Chapter 3

"She killed us?" my mother whispered, her voice trembling as she stared at me, her eyes filled with a dawning horror.

"Yes, Mom," Britney sobbed, tightening her grip on my ankle. "It was awful. She failed her scholarship interview and lost her mind. She said it was all your fault for not loving her enough. She sabotaged Dad's company, made you lose the house, everything! And then... and then..."

Britney buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with manufactured grief. "She was full of so much hate. She set the house on fire while you were sleeping. I was the only one who escaped."

She described a scene of fire and smoke, of my supposed demonic laughter echoing as the flames consumed them. Every word was a carefully crafted lie, designed to paint me as a monster and her as a tragic, heroic survivor.

I watched my parents' faces. I saw the last flicker of doubt in their eyes extinguish, replaced by pure, undiluted belief. The way they looked at me... it was the same look they gave me before they locked me in the shed to die. The look you give to something inhuman.

"It's not true," I said, my voice hoarse. "She's lying."

"Lying?" my father spat. "Why would Britney lie about something so horrible? Look at her! She' s terrified!"

"I don't know why she's lying, but she is," I pleaded, trying to keep my voice steady. "Listen, I don't care about the interview. I'll leave. I'll pack a bag and go, you'll never have to see me again. Just let me go."

My father laughed, a short, ugly sound. "Let you go? So you can go out there and plot our downfall? We're not that stupid, Chloe."

He grabbed me by the arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. "You ungrateful brat. After everything we've done for you."

He shoved me towards the kitchen. A bowl of fish soup, my mother' s special recipe, sat on the counter. In my previous life, she had made it for me as a "good luck" meal before the interview. Now, it seemed like a mockery.

He pushed my face down towards the bowl. "This is what you deserve. Not a scholarship, not a future. Nothing."

The hot liquid splashed against my cheek, but I didn't flinch. I just stared at my reflection in the soup, my face distorted and broken.

"You see?" Britney's voice piped up from behind me, dripping with false sympathy. "The resentment is already there. You can see it in her eyes. It's the same look she had right before she destroyed us."

That was it. That was the final nail in my coffin.

My mother, who had been standing by silently, walked over to the kitchen drawer and took out a roll of duct tape.

"We can't let her go to that interview, John," she said, her voice cold and resolved. "We can't let her leave this house."

My father nodded grimly. He took my phone out of my pocket and tossed it on the counter.

As he started to shove me towards my bedroom, I caught a glimpse of Britney' s face. The tears were gone. In their place was a small, triumphant smile.

She had won. And I was trapped.