Chapter 2 The Afterlife of a Fool.

Death wasn't peaceful. It was loud.

The wind screamed loudly in my ears as I fell, but the impact when death came was silent. A crack and sudden coldness, then... nothing. No pain. No light. Just an emptiness. I floated there, until a voice sliced through the dark.

"Elena."

My mother's voice.

It wrapped around me like a thread, pulling me toward a small hole of light. Colors bled into the dark. Shapes formed: a woman with chestnut hair and gray eyes, her hands stretched out to me.

Clara.

"Mom?" My voice echoed, small and broken. "Am I... dead?"

She smiled, but it was sad. "Not yet. But you are close."

The light around her flickered, revealing glimpses of a place that wasn't a place it was like a world of spinning stars and broken memories. My memories.

Flash.

Liam's hands on my back, pushing me off the balcony.

Flash.

Serena's laugh, sharp and bright, as I fell.

Flash.

My father's empty eyes at our last dinner together.

"Why?" I asked. "Why did they do this?"

My mom's image fading out. "Because you were never supposed to survive the first time."

The stars around us dissolved into a memory of my mother's car crash.

I watched it unfold like a ghost. Rain pounded the windshield. My mother held the steering wheel, humming a lullaby to six-year-old me in the backseat. Headlights flashed through the storm and a truck suddenly swerved into our lane.

"Mom!" I screamed, but she couldn't hear me.

The collision was brutal. Metal screeched. Glass exploded. My mom threw her body over mine, screaming, "Hold on, songbird!"

Then silence.

In the wreckage, a teenage boy came out of the truck, his face pale under the streetlights. Adrian Voss, younger, terrified, trying to make a phone call on his phone. "Dad, I.. I didn't mean to", he said with his voice shaking.

The memory shattered.

Mom's voice hardened. "His father ordered it. To steal my work. To punish me for refusing him."

"Project Echo," I whispered.

She nodded. "They will come for you too, Elena. Unless you break the cycle."

"You have a choice, Stay here, with me... or go back."

"Back? To them?" My voice cracked. "To dying again?"

"To living." She held my hand, her touch was like sunlight. "But it wont be the same. You will remember. You'll fight. And you'll have to trust no one, not even your father."

"Why would I trust you?" I pulled away. "You left me! You let them.."

"I am sorry." Her voice broke. "But this is the only way. Go back. Save yourself. Save him."

"Who?"

The shadows swallowing her light. "Your..."

The word vanished.

I fell.

Beeping.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My eyelids flapped open. White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. The stench of antiseptic.

Hospital.

I tried to move, but my body was weak. Tubes connected to my arms. A heart monitor chirped.

"Ms. Hart?" A nurse leaned over me, her smile so bright. "Welcome back."

Back.

I remembered.

The balcony. The fall. Liam's laugh.

I gagged.

"Easy," the nurse said, adjusting my IV. "You are lucky. Thirty stories, and all you have are a few broken ribs and bruises."

Lucky.

The door flew open. Liam rushed in, hair perfectly messy, eyes red. "Elena! Thank God."

His cologne hit me first-sandalwood and lies. Then his arms wrapped around me, tight enough to crack my ribs. I didn't hug back.

"Serena is downstairs," he said, pulling away. "She has been a mess."

I stared at him. You pushed me. You killed me.

But the words stuck in my throat.

They told the world it was an accident.

"Grief," the tabloids speculated. "The poor thing lost her mother, then nearly her father..."

Liam played the devoted husband. He brought me lilies and read me headlines then he smoothed my hair while I pretended to sleep.

"You are safe now," he whispered once, kissing my forehead.

I bit my tongue until it bled.

Three weeks later, I found the vial.

Liam's briefcase lay open on his desk, stuffed with contracts and a silver flask. Beneath them, was a glass bottle labeled Digitalis.

It was a heart medication.

My hands shook. I had seen that word in my mom's old medical journals. Digitalis toxicity causes irregular heartbeat, nausea, confusion.

Just like Dad's "heart attack."

The bathroom door creaked. Liam stood in the doorway, smiling. "Looking for something, songbird?"

I clutched the vial. "What is this?"

"It is a medicine." He stepped closer. "For your father. To help him recover,"

He said.

"You are a liar" I replied.

He sighed, and took the vial from my hand. "You're paranoid. It's the trauma, love. The doctors warned me."

I resisted, but he caught my wrist, his grip bruising my skin.

"Careful," he murmured. "You wouldn't want another accident."

I waited until he slept.

His phone light glowed on the nightstand. I swiped it, heart pounding.

And I saw a Messages to Serena:

We need to move faster. She already knows.

Tomorrow. The balcony.

The floor tilted. I steadied myself, then snapped photos of every incriminating file in his briefcase, the shell companies, forged signatures, transfers to offshore accounts as proofs.

But who would believe me?

Rain lashed the penthouse windows. I confronted him on the balcony, the city lights were blurred by storm.

"I know what you did," I said, my voice steady. "To Dad and to me."

Liam laughed. "And what will you do? Cry to the press? You're just a broken little girl playing detective."

Serena walking towards me, her red lips curved in a smirk. "Time to fly, Ellie."

I moved back, holding the balcony railing and said, "You will never get away with this."

"We already have." Liam said and moved towards me. "Who would miss you? Your father is half-dead. Your 'friends' are mine. Even your mother chose her experiments over you."

Rage burned through me. "Don't you dare talk about her!"

Serena tried to push me and I dodged, but Liam grabbed my arm.

"Goodbye, songbird."

Their hands both pushed me off the railing.

I fell.

Darkness. Then light.

Mom stood before me again, her form flickering. "Last chance, Elena. Go back. Or stay."

"Why?" I screamed. "Why do I have to fix your mistakes?"

"Because you're stronger than I was." She pressed her hand to my chest. "And because I love you."

The light exploded.