Chapter 3

Ariel's tone was perfectly calm, without a trace of guilt or hesitation.

"Get it arranged as soon as possible. Stop dragging things out and making Vince's condition worse."

That single sentence hit me so hard I couldn't breathe.

Back in middle school, Vince used to come over to my house all the time with Toby. My mother remembered that Vince loved steak, and every time he visited, she'd make it especially for him.

Later, when his own mother fell gravely ill and passed away, the Weaver family was already bankrupt and drowning in debt, with nothing left in the house and not even enough to afford a coffin.

It was my savings that gave his mother a proper burial.

My mother and I had never once wronged him.

And now he wasn't willing to let me be, not even while I was still alive, and he wouldn't leave the dead alone either.

I bit down hard on my lip and said, my voice shaking, "Absolutely not. My mother has rested in peace for years. I won't move her grave."

My refusal only enraged Ariel further on the other end of the line.

Her tone turned sharp and accusing. "Edwin, can't you be reasonable for once? Moving a grave is such a small thing. Vince's health is what matters, and you'd rather fight him over this?"

Getting nowhere, she hung up on me.

That same afternoon, Ariel took people out to the cemetery. By the time I got there, everyone close to me was already gathered around.

Layla spotted me and tried to talk me down. "Edwin, don't be so stubborn. It's just moving a grave; how big a deal can that be? The dead are already at peace. It's the living we need to worry about."

Looking at my own sister taking a stranger's side against me, something in me went ice cold.

Every ounce of patience I had left shattered in that moment.

I stepped forward and slapped Vince hard across the face.

His head snapped to the side from the blow, and his eyes welled up instantly. He choked out, "Ariel... I never pushed him into this... I'm just in so much pain..."

Fury blazed up in Ariel's eyes.

She grabbed my hand in an iron grip, her voice ice cold. "Edwin, have you lost your mind? Who gave you permission to hit him?"

Layla rushed over too and grabbed my shoulder, her voice sharp. "Edwin, you've gone too far. Apologize to Vince right now and stop causing a scene."

I wrenched myself free, my composure cracking. "I've gone too far? Who's the one who's really gone too far here?

"I was the one who paid to bury his mother. I gave him everything I had to give. And what does he do? He destroys my family, and now he won't even leave my mother alone.

"Layla, that's your mother too. How could you?"

Rain began pouring down from the sky. The rain and my own tears mixed together until I couldn't tell which was which.

Layla's expression stayed rigid, and she wouldn't budge. "The dead don't feel anything anymore. It's just moving a grave. Don't be so hopelessly stubborn about it."

Those words severed the last thread of family feeling between us for good.

Ariel looked at me, and for a moment there was something like reluctance in her eyes.

But the next second, Vince said, "Edwin's right. This is all my fault. I shouldn't even be alive."

Ariel panicked. To calm him down, she said, "You hit Vince, so as your punishment, you're going to stand right here and watch your mother's grave get dug up."

The moment she said it, the black-suited bodyguards standing by moved in. Without a word, they forced me down onto the wet mud.

In front of me, workers picked up their shovels and started digging. The headstone carved with my mother's name tilted, little by little, out of the ground.

I shook uncontrollably. Tears poured down my face, mixing with the pouring rain, and I begged, my voice hoarse, "Ariel, I'm begging you... please don't do this. That's my mother. She's already gone, and she never did anything wrong.

"Vince's illness has nothing to do with my mother, and you know that. Please, I'm begging you, stop. Don't dig up my mother's grave... please."

I threw away every last scrap of my pride, and Ariel never so much as flinched. Vince stood beside her with nothing but a satisfied little smile on his face.

He'd wanted this all along.

Finally, there was a low, heavy thud.

The edge of the coffin came into view, exposed in the mud and rain.

Rain fell over the whole city as I knelt in front of my mother's ruined grave and swore that I would never forgive them, not for the rest of my life.

I fell seriously ill after that day.

Then, one day, an emergency call came through. Casey's homeroom teacher's voice on the other end was frantic.

"You need to get to the school right away! Casey just got into a serious confrontation with another student. Both kids ran up to the roof of the school building, and it's extremely dangerous up there!"

My heart shot straight into my throat, and my whole body went weak.

Casey was gentle by nature and never picked fights with anyone. How could she have ended up in a confrontation with a classmate, let alone on the roof, of all places?

I didn't have time to think it through. I got in the car and sped straight to the school roof, praying the whole way that nothing had happened to my daughter.

The iron door to the roof was left ajar. I pushed it open gently, and what I saw made my pupils shrink in horror.