Chapter 1

After donating bone marrow to save my brother, a rare complication put me in a coma for five years.

When I woke up, I found my family had replaced me. They had a new daughter, Hailie, a girl who looked just like me.

They told me my jealousy over her caused a car crash that forced Hailie and my parents into hiding. To make me atone, my fiancé, Caleb, and my brother locked me in an isolated villa for three years. I was their prisoner, their slave, enduring their beatings because I believed my suffering was the price for my family's safety.

Then, a doctor told me I had terminal lung cancer. My body was failing, but my tormentors decided on one last act of "kindness"-a surprise birthday trip to a luxury resort.

There, I saw them all. My parents, my brother, my fiancé, and Hailie, alive and well, drinking champagne. I overheard their plan. My torture wasn't penance. It was a "lesson" to break me. My entire life had become a cruel joke.

So, on my birthday, I walked to the highest bridge on the island, left behind my medical diagnosis and a recording of Hailie's confession, and jumped.

Chapter 1

The first thing I felt was a dull ache behind my eyes. The light was too bright, a sterile white that made my head throb. Machines beeped a steady, rhythmic pattern next to me.

Five years.

They told me I had been in a coma for five years. After I donated bone marrow to my brother, Fitzgerald, a rare complication sent me into a coma, stealing those years from me.

My family was there. My mother, Beverley, was crying, her face etched with new lines I didn't recognize. My father, Franklin, stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder, looking older and grayer.

My fiancé, Caleb Skinner, was there too. He held my hand, his grip tight, his handsome face pale with a relief so deep it looked like pain. And my brother, Fitz, the reason I was here, stood at the foot of the bed, his expression a mixture of guilt and gratitude.

They were all here. My world had returned.

But then I saw her.

She was standing just behind my mother, a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties. She had my hair, my eyes. The resemblance was so strong it was like looking at a distorted reflection.

"Who is that?" I asked, my voice a dry rasp.

My mother's smile faltered. "Oh, honey. This is Hailie. Hailie Silva."

Caleb squeezed my hand. "She's... she's been with us for a while, Ericka. Your parents took her in while you were gone."

"A foster daughter," my father supplied, his voice careful.

My eyes stayed locked on Hailie. She offered a shy, nervous smile, a performance that never reached her cold, assessing eyes.

In the days that followed, I saw how it was. Hailie was the one my mother fussed over, asking if she was hungry, if she was comfortable. She was the one my father praised for her grades, her demeanor. Fitz treated her like a cherished little sister, and even Caleb... even Caleb spoke to her with a gentleness that felt foreign, a tone that used to be reserved for me.

I felt like a ghost in my own life. A relic they had dusted off and didn't know where to put.

"She comforted us while you were... away," Beverley explained one afternoon, her voice soft. "She needed a family, and we needed someone to... to fill the quiet."

The excuse felt hollow. It felt like a betrayal.

"I want her gone," I said, my voice finally finding its strength.

The silence in the room was heavy.

"Ericka, be reasonable," Caleb started.

"No," I insisted, looking from his face to my parents'. "I am not a placeholder. And I will not be replaced. She has to leave."

My rejection was a stone thrown into a still pond. The ripples were immediate and ugly. Hailie burst into tears, a dramatic, gut-wrenching display. My mother rushed to comfort her, shooting me a look of deep disappointment.

"How could you be so cruel?" Fitzgerald demanded, his voice sharp. "After everything she's done for this family?"

The argument was a blur of accusations and my own stubborn refusal to back down. Finally, they agreed. They would find another place for Hailie.

The day she was supposed to leave, Caleb and Fitzgerald were taking her. I stayed in my room, a bitter sense of victory in my chest.

Hours later, they returned. Alone. Their faces were grim masks of fury and despair.

"She's gone," Caleb said, his voice flat and dead.

"What do you mean, gone?" I asked, a knot of unease tightening in my stomach.

"There was an accident," Fitzgerald bit out, his eyes burning with a hatred I had never seen before. "A car crash. It was your fault. Your jealousy, your anger... you did this."

Before I could process the lie, the next one came.

"And that's not all," Caleb continued, his voice breaking. "The people she was running from, the reason she was in the foster system... they've found out where she was. They're making threats. Because of what you did, your parents and Hailie had to go into hiding. We don't know when we'll see them again."

The world tilted. Hiding? Threats? Because of me?

It didn't make sense, but the force of their conviction was a battering ram against my confusion.

"You did this, Ericka," Fitzgerald said, his words like ice. "You destroyed our family."

Caleb stepped forward, his expression twisted with a dark, righteous anger. "And now, you will pay for it. You will do penance until you've earned their forgiveness. You will learn your lesson."

That was the beginning. The beginning of three years of hell. They moved me to an isolated villa owned by Caleb. There were no phones, no internet, no escape. Just the two of them.

My brother and my fiancé.

They became my tormentors.

They told me my parents and Hailie were safe but that their continued safety depended on my obedience. My atonement.

I believed them. I clung to the guilt they fed me every day, because it was the only thing that made sense of the nightmare. I scrubbed floors until my hands were raw. I ate the scraps they left for me. I withstood their cold words and, sometimes, their hands.

I learned to be silent, to be small, to be sorry. I made my suffering a prayer, hoping it would reach my family, wherever they were, and buy their safety.

My body began to fail. A persistent cough became a wracking, painful thing that left me breathless. A dull ache in my bones grew into a constant fire.

After I collapsed one day, Caleb reluctantly took me to a doctor.

The diagnosis was a death sentence. Terminal lung cancer. A few months left, at most.

The news landed in a place inside me that was already dead. It was just another form of punishment, one I deserved.

Just as all hope was extinguished, they decided on a final, twisted act of "kindness." For my birthday, they were taking me on a trip. A trip to a luxury island resort.

They locked me in a suite, telling me to wait. They had a surprise.

I didn't wait. A strange, desperate energy filled me. I picked the lock with a hairpin and slipped out into the bustling resort.

And then I saw them.

Across a manicured lawn, under a sky lit by a setting sun, my entire family was gathered on a terrace. My mother, Beverley, and my father, Franklin, laughing, holding champagne flutes. My brother, Fitzgerald, and my fiancé, Caleb, standing with them.

And in the center of it all, beaming like a queen, was Hailie. Alive. Unharmed. Celebrated.

The world didn't just tilt. It shattered into a million pieces.

I hid behind a large potted palm, my heart hammering against my ribs. Their voices carried on the breeze.

"...the look on her face when we tell her!" Hailie was saying, giggling. "It's the perfect birthday gift."

"She needs the shock," my mother agreed, sipping her champagne. "It's the only way she'll finally accept you, dear. We just have to break her spirit completely."

"This will be the final lesson," Caleb said, his voice full of the same righteous tone he'd used for three years. "Then our family can finally be whole again."

The air left my lungs. The pain in my chest wasn't from the cancer. It was from a betrayal so absolute, so monstrous, it eclipsed everything else.

My life, my sacrifice, my suffering... it was a game. A cruel lesson. A joke.

With my life draining away, with everything I ever loved revealed as a lie, I knew what I had to do. There was one last thing I had control over.

My birthday. The day of their final "gift."

I walked away from them, a ghost they couldn't see.

I went to the highest point on the island, a bridge that spanned a deep, churning channel between the cliffs. The wind whipped my hair around my face.

I left two things on the railing. The crisp envelope containing my medical diagnosis. And a small USB drive.

On it was a recording. A conversation from months ago, when Hailie, in a moment of supreme arrogance, had visited me in my room to gloat, not knowing my phone was recording every sociopathic word.

Then, I climbed onto the railing.

The water below was dark and unforgiving.

For the first time in three years, I felt a kind of peace.

I jumped.