Chapter 2

Months crawled by. I existed in shadows, a ghost haunting the fringes of a life that was no longer mine.

News trickled in from Havenwood, each piece a fresh stab of pain. The town was struggling, the environmental damage far worse than initially reported.

GlobalCorp's promises of aid were slow, wrapped in red tape, contingent on the town fully embracing their expanded fracking operations.

The Founder's Oak was nearly dead, a skeletal monument to their suffering and, in their minds, my crime.

Then, a name I hadn't heard in years surfaced: Alistair Finch.

A reclusive, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and, though I didn't know it then, my birth mother's closest confidante.

He arrived in Havenwood like a figure from a half-forgotten legend.

He called a public town hall meeting. The notice, posted on the town's battered community board, promised one thing: the truth. The full truth behind Havenwood's plight.

I had to be there.

Mr. Finch's investigators had found me, living under an assumed name in a town miles away, a shell of my former self.

He'd told me very little, only that it was time for the story to be told, and that my presence was crucial. He arranged for my discreet return.

The town hall was packed, the air thick with a familiar tension, a simmering resentment that still felt aimed squarely at me, even though I sat hidden in the back, cloaked and veiled.

This felt like a trial, a post-mortem judgment on the Sarah Miller they thought they knew.

I could hear the whispers, the hissed condemnations.

"Why rehash all this?"

"We know who's to blame."

"That Miller girl, good riddance."

My adoptive father, Mayor Thompson, sat on the stage, looking older, more stooped. Ethan was beside him, his face grim.

Veronica Hayes was there too, of course, radiating a serene confidence that made my stomach churn. She even offered a sympathetic nod to the Mayor, the benefactor still playing her part.

Mr. Finch, a man with eyes that seemed to see everything, stepped to the podium. He was an older man, his frame surprisingly sturdy, his voice calm but carrying an undeniable authority.

"Good evening, people of Havenwood," he began. "You have suffered. You have been misled. Tonight, we begin to correct that."

A screen flickered to life behind him.

"Some of you may find what I am about to present... difficult," Mr. Finch continued. "It involves looking at the past, at events you thought you understood. Think of this," he gestured to the screen, "as a mirror, reflecting not just actions, but their true origins and consequences."

The air crackled with anticipation, with skepticism.

I saw Mark Peterson in the crowd, his arm no longer around Veronica, his face etched with a weary confusion. He looked lost.

"Let us begin with Sarah Miller," Mr. Finch said, and my breath caught in my throat.

He didn't look at me, but I felt his words like a physical touch.

The crowd stirred, a low murmur of their ingrained prejudice.

I clutched my hands together, my knuckles white.

Here it was. The truth, or another version of it.

I prayed it was the former.