Present
“You think a freak like you should be working here?”
The girl’s voice was sharp, dripping with cruelty. I barely flinched. It wasn’t the first time.
I stood there, gripping the tray in my hands, my uniform already soaked from the drink she had just thrown at me. The cold liquid dripped down my neck, staining my white shirt, but I didn’t move. I didn’t react.
She was pretty. The kind of girl who had never known pain, who had never had to fight for survival. Long, glossy blonde hair, perfect manicured nails, a designer bag sitting next to her as if she owned the world.
I could already hear the snickers from her friends, the whispers, the way they eyed my face—the scar running from my temple down to my cheek.
“Freak.”
The word came out like venom.
I clenched my jaw, swallowing down the bitterness.
Don’t react. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
I bent down, picking up the empty glass she had tossed, and placed it back on my tray. My hands didn’t shake. My heart didn’t race. I had been through worse.
“Are you just gonna stand there?” she sneered, tilting her head. “Or are you going to apologize for existing?”
A laugh rippled through the table.
I smiled. A slow, empty smile. “Enjoy your drinks, ma’am.”
Then I turned on my heel and walked away, even as the laughter followed me.
In the employee break room, I stood in front of the small mirror, dabbing a paper towel at my ruined shirt. The scar was still there. It would always be there. The twisted, angry mark of the night that had changed everything.
I had scolded myself a thousand times.
“Why did I even go to that house?”
I gripped the sink, my knuckles turning white.
“What was I thinking?”
I had spent five years telling myself that night wasn’t my fault. That I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But deep down, I knew better.
I had made a choice.
I chose to walk into Ravenshade Manor.
I was supposed to uncover the Donahues’ discrepancies in their insurance company. That was my goal. I was supposed to interview Mr. David Donahue himself—confront him about the corrupt policies that left hundreds of families in financial ruin.
But I got there late.
Too late.
I should have turned around the moment I saw the bodies at the gate.
The guards—lifeless, blood pooling beneath them, eyes wide open in horror. It was a warning, clear as day. Walk away. Forget what you saw.
I should have listened.
But then I heard a scream.
A little girl’s scream.
And suddenly, I wasn’t a journalist anymore. I wasn’t thinking about my investigation or my career.
I was thinking about her.
So I moved.
I slipped inside through one of the side entrances, past the burning corridors, past the destruction. The air was thick with smoke, but I kept going, my heart pounding in my chest.
Then I found him.
A boy—no, a man.
Tall, dark-haired, with the same piercing blue eyes I had seen in countless magazine covers, in political articles, in the social columns of New York’s elite.
Ezekiel Donahue.
He was frozen, hidden in the shadows of a hallway, his gaze locked on the horror unfolding before him.
His family was being executed.
I wanted to run.
I should have run.
But I saw the way his body tensed, the way his hands clenched into fists like he was about to throw himself into the fire, into the gunfire.
I didn’t think.
I just moved.
I grabbed him, clamping my hand over his mouth before he could scream. He fought me, wild and desperate, but I held on.
“If you love them, you need to run. Now.”
I didn’t know why I said that. I didn’t know why I saved him.
Maybe because I knew what was coming.
Maybe because I didn’t want to watch another innocent person die.
I dragged him out, forcing him away from the fire, from the gunshots, from the family he would never see again.
We ran.
We made it to the lake.
I pushed him toward the water, away from the burning manor, and I told him to live. That he had to survive. That he had to bring justice to what happened that night.
Then I disappeared.
I didn’t wait for him to speak. I didn’t tell him my name. I just left.
Because I wasn’t a hero.
I was a failure.
I hadn’t saved the little girl. I hadn’t saved his family.
All I had done was delay his death.
I let out a shaky breath, staring at my reflection.
I wondered if he had made it.
Or if the news was true. That the Donahue family was no more.