Chapter 4

The car passed through the sweeping gates of the Whitmore estate.

I got out and walked directly to my room — the one tucked in the far corner of the house.

It was large. Lavishly decorated. But there was no warmth in it. It felt like a beautiful cage.

I started packing. I took only the bare essentials — a few changes of clothes, some cash, and an old photo album our parents had left behind, the one Ethan had probably long since forgotten existed.

I'd just shoved everything into a worn backpack when the door swung open.

Lily leaned in the doorway. Her left wrist was wrapped in fresh white bandaging, and her face was still a little pale.

But her eyes carried the quiet, barely-there satisfaction of someone who'd already won.

"Grace, are you really leaving?"

Her voice was soft and gentle.

"Did Ethan say something to upset you? Don't be angry with him — he just cares about me so much. Even though you two are real siblings, Ethan still trusts me more, you know."

I watched her performance without a flicker of reaction.

In my past life, words like that would have set me off like a match to gasoline. I would have gone for her, and then Ethan would have torn into me.

But now, I just wanted out.

"Move," I said.

Lily stepped forward instead, blocking my path. Her voice dropped until only the two of us could hear:

"Grace, take a good look around. In this house, you're nothing to Ethan. You staying here is just a joke. The sooner you get out, the better — for everyone."

I ignored her and tried to step around her.

That was when Lily let out a sudden scream. Her right hand moved — from somewhere, she'd produced a small fruit knife — and before I could blink, she dragged the blade hard across her own left forearm.

Blood welled up immediately.

"Grace! What are you doing?!"

She shrieked, stumbling backward, face twisted in shock and disbelief.

"I already apologized to you! Why do you keep hurting me?!"

Footsteps thundered down the hall. Ethan appeared in the doorway, his face dark. He took in the blood on Lily's arm. He took in me standing over her with my backpack. He took in the fruit knife lying on the floor.

Three seconds of frozen silence.

Ethan didn't ask a single question. Fury tore through his expression, and he raised his hand and struck me hard across the face.

Time stopped.

The burn along my arm, the grinding ache in my kidneys — all of it vanished.

Only the fire on my cheek remained.

This was the first time — in two lifetimes — that he'd ever laid a hand on me.

It hurt more than every other injury on my body combined.

Even at his worst in my past life, when the cruelest things had come out of his mouth, he'd never hit me.

So he really did love Lily that much.

I stood there, dazed, thinking that with something strangely close to peace.

"Grace!"

Ethan froze too. His hand trembled for a long moment before words finally forced their way through his teeth:

"I actually let myself believe, for one second, that maybe you had changed! I'm an idiot. A leopard doesn't change its spots. How black is your heart? What has Lily ever done to you? Why do you keep hurting her, over and over again? She saved your life!"

The familiar accusations, the cutting words — like poison-tipped needles, one after another, straight into the softest part of me.

I'd prepared for this. I'd told myself to go numb. But hearing Ethan speak to me with such naked hatred still sent a sharp, blinding pain through my chest. My legs nearly buckled. My vision went dark at the edges.

I looked at his handsome face, twisted slightly with rage. I looked at Lily crying softly behind him, her eyes briefly flicking to mine with a gleam of triumph she couldn't quite hide. And I felt something settle in me — a terrible, quiet clarity.

Explain? He wouldn't believe me.

In his mind, I'd been beyond redemption for a long time.

That was fine.

I drew a slow breath. I swallowed the metallic taste rising in my throat and the sting behind my eyes. I gathered what was left of my strength and pulled my arm free.

Then I bent down and picked up the small knife from the floor — the one still wet with Lily's blood.

Ethan's eyes narrowed: "What do you think you're doing?"

I turned the knife around and pressed the handle into his hand. I made him close his fingers around it.

Cold metal against his palm. And in its surface, a reflection — my face, white as paper.

I stepped forward until I was almost pressed against his chest. I tilted my head back and looked up into his furious eyes.

My voice came out soft and unsteady, like a dry leaf in the wind, ready to fall.

"Ethan. You hate me this much. You think I hurt your Lily."

"Then make it right for her. Okay?"

Before he could react, before he even understood what I meant, I lunged forward.

Thud.

The dull, sickening sound of a blade sinking into flesh.