Chapter 2

The air in the room was still and quiet, exactly as it had been. I stood there, trembling, the date on the phone screen burning into my memory. It was real. I was back. The sterile smell of the institution, the cold alley floor, the look of disgust on Liam' s face-it wasn' t a nightmare. It was a memory. A prophecy.

A wave of nausea washed over me, but it wasn't morning sickness. It was pure, unadulterated terror. I had died. I knew it with a certainty that settled deep in my bones. And now I was here again, trapped in a loop of my own personal hell.

The door creaked open, and Liam walked in with a tray. On it was a glass of orange juice and a single, perfect rose in a small vase. His face was soft with the same adoring look he' d worn in the before-time.

"Good morning, my love," he said, his voice a warm caress. "I thought you and the little one might be hungry."

I flinched. The sight of him, so loving, so fake, sent a tremor of revulsion through me. This was the man who had called our child a "thing." This was the man who had watched me bleed out in an alley and then locked me away to die.

"Chloe? Are you okay? You look pale," he said, his brow furrowed with fraudulent concern.

I forced a smile, a brittle, cracking thing. "Just a little tired." I had to play along. I had to understand why. The secret was in that genetic report, the one that turned my loving husband and my sophisticated family into monsters.

He put his hand on my stomach, just as he had before. "Our baby," he murmured. This time, his touch felt like a brand, a claim of ownership over my body and the life inside it, a life he was already planning to extinguish. I wanted to scream, to shove him away, but I held myself still. I needed to see it happen again, to confirm I wasn't insane.

The day crawled by in a haze of suffocating tension. I watched Liam like a hawk. Around 3 p.m., I saw him go into his office. I followed, standing silently in the doorway. He was at his computer, his back to me. I saw his shoulders tense. The email had arrived. The transformation began again, right on schedule. The warmth drained from his posture, replaced by that terrifying rigidity.

"Liam," I said, my voice steadier this time. "The results came, didn't they?"

He turned, and there it was again. The same cold mask. The same disgust in his eyes. It was happening. It was all real.

"What does it say?" I pushed, stepping into the room. "You have to tell me what's in that report, Liam. If something is wrong, we can face it together."

"There is no 'we'," he said, his voice cutting. "Not with that. The appointment is tomorrow. It's already been made."

"No," I said, my voice rising. "Not until you tell me why. What is so horrible that you would do this? What could possibly be in that report?"

He just stared at me, his silence a wall of ice. I ran from the room, grabbing my phone. I had to try a different way. This time, I would call my family for help before they arrived. I would pit them against him.

I dialed my mother's number, my hands shaking. "Mom," I sobbed into the phone, playing the part of the hysterical, betrayed wife. "It's Liam! The test results came back, and he's gone crazy. He wants me to have an abortion! He won't even tell me why. He's scaring me."

There was a pause on the other end. "That bastard," my mother said, her voice dripping with indignation. "Don't you worry, darling. Your father and brother and I are on our way. We'll handle this."

It was a flicker of hope, but I knew it was false. It was a step in a deadly dance I was just beginning to learn.

They arrived within the hour, storming into the house like a righteous cavalry. My mother embraced me. My father put a protective hand on my shoulder. My brother glared at Liam.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Liam?" my brother, Daniel, demanded. "Forcing an abortion on my sister?"

"You don't understand," Liam said, his face pale but resolute. He gestured toward his office. "The report. You have to see the report."

My mother, her arm still around me, looked at Liam. "Show me."

They all filed into the office. I stood in the doorway, my heart pounding a funeral drum against my ribs. I watched their faces as they huddled around the computer screen. My father's face went slack with shock. My mother' s lips thinned into a hard, white line. And Daniel... Daniel' s face contorted into a snarl of pure, unrestrained violence.

He turned, not to Liam, but to me.

"You bitch," he hissed, his eyes blazing with a hatred so profound it stole the air from my lungs.

He lunged for me. I stumbled back, but my mother's grip on my arm tightened, holding me in place.

"What is it?" I screamed, tears of terror and confusion streaming down my face. "For God's sake, just tell me what it says! Why are you doing this?"

My mother' s face was close to mine, her breath cold. "Some things are better left unknown, Chloe," she whispered, and her voice was more terrifying than any shout. "Some mistakes need to be erased."

The nightmare replayed itself with sickening precision. They dragged me from the house again. My pleas were just noise to them. The struggle was a frantic, useless burst of energy. This time, the end came faster. In the car, a sharp elbow from my brother connected with my side during the struggle. The same searing pain, the same horrifying cramp. It was over before we even reached the clinic they were forcing me toward. They dumped me at the same alley, a piece of trash to be disposed of.

I woke up in the same sterile room in the same institution. The same drugs, the same psychological torture. The days blurred into a gray, hopeless smear. But this time, something was different. The confusion was gone, replaced by a cold, hard knot of resolve. They had killed me once out of convenience. They had killed me a second time. They would not get a third.

As the life faded from me again in that white, silent room, I wasn't filled with despair. I was filled with a singular, burning desire. I didn't just want to live. I wanted the truth. I wanted to see the words on that report with my own eyes. And I wanted them to pay.

My last thought before the darkness took me was a vow. Next time.