“The phone call. Why did you hang up?” I asked. It had been a dark day. I’d found a phone at the school, a way to contact them, to be rescued. But that night, the instructor came to my room. He told me to kneel and
L
undress. If I refused, he’d drag me to the
solitary confinement room, shock me, and
leave me there for days. Hope had felt so
close. I’d clenched my jaw until I tasted blood.
Then I knelt and undressed. Afterwards,
bruised and bleeding, I’d called them, tears of
hope in my eyes. “Mom, Dad, please come
get me! I’m being-” Click. They hung up. The
wind had dried my tears, and something
inside me had died.
I waited for their answer. What could have
been so important that they ignored their
daughter’s desperate plea? A fire? A dropped
phone? Mom and Dad exchanged a look. The
light had gone out of Mom’s eyes, leaving
two black holes. She gave a ghastly smile,
blood on her teeth. She’d bitten her lip. “It was midnight,” she said. “We were…busy. Celebrating Chloe’s birthday.”
Chloe’s birthday. Of course. She was all that mattered. I was just a rebellious problem child, not worth their time. I laughed, doubling over. Mom added, her voice frantic, “It was our mistake, but Chloe…she didn’t do
anything wrong.”
Just then, a phone rang in Chloe’s room. Her phone? She was at the hospital. It was her burner phone. Dad answered it, his face
turning ashen, staring at the screen in horror. Mom looked over, then swatted the phone
away as if it were a venomous snake. “No! It
can’t be! Kill me now!” She laughed and cried,
hysterical. Dad punched the wall, blood
splattering down the white paint.
So, they’d seen the truth. My plan had
worked. I’d made sure her burner phone was
charged and arranged for someone to call it. It was Chloe who’d suggested the reform
school. She’d already contacted them, made
a deal – using that burner phone. She wanted
me tortured, then dead. The price? Two
hundred thousand dollars. That’s what my life
was worth. I’d overheard the school director
telling the instructor to “take special care” of me. That, along with Chloe’s eagerness to send me there, had made me suspicious. I
was grateful to her. Her greed had fueled my
rage, given me the strength to endure the
torture, the vigilance to survive. I should have died there. But I was strong, and I was lucky.
I’d played along, pretending to be broken,
obedient, to gather evidence. While she gloated, I’d watched her, a scorpion in the
shadows, waiting to strike.
