than the last. Their colorful light illuminated my fleeing figure as the wind howled past my ears, carrying a bone-chilling cold.

I ran all the way to the rooftop of the unfinished building. Gripping the cold railing, I looked at the fireworks filling the distant sky, then toward the direction of that so-called "home".

I felt no attachment. I didn't feel reluctant to let go. There was only an overwhelming sense of release.

At the instant a firework exploded in the sky and illuminated the entire rooftop with its light, I closed my eyes and stepped forward.