All Chapters of In The Face of Death: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

My whole body trembled from the pain. Blood kept spilling from the corner of my mouth, but my parents were still arguing. Not one of them looked at me.I lay on the ground, struggling to lift my head as I looked toward Mom. My voice came out broken, uneven.“Mom… It hurts so much. Can you take me to the hospital?”She frowned in disgust and kicked me farther away.“Stay away from me! You’re filthy and disgusting! It’s just a tiny injury, and you’re asking to go to the hospital? You’re just as dramatic as those women your dad messes around with!”Beside us, Dad’s face darkened with anger. He strode straight toward her, as if I didn’t even exist, his leather shoe crushing down on my hand as he passed.“Claire, just look at yourself, acting like a shrew. Every woman out there is gentler than you. I bet you’re just jealous! If you weren’t rotten to the core, why would Daisy lie through her teeth at such a young age?”Mom let out a cold laugh. She was clearly mocking him, but her gaz

Chapter 2

“You just want to dump this little bitch on me so you can go off and enjoy yourself, don’t you? I’m telling you right now, no way that’ll happen! It’d be best if she died here today. That way, neither of us has to deal with her ever again!”Their cruel words cut into me like knives, stabbing straight through my heart. They kept arguing, but my mind had gone blank. I couldn’t hear anything anymore. Using the last bit of strength I had, I staggered toward home. In the end, I collapsed onto the small bed my parents had bought for me together when I was little and slowly closed my eyes.My tears soaked the pillow. The pain was so overwhelming that all I could do was curl into myself as I repeated the words I remembered in Mom’s voice over and over again in my head, trying to comfort myself.Go to sleep, Daisy. Once you’re asleep, it won’t hurt anymore.… Maybe heaven really heard my prayer, because when I woke up, the pain was gone. However, my body felt strangely weightless, float

Chapter 3

However, I was her real daughter. So why, on my birthday, couldn’t she even give me a kind look? Why did she throw away the cake Grandma bought for me and feed it to stray dogs instead of letting me have a bite?Just because I was Dad’s daughter, she decided I didn’t deserve anything. I didn’t deserve a birthday. I didn’t deserve cake. I didn’t even deserve something as basic as feeling happy or sad. Whenever I failed to meet her expectations, she would grab that iron rod and beat me until I was covered in injuries, only stopping when something broke. In my short ten years of life, seven of them were spent like this.…When Becca woke up, she saw everything Mom had prepared overnight and lit up with excitement. She rushed into Mom’s arms, clinging to her and whining sweetly, asking her to make a wish and blow out the candles together. Mom smiled and agreed. After the wish was made, she said she had a special gift for her. My eyes widened. I watched, frozen, as she took out the loc

Chapter 4

Everything Mom gave Becca was something I could never dream of.“Mom, you’re exactly like the mom I see in my dreams. I love you so much. But no matter what, Daisy is your biological daughter. Will you abandon me for her one day?”Seeing Becca’s searching eyes, Mom’s heart ached, and she bent down, pulling her tightly into her arms.“Silly Becca, how could you think that? You will always be my only daughter. As for Daisy, I abandoned her a long time ago. Whether she lives or dies has nothing to do with me.”I had always known how she felt, but hearing it out loud still made my heart tug painfully.Just then, Mom’s phone rang.“Hello, is this Daisy Canes mother? She hasn’t been at school for three days, and no one has called in to explain her absence. Has something happened to her?”Hearing the teacher’s voice, Mom froze for a brief moment. Then, as if snapping back to herself, she barked, “You’ve got the wrong number. I’m not her mother.”After that, she hung up.Becca tilted

Chapter 5

The news hit Mom hard, and her face turned deathly pale in an instant. Her fingers trembled against the doorknob. Her lips parted, but no words came out.Only after a long moment did she snap back to reality. Her eyes were bloodshot as she rasped hoarsely, “What did you just say? Who’s dead? Daisy? No, that’s impossible… That girl is tough. There’s no way she’d die!”The police fell silent for a moment, looking at her with sympathy.“Ma’am, please calm down. We understand how you feel as a mother, but the dead can’t come back to life. Right now, the most important thing is for you to cooperate with our investigation.”“Investigation? What investigation?”Her voice suddenly turned shrill. She lunged forward and shoved the officer standing closest to her.“You’re talking nonsense! My daughter is perfectly fine. She’s not dead. She just skipped school to play, that’s all! Why are you jinxing her death? Get out, all of you! Stop standing in the way of my door. I’m going home right no

Chapter 6

“Are you a monster?”Becca was stunned when Mom slapped her across the face. She never would have imagined that her mother, who had always doted on her, would actually lay a hand on her.She clutched her cheek, looking pitiful.“Mom, was I wrong? Why did you hit me? Wasn’t it you who said Daisy should be my servant? Wasn’t it you who said whether she lived or died meant nothing to you—that you didn’t care at all?”The memories Mom had deliberately buried came rushing back. She finally remembered what Becca had said to me on the very first day she arrived. In that instant, she understood that the reason Becca belittled and humiliated me so freely was because of her. She had been the one who told Becca that I didn’t matter. She had been the one who said my life or death meant nothing to her. Back then, she had only wanted to vent her anger. She never thought that one day, those same words would come back and slap her in the face. At that moment, her strength seemed to give out al

Chapter 7

“Yes, you’re right. I’m a monster! But what about you? You think you’re any better? Go on, say it yourself. While Daisy was still alive, how many times did you abandon her just so you could sleep with those women? How many times did you leave a five-year-old alone in a crowded street? Do you even know how close she came to being kidnapped? If I hadn’t been secretly following her all those times, you wouldn’t even have a body to look at now!”Mom’s words struck a nerve. A flicker of regret and shame crossed Dad’s face, but years of resentment between them kept him from backing down.“If you were following her the whole time,” he shot back, “then why didn’t you take her home? Why did you just stand there and watch her cry all alone?”That question left Mom speechless. She tried to argue back, but suddenly, a memory of a small child—me—crouched by the roadside, wiping away tears, surfaced. Her hand clutched at her chest. The pain in her heart was so sharp that she couldn’t even speak

Chapter 8

That was exactly why she had stubbornly believed my injuries were nothing more than surface wounds. In her mind, it had only been a small lesson. How could something like that possibly lead to someone laying such a heavy hand on me?The officer’s face darkened. Without hesitation, he ordered his team to bring in the person Mom had named. The man’s name was Lenny Hill, a well-known street thug in the area. When they dragged him in, he didn’t look nervous at all. If anything, he seemed oddly composed, as if none of this concerned him.The moment Mom saw him, she lost it. Ignoring the officers trying to hold her back, she lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar.“You damned animal! What did you do to my daughter?”Lenny stared at her in shock. He remembered her as the generous, well-paying client, but what he couldn’t understand was how, in just three days, that elegant woman had turned into this disheveled, hysterical mess.Flustered, he tried to pry her hands off while stammer

Chapter 9

“But you… You keep saying I killed your child. Have you ever stopped to think about how you treated her when she was alive?”How did she treat me?Mom stood frozen in place. Her mind, against her will, began to rewind through the past, frame by frame.Before I was three, I had been the apple of her eye, but because of what Dad did, she took out all the resentment and bitterness on me. She cursed me, beat me, and even went out of her way to belittle and humiliate me for the sake of another girl. Even the locket I once clung to with my life, she casually took it and turned it into a tool to please others.I was brought into this world because of her, but I also died miserably because of her.Mom didn’t argue back. She collapsed onto the ground and curled into a ball, as if trying to cry out all the tears she had in her.Dad also stood there, stunned. Unlike before, he didn’t seize the chance to lash out at Mom. He simply stood motionless, as if his soul had been drained out of him.

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