Chapter 2

I woke to the gut-wrenching pain of a boot connecting with my ribs.

I was on a cold, concrete floor, my hands tied behind my back. The air was thick with the smell of dust and decay. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting long, menacing shadows. My body screamed in protest, weaker than ever after giving so much of myself to save Ethan.

The men who took me were laughing. They were rough, their hands calloused and cruel as they searched me, looking for the small vial of elixir I always carried. They found nothing. The last of it was gone, used for Ethan's 99th life.

I curled into a ball, trying to protect my stomach, my baby. The thought of my child was the only thing keeping the terror at bay.

Then, I heard a phone ring.

One of the men answered it, putting it on speaker. "Yeah? We got her."

A voice I knew instantly, a voice that sent a chill colder than the concrete floor through my veins, answered back.

"Is she alive?" It was Ethan.

"Barely," the man grunted. "She's tougher than she looks, though."

Then, another voice joined the call, frantic and strained. "Ethan, my God, what have you done? I just got back to the county... the whole mountain... it's a massacre."

Sheriff Duncan. A man I knew to be loyal to Ethan, but a man with a conscience.

"It's done, Duncan," Ethan's voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. "Did you get it all?"

"We got it," the sheriff choked out. "Every last drop. But the people... Jocelyn's family... they fought back. We had to... Ethan, they're all dead. Her mother, her aunts, her cousins... everyone."

The world stopped.

My breath caught in my throat. My family. My entire world. Gone.

"It was necessary," Ethan stated, his tone clinical. "Nicole needs it. The acid attack was severe. This is the only thing that can restore her face without a scar."

Nicole. His beautiful, manipulative lover. The coal magnate's daughter.

"An acid attack?" Duncan's voice was filled with disbelief. "This was all for Nicole Lawrence? You wiped out an entire community for her?"

"Jocelyn is resilient," Ethan's words cut through me, each one a shard of glass. "She can survive anything. You've seen it. Nicole is fragile. Besides, Jocelyn's family was a security risk. Their knowledge was a threat that could be used against me. It's cleaner this way."

He paused, and I could almost picture the cold, calculating look on his face.

"When I 'rescue' Jocelyn, I'll tell her they died fighting the gang that took her. She'll be grieving, but she'll direct her anger at the right people. She'll never suspect a thing."

A sob tore from my throat, raw and broken. The sound of my heart shattering was louder than any physical blow.

The man holding the phone kicked me again. "Shut up."

But I couldn't. The betrayal was absolute, a poison flooding every part of my being. My love, my sacrifices, my family... all of it meant nothing. I was just a tool. An inexhaustible resource to be used and discarded.

My 99 deaths had been for a monster.

A new resolve, cold and hard as diamond, formed in the ruins of my heart. I would not let him win. I would not let him use my grief.

I focused inward, on the faint, flickering ember of life force that remained within me, the source of the elixir itself. It was meant for me, to slowly heal and recover. Now, it had a new purpose.

With every ounce of my will, I pushed that remaining essence toward the tiny, fragile life in my womb, shielding my child, giving it everything I had left.

This would be my 100th death.

And it would be my last. He would not bring me back from this one.