Chapter 3

Mary, Caleb' s mother, appeared at the edge of the chaos. She leaned heavily on a cane, her face pale and drawn. She had been "sick" for weeks, a sickness I now knew was orchestrated by Chloe.

"That' s enough, Helen," Mary said, her voice thin but carrying authority. "This is a family matter."

Helen let go of my hair, grumbling. Mary' s intervention wasn' t for me. It was for the family' s reputation. She couldn' t have a brawl at her son' s party.

Seeing my chance, a wild, desperate rage surged through me. They would not do this to me again. I lunged past Mary, grabbing the heavy iron fireplace poker from its stand. I swung it at Caleb' s head. I wanted to end it. To end him.

But Mary, with a speed I didn' t think she possessed, stepped directly in front of her son.

The poker struck her on the side of the head with a dull, sickening thud.

She didn' t scream. She just made a small, surprised sound, her eyes wide. She swayed for a moment, then crumpled to the floor.

The room went silent.

The "medication" Chloe had been secretly feeding her for weeks, a common plant extract she was severely allergic to, had weakened her heart. The shock and the blow were too much. Mary Miller was dead.

For a second, everyone was frozen. Then Caleb let out a roar of pure, animalistic fury.

"You killed her!" he screamed, his face turning a blotchy red. "You killed my mother!"

He launched himself at me. He didn't hold back. His fists slammed into my face, my stomach, my ribs. I fell to the floor, curling into a ball as he kicked me over and over. The party guests just watched, their faces a mixture of horror and morbid fascination. No one moved to stop him.

He finally stopped, panting, his knuckles bloody. He looked down at me, his eyes filled with a terrifying, cold hatred.

"You wanted the basement so much?" he snarled. "You can have it. Forever."

He dragged my broken body through the house, his mother' s corpse still lying on the floor. He threw me down the basement stairs, the same basement from my first life. The heavy door slammed shut, and I heard the bolt slide into place.

I lay in the darkness, every part of me screaming in pain. I thought about Mary' s last moments. She had stepped in front of Caleb. A mother protecting her son. But as she fell, her eyes had met mine. There was no love in them. Only a cold, final calculation. Her last words, whispered so only I could hear, were not for me.

"Now... he' ll never let you go."

She had trapped me, even in death.

I closed my eyes. I had spent sixteen years serving this family. I had cooked thousands of meals, washed mountains of laundry, tended to every feigned illness. I had raised their son. And this was my reward.

A voice from outside the door, low and menacing, confirmed it. It was Caleb.

"I' m not selling you this time, Sarah," he said, his voice shaking with rage. "I' m going to keep you down here. I' m going to make you wish you were dead every single day for the rest of your miserable life."

The sound of a key turning in a lock echoed in the darkness. He had added a new lock.

Then I heard Chloe' s voice, sweet and concerned. "Caleb, honey, come away from there. Let' s... let' s call Sheriff Thompson. We have to take care of your mother."

Her footsteps faded. I was alone again, in the dark, with the promise of a suffering far worse than my first life. I had tried to change my fate, and I had only made it worse.