Lahat ng Kabanata ng Everyone I Loved Lied: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

"Yes."I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms.[Mission suspended. Forty-eight-hour countdown initiated.]Drew Carell reached over and smoothed my hair back, gentle as ever, though his voice stayed flat."You've been punished for six years now. It's time you learned your lesson."Valerie's already brought Asher back into the country. Behave yourself and stop trying to compete with her for attention."I slapped his hand away."Why should I? She stole my son. She's the one who caused all of this!"Drew's brow creased."Don't say things like that. Valerie only wanted a child to keep her company. You've spent years diving for corpses—you carry that kind of negative energy on you. You're not fit to raise a child. Valerie's thoughtful and generous, and she's raised Asher well. You should be grateful, Carrie, not bitter."Cold flooded through me all at once.Six years ago, I'd nearly died giving birth to my son, Asher Carell, and he was taken before I ever got to hold

It was the body-recovery job I'd already taken on—the one I'd once believed would lead me to Asher's remains. All of it had turned out to be a lie, but as a body diver, I had professional principles, so I went anyway.I'd barely stepped toward the boat when someone shoved me from behind with brutal force, straight into the river.The freezing water swallowed me whole, the stench of rot flooding my nose. I fought my way up, gasping.Through my blurred vision, I made out a small figure standing on the bank. The moment his face came into focus, a jolt of shock went through me.It was Asher. My son—the one I'd spent six years aching for."Asher, help me—""Stop yelling."There wasn't a trace of warmth on his young face."I'm the one who hired you for this dive." His voice was flat with contempt. "You're bad luck. My mom got upset the second she came back, and it's your fault. I'm not letting you off easy."Despair sank into my bones along with the river water. I stared at his smal

The instant I hit the ground, the pain vanished. A second later, my body felt weightless, and I drifted back to Drew's side.The banquet hall had gone completely silent. Every face stared at the spot where I'd jumped, frozen in disbelief. Then someone screamed, and the whole room dissolved into chaos.Drew snapped out of it and bolted for the window like a man possessed."Carrie!"But we were fifteen stories up. All that showed below was solid black."No. This isn't happening. This can't be happening..."He kept backing away, then turned and tore down the stairwell like a madman. I was pulled along with him.The moment he saw the glaring red pooled on the ground below, he froze in place. A few seconds later, he scrambled toward me on his hands and knees, his hand shaking as he reached out to touch my body."Carrie..." His voice came out broken and hoarse, edged with a panic I'd never once heard from him. "Don't scare me like this. Just get up, okay? We never even had our weddin

The man went on to pull out a video.On screen, Valerie showed no trace of her usual fragile act—her face was pure venom. "I don't care how you humiliate her. Just don't let her have a single peaceful moment."She'd assigned me the most dangerous body-recovery jobs and told her hired hands to make trouble for me along the way. Even that time the current had swept me under—that had been Valerie's doing too, an order to finish me off. She'd even had them film it, turning my suffering into her personal entertainment.Pull one thread and the rest came unraveled. Every bit of the bullying I'd suffered back in school got dragged up right along with it.With every clip, Rick's hands shook harder."How could this be..." He'd spent six years believing my work as a body diver was nothing more than a show. When I told him I was exhausted, he'd accused me of being unable to handle hardship. He'd believed I bullied Valerie at school and that Valerie deserved to be defended. He never once r