Silence is My Revenge

The phantom weight of the basement chain still crushed my windpipe.

A violent wave of suffocation ripped me back to reality, my chest heaving as I sucked in a desperate breath.

My eyes locked onto the heavy motorcycle keys dangling from Hunter's fingers.

In my past life, I warned him about the strange grinding noise coming from his brakes. He called me a jealous, toxic bitch who just couldn't stand seeing him do better than me.

A few hours later, those brakes gave out. His girlfriend took the brunt of the impact and died on the spot.

Hunter survived the crash, but his mind snapped. He pinned every ounce of the blame on me, locked me inside that lightless basement, and tortured me until my lungs gave out for good.

Now, I was back.

Hunter stood by the door, cocky and full of life, ready to take that girl out for a ride.

A flawless, soft smile stretched across my face as I gave him a little wave. "Have fun, Hunter."

Chapter 1

I opened my eyes.

The stark white ceiling matched the exact shade of the last thing I saw before I died. I wasn't in a hospital. This was my old bedroom, complete with the faded band poster peeling off the wall.

I was alive.

Or rather, I was back. Back to the day it all went to hell.

"Summer! Hurry up! Stop dragging your feet. The mountain roads are rough, and if we're late, we won't get a good spot!" Hunters booming voice echoed from the living room.

Summer. His brand-new girlfriend. She had huge doe eyes and two shallow dimples whenever she smiled. In my past life, she died on that mountain road.

Protecting Hunter.

I kicked off the blankets and planted my bare feet on the ground. The freezing hardwood made my toes curl, sending a sharp chill straight up my spine. That biting physical sensation cemented itthis wasn't a nightmare.

"Skylar! Stop spacing out! Get over here and grab my helmet!" Hunter yelled from the living room.

I pushed my door open and stepped out.

Hunter was already geared up. The black leather motorcycle jacket emphasized his broad shoulders and long legs. He tossed his keys in the air and caught them, wearing that familiar, arrogant smirk.

Summer crouched on the floor, struggling to lace up his heavy boots. She tilted her head up, gazing at him like he hung the moon.

Idiotic.

In my last life, this was the exact moment I rushed out. I blocked the door, gripping Hunter's arm, practically begging him. "Hunter, I heard a grinding noise from the brakes when you started the bike this morning. Just check it again, please."

The sound was faint, but I had always been hyper-sensitive to mechanical noises.

And how did Hunter react?

He shoved me hard, pointing his finger right in my face. "Drop the fake act! You're just jealous of Summer."

"You want to see us dead, don't you? Get out of my way!"

Summer hovered nearby, her voice soft. "Hunter, don't be like that. Skylar is just worried about you."

He snapped his head toward her. "You don't know shit! She's just jealous of you! Just look at that miserable face of hers!"

In the end, they left anyway.

Then, the brakes failed. The bike smashed through the guardrail, and Summer died on impact. Hunter survived, but left with a shattered leg.

Everyone called him lucky. I was the only one who knew Summer had used her own body as a human shield for him.

And what did he do? He dumped every ounce of the blame and guilt right onto my shoulders.

He stood in front of our entire family, pointed his finger right at my nose, and yelled, "It was her! She jinxed me! She killed Summer!"

Nobody believed me. All they saw was a heartbroken brother who had just lost the love of his life, and a cold-blooded, jealous, toxic sister.

I refused to revisit what came next. That was a dark, suffocating blur of being chained in a basement, left with nothing but endless pain and humiliation.

Now, I was back in this exact moment.

Hunter caught me staring. His brows slammed together.

"What are you looking at? Get over here and grab the black helmet off my desk. Make it quick."

I didn't move an inch. My eyes drifted past him, landing on the key hook by the entryway. The keys to that heavy bikethe one that claimed half his life and Summer's entire existencehung right there, gleaming with cold metal.

Summer got to her feet. She jogged over to the desk, lifted the heavy helmet with both hands, and held it out to him. "Here you go, Hunter," she said, her voice dripping with sweetness.

Hunter took the helmet and pinched her cheek. His tone finally softened. "At least someone around here knows how to behave."

Chapter 2

He snapped his helmet on and yanked down the visor, encasing himself in black armor. He grabbed Summer's hand and pulled the front door open.

"Hunter," I spoke. My voice came out raw, grating like rusted gears grinding together.

He threw a look over his shoulder. The muscles in his jaw ticked with impatience and high alert, as if bracing for me to spit out another jinx.

In my past life, I told him the brakes sounded off. In this life, I just looked at him. I looked at the innocent girl beside him who was about to march straight to her grave. And then, I smiled.

The reflection I had seen in the mirrorpale and bone-thinno longer held that pathetic, begging cowardice in her eyes. There was nothing left but a burnt-out dead zone.

I gave them a little wave. "Have fun, Hunter."

Hunter froze. He had probably never seen that kind of deadpan look on my face before. Summer looked equally caught off guard, but she managed a polite smile.

Hunter didn't say another word. He yanked Summer along and strode out. The heavy security door slammed shut, cutting them off from my world.

The smile wiped clean off my face.

I stepped out onto the balcony. Down below, the familiar black motorcycle roared to life like a rabid beast. It tore down the street, carrying the two of them into the dust.

This time, I didn't warn him to check his brakes.

And that was enough.

With Hunter and Summer gone, a heavy silence settled over the house.

Mom and Dad had left early for some important dinner party. Before they walked out, they had told me to just tolerate my brother's temper.

Tolerate. My entire existence seemed engineered around that word.

I walked back to my room, leaving the lights off. I sank into the mattress and pulled the thick comforter right over my head. The pitch-black darkness and the recycled air grounding my lungs made me feel safe.

I forced myself to block out the sharp turns of that mountain road. I squeezed my eyes shut against the phantom screams and the deafening crunch of tearing metal.

I dug into older memories instead.

When we were little, Hunter wasn't like this. He used to scrape together his allowance just to buy me ice cream. Whenever other kids picked on me, he was the first one to charge in and beat them until their noses bled. He used to let me ride on the back pegs of his bicycle, pedaling us through alleyway after alleyway.

When did it all twist into this?

It was probably when he got obsessed with motorcycles. Right around the time he took home his first trophy, suddenly surrounded by a crowd treating him like he walked on water. School became a joke to him. Our parents became annoying background noise.

And me? I went from his little sister to a velcro shadow he couldn't wait to scrape off.

He wanted groupies and cheerleaders. He didn't want a buzzkill constantly hovering in his ear about safety.

And I was the ultimate buzzkill.

I lay frozen under the covers until my joints went stiff. I wasn't sleeping. I was waiting.

Waiting for the call. The call that would finalize the sentence.

Time crawled. The wall clock ticked out the seconds, each rigid click hammering directly against my temples.

I dug out my phone and scrolled through the barren contact lista few classmates, my parents. I tapped open my chat history with Hunter. The last message was from three days ago.

[When are you coming home? Mom made soup.]

No reply.

I scrolled up. It was a solid wall of green texts from me, broken up only by an occasional "k" or "whatever" from him.

I hit the power button and tossed the phone onto the mattress.

In my past life, the call came in right at 4:30 PM.

I checked the time. It was 2:00 PM. Two and a half hours left.

My throat felt like sandpaper. I got up to grab some water from the kitchen.

As I walked past Hunter's room, I noticed the door wasn't clicked shut. A sliver of space remained. Some strange impulse took over, and I pushed it open.

Chapter 3

The room reeked of stale sweat and cheap tobacco. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and the ashtray on the desk was practically overflowing with crushed butts. Vintage motorcycle posters plastered the walls, leading up to a massive glass display case crammed with every racing trophy he had ever won.

Right in the dead center sat a framed photo.

In it, Hunter had his arm thrown over Summers shoulder, sporting that cocky, untouchable smirk. Summer leaned into his chest, her eyes overflowing with absolute adoration.

That was my brother at his absolute peak. He had a family that catered to his every whim, a squad of friends who worshipped the ground he walked on, and a girl who looked at him like he was the only man on earth. He had it all.

And he was about to burn it all to the ground with his own two hands.

I picked up the frame, my fingertip tracing the glass over Summers smiling face.

Im sorry. The words echoed silently in my throat.

But I couldn't save her. In my past life, I tried to save them both, and what did that get me? It dragged me straight to hell right alongside them.

I set the frame exactly where I found it and walked out.

Back in the living room, I sank into the couch and flicked on the TV. Some brain-dead reality show flashed across the screen, the hosts and guests throwing their heads back in exaggerated laughter. The sheer noise grated on my nerves. I hit the mute button.

The whole world collapsed into the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock.

The living room landline suddenly shrieked, slicing through the dead silence like a siren. It pierced right through my eardrums.

It was happening.

I stayed glued to the couch. I didn't flinch. The phone just kept screaming, relentless, ringing over and over again.

I could vividly picture the frantic look on the face of the paramedic or the cop on the other end. I could even script their exact opening line: Hello, is this Hunter's family?

After a dozen rings, it finally cut out.

The tension in my chest released.

But a split second later, my cell phone screen lit up on the coffee table. The caller ID flashed an unknown local number. The exact same number that called me in my last life.

I stared at the glowing digits. They warped into a pitch-black vortex, threatening to suck me right back into that endless nightmare.

I didn't answer.

I reached over, jammed the volume rocker to mute, and flipped the phone face-down against the glass table.

I knew absolutely nothing. I was just a sister sitting at home, waiting for her brother to get back. A perfectly innocent, oblivious sister who hadn't heard a thing.

The muffled buzzing against the table stopped.

Dead silence reclaimed the room. I kept my eyes locked on the muted TV, watching those exaggerated, beaming faces morph into something grotesque and absurd.

About twenty minutes later, a key jammed into the front door lock, twisting violently.

Mom and Dad burst in.

Mom's face was ashen, her eyes rimmed with raw, puffy red circles. Dads jaw was locked tight, his lips pressed into a hard, bloodless line.

Their eyes locked onto me.

"Skylar!" Moms voice trembled. "Your brother was in an accident!"

"Why the hell is your phone off? Nobody answered the landline! What have you been doing all afternoon?!"

I pushed myself off the couch, plastering the exact right mix of utter shock and confusion across my face. "Wait, what?"

"I I was sleeping in my room. My phone was on silent, I didn't hear a thing. What happened to Hunter?"

My acting was flawless. During my past life, locked in that lightless basement, I had learned exactly how to fake it just to spare myself another beating or secure a scrap of stale bread.

Dad marched over, his glare cutting right through me like a serrated blade. "Your brother wrecked his bike on the switchbacks. He's at Downtown General right now. It's bad."

He paused. His voice dropped to a low, rigid gravel, forcing every word out through clenched teeth. "Summer that girl Summer, she didn't make it. Died on impact."

I played my part. My eyes blew wide open. I slapped a hand over my mouth and let my knees buckle just a fraction, looking exactly like I was about to pass out on the living room floor.

Chapter 4

Mom immediately grabbed my arm, her hands feeling like absolute ice. "Hurry, go change. We need to get down there right now."

I nodded and bolted back to my room.

The second the door clicked shut, every ounce of panic washed right off my face.

I walked over to the closet and meticulously picked out the most inconspicuous grey hoodie and a pair of faded jeans.

I refused to wear white. Summers blood would just stain it.

Mom sobbed the entire ride to the hospital. Dad white-knuckled the steering wheel in dead silence, the air pressure inside the car thick enough to suffocate on. I huddled in the corner of the backseat, watching the blurred city lights whip past the window.

It was an exact carbon copy of my past life. The exact same route, the exact same heavy silence, the exact same suffocating despair.

The only difference was the rhythm of my pulse.

Last time, I sat in this exact seat, my entire body shuddering. Half of it was raw terror, the other half crushing guilt. I had been agonizing over whether it all could have been avoided if I had just been a little more stubborn, if I had physically thrown myself in front of his bike.

This time, my heart was dead calm. Still as a stagnant pool of water.

The hospital ER was absolute chaos. The second we rushed through the sliding doors, we spotted a couple of cops talking to the triage nurses.

One of the officers noticed us and walked over. "Are you Hunter's family?"

Dad's voice was pure gravel. "Yes. How is my son?"

"His left leg is completely shattered, severe bruising everywhere, and a mild concussion. He's not in critical condition and is already in surgery."

The cop gave a clinical, practiced report. "You people are incredibly lucky. The girl riding with him" He just shook his head, letting the sentence hang.

Mom's knees buckled. She nearly collapsed right onto the linoleum if Dad hadn't caught her under the arms.

I stood slightly behind them, my gaze cutting straight through the panicked crowd to lock onto the glowing red sign above the surgical double doors.

IN SURGERY. The glowing red letters were blindingly stark.

He survived. Exactly as expected. Summer would always shield him.

Just then, two uniformed cops approached. One of them clicked a pen over a notepad. "Family, over here, please. We need to go over a few details."

"Who here knows the deceased, Summer? Have her next of kin been contacted?"

Summer's parents lived out of state and couldn't get here anytime soon. My parents barely knew a thing about her either, only that she was Hunter's newest girlfriend. The cops rattled off a few more questions about Hunter's street racing habits, and Dad answered them all with a rigid, darkened face.

I stood off to the side, invisible. A ghost in the background.

Nobody paid me a single glance until a younger cop made eye contact, his tone immediately softening. "Don't be too sad, kid. Your brother is going to make it."

I snapped my head up, instantly letting a pool of tears flood my eyes. My voice cracked perfectly. "I I know. Thank you, officer."

A single tear spilled over my lashes right on cue, making me look utterly heartbroken and helpless.

The young cop let out a sympathetic sigh and stepped away.

Internally, I scoffed.

Sad? No, I wasn't sad in the slightest.

I was just picturing the exact moment Hunter was wheeled out of that OR. I was imagining the look on his face the second he realized his prized leg was shattered, the moment the reality hit him that he had personally killed the girl who loved him the most.

I was actually starting to look forward to it.

Hunter's surgery dragged on for five grueling hours.

My parents and I stayed rooted outside the double doors. Mom eventually cried herself to sleep, her head slumped against Dad's shoulder. Dad just chain-smoked in the designated area, dropping a small mountain of crushed butts by his boots.

I sat on the freezing plastic waiting room chairs, staring dead-on at my own reflection in the polished floor. The harsh fluorescent lights stretched my shadow out into something long and twisted.

At 1:00 AM, the red light above the OR finally clicked off.

The surgeon pushed through the doors, yanking down his mask with pure exhaustion plastered across his face. "His left leg is trashed. Even with the best recovery, he'll be walking with a limp for the rest of his life. He can forget about ever throwing his leg over that heavy motorcycle again."

Chapter 5

No more extreme sports.

That meant Hunter's racing career was permanently, irreversibly over.

For a guy who treated the asphalt like his own oxygen, this was a fate far worse than just putting a bullet in his head.

Dad swayed on his feet, the blood draining from his face. Mom jolted awake, her nails instantly biting into the surgeons scrub sleeve. "Doctor, my son is he going to be a cripple for the rest of his life?"

"His left leg is trashed. Even with the best recovery, he'll be walking with a limp for the rest of his life. He can forget about ever throwing his leg over that heavy motorcycle again." The doctor delivered the brutal reality without flinching.

They finally let us into the ICU.

Hunter lay flat on the hospital bed, the anesthesia still keeping him under. His face was the color of ash. His left leg was locked in a massive plaster cast, hoisted high up in a sling.

He was no longer the untouchable king of the streets. He looked like roadkill scraped off the pavement, utterly pathetic.

Mom lunged for the bedside, grabbing his IV-free hand and dissolving into fresh sobs. Dad stood frozen at the foot of the bed, staring at that trashed leg as his eyes glazed over with red.

I stayed planted in the doorway. I didn't step an inch further.

I stared at Hunter on that hospital bed, and my chest was a void. No rush of twisted satisfaction, no pity.

He was just a stranger taking up space on a mattress.

For the next few days, that sterile hospital room became our second home.

Mom and Dad took turns standing guard, sponge-bathing him, spoon-feeding him. When Hunter finally woke up, he didn't say a single word. He just kept his eyes blown wide, staring dead at the ceiling tiles.

The arrogant fire in his eyes was permanently snuffed out.

Summer's parents finally made it into town. They were quiet, working-class folks who completely collapsed in the morgue the second they saw their daughter's body.

They came to the hospital room looking for Hunter.

Summer's mom didn't hit him. She didn't scream. She just stood beside his bed, staring down at him as silent tears spilled over her cheeks.

"My daughter adored you," she whispered, her voice hollow. "She made a picture of you her phone lock screen. She bragged about you to me every single day."

"If she knew she traded her own life just to save you, and this half-dead shell is all you've become it would break her heart all over again."

That sentence was the absolute kill shot.

Hunter lost his damn mind.

He roared, his body thrashing against the sheets as he tried to claw his way out of the bed. He hammered his fists repeatedly into his own plastered leg, howling like a rabid animal trapped in a snare.

A swarm of doctors and nurses rushed in, shoving a syringe full of sedatives into his IV line before his body finally went limp.

After that day, his mental state fractured.

The night terrors started. He would jolt awake at 3:00 AM, screaming Summer's name until his vocal cords shredded.

A full week passed before he finally choked out a word.

That afternoon, Mom and Dad had to run an errand, leaving me on watch duty.

The room was suffocatingly quiet, entirely swallowed by the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.

"Water." The word scraped out of his throat like sandpaper.

I poured a cup of lukewarm water and guided the plastic straw to his cracked lips. He took a few frantic pulls, his bloodshot eyes locking entirely onto me.

His gaze was completely foreign. The muscles around his eyes twitched with raw agony, laced with a hyper-fixated, probing intensity.

"That day when I left," he dragged the words out, his voice a dry rasp. "Why didn't you stop me?"

My grip on the plastic cup froze.

There it is.

I tilted my head, perfectly crafting a mask of naive, shattered innocence. "Hunter, how could I? You know how you get. Even if I begged you, you wouldn't have listened."

He smashed his fists against the bedframe, roaring like a rabid dog. "This is on you! You knew the brakes were shot, and you kept your damn mouth shut! You murderer!"

"You killed Summer, and you destroyed my leg!" He glared at me, his eyes wide and manic, trying to drill a hole straight through my skull.

In my past life, he interrogated me exactly like this.

Except back then, the accusation was built on the fact that I did warn him, and the crash still happened. He completely twisted my warning into a malicious curse.

This time, his witch hunt was built entirely on the fact that I said absolutely nothing.

Chapter 6

His eyes narrowed, trying to dissect my silence. The suspicion surrounding my "inaction" was practically oozing out of his pores.

I lowered my gaze. My long lashes cast shadows, completely masking the dead zone in my eyes. I made my voice waver, thinning it out until it sounded fragile and traumatized.

"Because because the last few times I tried to warn you, you shoved me and called me a toxic bitch. I was terrified of you, Hunter. I didn't dare say another word."

I let the word terrified crack perfectly in my throat.

Hunter's breath hitched. His chest stopped rising. The muscles in his jaw locked rigid, as if the physical memory of shoving me and cursing me out had just slammed into him.

My defense was utterly bulletproof. His own violent temper had permanently gagged me. He had absolutely zero ammunition left to fire at me.

But the manic suspicion in his bloodshot eyes didn't evaporate. Deprived of a target to unleash his rage on, that paranoia curdled into something much darker and heavier. He stared at me. The dead silence dragged on until the air went stale.

Finally, his voice rasped out. "Skylar, are you do you blame me?"

"How could I ever blame you, Hunter?" I tilted my head up, meeting his gaze with a flawless mask of absolute sincerity. "You're my brother. Seeing you like this destroys me."

"The only person I hate is myself. I hate that I was such a coward. I hate that I didn't have the guts to try and stop you one more time."

Right on cue, the tears spilled over. One drop, then another, splashing hot and heavy against the back of my hand.

Hunter stared at my wet cheeks. The rabid hostility in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by a hollow, exhausted collapse of his shoulders. It was the look of a man realizing he was chasing ghosts. He stopped talking, slowly turning his head away to stare blankly at the ceiling tiles once again.

I knew I was safe for now.

But I also knew exactly how paranoia worked. Once that seed was planted in the dirt, it would only grow roots. It would never die.

Hunter spent a full month trapped in that hospital room.

For the bulk of it, he was dead silent. His old racing crew came by, trying to hype him up and crack jokes, but he didn't even twitch a muscle.

He had lost a massive amount of weight. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, covered by heavy shadows, and a rough, dark stubble coated his jaw. That arrogant, invincible fire that used to define him had been pulverized. He looked like a man who had aged ten years in thirty days.

On the day of his discharge, Mom and Dad decided to throw a small dinner party at the house. They invited a few close relatives and friends, claiming it would wash away the bad luck and lift his spirits.

I had no idea what kind of good luck could possibly wash over a guy who had personally slaughtered his own girlfriend and permanently crippled himself.

But I didn't utter a word of protest.

I played the role of the perfectly dutiful sister, helping Mom prep the dinner spread and set up the dining room.

Hunter sat slumped in a wheelchair. Dad pushed him into the living room to make small talk with the visiting uncles.

He wore loose-fitting sweatpants, the left leg fabric hanging flat and swaying emptily against the metal footrest. He forced the corners of his mouth up, trying to play the gracious host, but the smile looked more like a painful grimace.

Every single relative silently agreed to bury the word "crash." They just kept patting him on the back, spouting empty garbage like, "Just focus on healing up," and "You've got your whole life ahead of you."

But every pair of eyes locked onto him was dripping with heavy pity and tragic regret. I could see those looks driving into Hunter's skin like rusted nails. His knuckles turned white gripping the armrests. If there was one thing he despised more than anything else in the world, it was being looked down on with pity.

Once dinner actually started, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on.

Everyone desperately scrambled for safe topics. The dining table was dominated by the agonizingly awkward sounds of chewing and silverware scraping against porcelain.

I sat directly next to Hunter.

I picked up a piece of ribshis absolute favorite before the crashand placed it perfectly onto his plate. "Eat up, Hunter," I said, my voice soft and gentle. "You've lost so much weight."

He just stared dead-eyed at the meat on his plate. He didn't even pick up his fork.

One of our distant uncles, already a few drinks deep, evidently decided it was his job to liven up the room. He slammed a heavy hand down onto Hunter's shoulder. "Hey, don't sweat it too much, kid! You're a man!"

"Who doesn't make a few mistakes when they're young? Just look at the leg as the price of a lesson learned! Keep your head down, get a steady job, and there will be plenty of good girls lining up for you!"

The second those words left his mouth, a dead silence dropped over the entire room.

Chapter 7

The phrase "good girls" plunged into the room like a jagged knife.

The best girl was already dead.

All the color drained from Hunter's face. His knuckles turned stark white as his grip tightened around his chopsticks. His bottom lip visibly trembled.

The uncle realized he had just stepped on a landmine. He let out a nervous chuckle and clamped his mouth shut. Mom immediately scrambled to smooth things over, rushing around the table to refill everyone's glasses.

That was when I made my move.

In front of the entire family, I deliberately picked out the best, thickest cut of fish. I meticulously picked out every single bone and placed the meat perfectly onto his plate. My voice was sickeningly sweet, laced with an undetectable edge of provocation.

"Here, Hunter. Your leg makes things so inconvenient now. I'll handle all this delicate work for you from now on." My movements were perfectly natural.

To everyone else at the table, it was just a sister looking out for her disabled brother.

But Hunter didn't see it that way.

In a moment so awkward it was freezing the oxygen in the room, I wasn't scrambling or uncomfortable like the rest of them. I was completely composed, pouring out my "care."

To him, that absolute calm was pure, unadulterated apathy.

It was gloating.

He slammed his chopsticks down against the wooden table. The sharp crack made half the room jump.

He glared dead at me. Thick red veins mapped across his sclera. That specific, manic stare perfectly overlapped with the exact look he gave me right before I died in my past life.

"You think this is funny?" The words ground through his teeth.

I froze, widening my eyes in pure, innocent confusion. "Hunter, what are you talking about?"

"I said, do you think me sitting here like this is a damn joke!" He pointed a violently shaking finger down at the empty, flat fabric of his sweatpants. "Are you satisfied, Skylar?"

"I'm a cripple! Summer is dead! You're absolutely thrilled right now, aren't you!"

The dining room turned into a graveyard.

Dad shook with rage. He slammed his palms onto the table and shot up from his chair.

"Hunter! Have you lost your damn mind? What kind of garbage are you spewing at your sister!"

Mom rushed over, grabbing his arm. "Hunter, please don't do this. Skylar is just worried about you"

"Worried about me?" A harsh, grating laugh ripped out of Hunter's throat. "She's worried about me? You know what she said the day I left?"

"She smiled and told me to have fun! Have any of you ever seen her act like that before? She wanted me dead!"

He finally dragged his deepest, ugliest paranoia out into the light, shoving it right in front of the entire family.

Every pair of eyes in the room instantly zeroed in on me.

Shock. Confusion. Suspicion.

I stayed glued to my chair. Tears pooled rapidly in my eyes, and I forced my shoulders to tremble slightly, mimicking pure terror. I stared at Hunter, my lips parting and closing without sound, looking exactly like a deer caught in the headlights. "Hunter I didn't I swear I didn't"

My defense was feeble. Breathless.

But to the spectators, it was the raw, authentic reaction of a girl being publicly crucified by her own brother.

"Enough!" Dad's voice boomed like thunder, rattling the crystal on the table. He stormed around the chairs and grabbed Hunter right by the collar of his shirt, his eyes bloodshot.

"You piece of trash! You made the mistake! You got that girl killed!"

"And now you're going manic and dumping your dirt onto your own sister? Have you lost your soul?"

Hunter thrashed against Dad's grip. "I'm not crazy! There's something wrong with her! Have none of you noticed?"

"Since the crash, has she shed a single tear? She's completely dead inside! She's a cold-blooded monster!"

Dad yanked his hand back, fully winding up to backhand him across the face.

Mom screamed, throwing herself over Dad's arm to pin it down. "Don't hit him! Don't do it! His leg is still broken!"

Total chaos erupted.

Relatives scrambled out of their seats to pull them apart, while others huddled in the corners, furiously whispering to each other.

I stayed rooted to my chair, keeping my head bowed low. I made sure my shoulders hitched in a rhythmic, jagged pattern, putting on the perfect illusion of silent, devastating sobs.

But nobody could see past my lowered lashes. Beneath them, my eyes held nothing but a glacial calm.

Hunter was right.

Chapter 8

Since the crash, I hadn't shed a single genuine tear for him, nor for Summer.

Those perfectly timed tears were nothing but props in a performance meant for the audience. My real tears had dried up a lifetime ago, completely drained out in that damp, freezing basement.

While the living room descended into chaos, fragments of memory shoved their way into my brain, totally out of my control.

Pitch black.

The only light in the basement bled through a tiny, suffocating slit of a window. I was chained to the radiator in the corner, the cold metal biting deep into my skin.

Hunter crouched in front of me, shoving a bowl of rotting, rancid food into my space. "Eat."

I shook my head, my stomach violently rolling. I hadn't eaten in two days, but what he brought wouldn't even be fit for a stray dog.

"Not eating?" A sick, twisted smirk cracked across his handsome face. "Fine. Let's chat."

He grabbed my jaw, his fingers locking like a vice to force my head up. His nails dug so deep into my flesh I felt the sharp sting of breaking skin.

"Skylar, look me in the eye. Tell me you didn't purposely mumble your words that morning."

Back then, I was still desperate enough to try and explain. "Hunter, I told you. I clearly said the brakes were grinding"

"Shut your mouth!" He lunged, his hands locking shut around my throat like a maniac. "You call that a warning? You twisted, toxic bitch!"

"You were jealous of Summer! You couldn't stand the fact that someone actually loved me! You orchestrated this whole damn thing because you wanted to watch us die, didn't you!"

His logic was completely unhinged, yet locked behind a steel wall of delusion. He had already acted as judge and jury. I was the murderer.

I stared at his distorted features, feeling the last drop of hope plummet to the bottom of my stomach.

"I didn't." I gave up trying to reason with a madman.

"Still lying!" A lethal chill dropped over his eyes. He grabbed a cup of ice water from the floor and threw it straight into my face.

The freezing shock convulsed my spine. "Say it again! Did you do it!"

My lips sealed shut. The dead silence became the ultimate trigger. He pulled his arm back and backhanded me across the face with everything he had.

The back of my skull slammed against the concrete wall with a sickening thud. A high-pitched ringing instantly blew out my eardrums, and the thick, metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.

"Keep your damn mouth shut, then! Play dead for me!"

Fists and palms rained down on me, relentless and brutal. I curled into a tight ball on the concrete, wrapping my arms around my head, taking every single ounce of his displaced, psychotic rage.

The agonizing loss of his girlfriend, the venomous resentment of becoming a cripple, the crushing weight of his own sinshe channeled every bit of it straight through his knuckles and into my bones.

I was his personal punching bag.

Because I was his sister. Because I was supposed to be the one who "would never" betray him. Because I was supposed to "always" forgive him.

Mom's frantic voice hooked me and dragged me out of the suffocating black void. "Skylar? Skylar!"

I tilted my head up. The fresh tear tracks were still wet on my cheeks, my eyes perfectly hollow and disoriented.

The living room circus had officially packed up. The relatives had awkwardly shuffled out the front door, and Dad had forcefully wheeled Hunter back into his bedroom.

Mom crouched beside my chair, gently dabbing my wet cheeks with a tissue. "You're terrified, aren't you?" she cooed, her voice aching with sympathy.

"Just ignore your brother. He's just he's in so much pain, he doesn't know what he's saying."

I shook my head, my voice entirely shot. "Mom does Hunter hate me?"

Mom wrapped her arms around my shoulders, rubbing my back. "Silly girl, don't talk like that. He's your brother."

"How could he hate you? He's just having a hard time processing everything."

Processing? No. He was more lucid than anyone else in this house.

He just needed a target. A target he could use to completely absolve himself of his own sins without an ounce of guilt.

In my last life, I was the bullseye.

In this life, I had to make sure it was still me.

After that disastrous dinner party, the air inside the house curdled into something incredibly toxic.

Chapter 9

Mom and Dad acted like they had a secret pact, absolutely refusing to bring up that night. They overcompensated, treating me with this suffocating gentleness. But at the same time, they walked on eggshells around Hunter, terrified of triggering another manic episode.

This house was like a shattered vase held together by cheap supergluefine on the outside, but webbed with massive cracks underneath.

And Hunter? He turned into an isolated island.

He locked himself in his room, rotting in there for days on end. Mom had to carry his meals on a tray and leave them at the closed door. He stopped roaring. He stopped thrashing.

He just went dead silent.

That dead silence made the hairs on my arms stand up way more than his psychotic screaming ever did. I knew exactly what he was doing behind that door. He was thinking. He was using his completely warped, twisted logic to reconstruct the "truth" of the crash.

He was hunting for a crack in my armor.

A week later, I walked through the front door after school. The second I stepped inside, my eyes locked onto Hunter sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of the living room.

On the glass coffee table in front of him sat an open notebook. My locked diary.

The heavy metal padlock had been pried open, the twisted metal hanging off the spine.

A phantom weight dropped straight to the bottom of my stomach.

He stared at me, his face a complete blank slate, and jerked his chin toward the pages. "I read it."

I stayed planted in the entryway. I didn't move an inch. I didn't make a sound.

"You're a pretty good writer," he dragged the words out. "Every single entry details exactly how much you care about me, how much you adore your big brother. It's really touching."

His tone was flat, but the venomous sarcasm bled right through. "But," he pivoted, his finger aggressively tapping against a specific page. "From the exact day Summer showed up, her name vanishes from your diary. Not a single damn word."

My pupils contracted perfectly on cue.

"You didn't like her," he delivered his verdict, his gaze cutting right through me like a serrated blade. "You actually hated her guts. So much that you couldn't even stomach writing her name down in your little book."

My fingernails bit hard into my palms.

He wasn't wrong. I absolutely despised Summer. Not out of some pathetic jealousy, but because I knew she was the spark that ignited this family's total destruction. She was the trigger.

But I could never admit that out loud.

"I didn't hate her," I said, keeping my voice dead even. "I just didn't really know her. She was your girlfriend, not mine. Why would I fill my diary with a complete stranger?"

"A stranger?" A grating sneer ripped from Hunter's throat. "She practically became your sister-in-law, and you call her a stranger?"

He snatched the diary off the glass and flipped to the very last page. It was the entry I wrote the night before the crash.

[June 12th, Sunny. Tomorrow is the weekend again, and Hunter is going out. I hope he stays safe.]

He slammed the diary down hard onto the coffee table. The sharp crack echoed through the room.

I stared at the torn pages, a cold scoff echoing in the back of my mind. This was the exact "clue" I had purposely planted for hima perfectly crafted trap designed to lock him inside an endless loop of his own warped logic.

"Look at what you wrote right here!" He stabbed his finger at that exact line, drilling his eyes into mine. "'I hope he stays safe'? Skylar, you never wrote like this before!"

My heart perfectly skipped a beat. He didn't let up.

"You used to write, 'I have to remind Hunter to check his bike!' or 'I can't let him drive too fast!' Your diary was always filled with specific, obsessive reminders!"

"But this time? Just one flimsy, utterly useless line about 'staying safe'!"

He shoved his wheelchair forward, closing the distance between us. Pure, manic paranoia completely hijacked his eyes. "You already had a feeling I was going to crash, didn't you? You knew! But you kept your damn mouth shut! You just stood there and watched! You watched me take Summer straight to the slaughterhouse!"

His voice didn't boom, but every single word plunged into my skin like a poisoned needle.

He had zero hard evidence. Everything written in that diary was perfectly reasonable. Every single one of his insane accusations was built entirely on his own twisted assumptions.

But his raw intuition was terrifyingly accurate.

Chapter 10

I stared at his flushed, veins-popping face and the manic red webbing his eyes. Suddenly, it clicked. He already knew.

He knew exactly who was at fault. He knew he was the one who deserved to be in a body bag.

But his fragile ego couldn't stomach the reality. If he admitted it, the sheer weight of the guilt would crush him. So, he needed a scapegoat to carry his sins.

And I was the perfect target.

I sucked in a sharp breath, swallowing down the pure, toxic hatred burning at the back of my throat. I instantly plaster on a mask of utter devastation and disbelief.

"Hunter," I let my voice tremble. "Is that really how you see me? Do you honestly think I'm that twisted? If I genuinely wanted you dead, why the hell would I write 'I hope he stays safe' in my own private diary? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just write 'I hope he burns in hell'?"

My counterattack made him physically recoil.

The logic was an impenetrable brick wall. If I truly despised him that much, my private journal would be dripping with venom. But the pages were as spotless as my innocent act. Absolutely flawless.

He glared at me, the muscles in his jaw twitching violently as conflicting emotions warred in his bloodshot eyes. You could physically see the fractureone half desperate to believe me, the other half hijacked by a guilt so suffocating it forced him to pin the blame elsewhere.

Right at that suffocating second, the front door clicked open.

Mom and Dad stepped inside.

The second their eyes locked onto the standoff in the living room and the torn diary trashed on the floor, all the color drained from their faces.

Mom practically sprinted over, shoving herself between us to shield me. "What are you doing now?!" she yelled at Hunter. "Are you terrorizing your sister again?!"

Hunter stared at me cowering behind Mom's back. The frantic conflict in his eyes slowly evaporated, hardening into something glacial and dead.

Then, his lips curled up.

That twisted, hollow smirk sent a chill straight down my spine.

I knew exactly what was clicking behind those eyes. He had just locked onto a brand new, airtight narrative to prove just how "toxic" I was.

Mom pulled me back, keeping her body firmly planted in front of mine. Dads face went completely purple. He pointed a rigid finger right at Hunters nose, too choked with rage to even form a sentence.

The explosive family warfare was abruptly shut down by sheer parental intervention.

Hunter didn't spit out another word. He just locked his eyes onto mine for one long, suffocating second. It was a terrifying cocktail of raw fury, bitter resentment, and a sick, twisted flicker of excitement.

The exact look of a predator finally catching the scent of fresh blood.

He grabbed the wheels of his chair, spun himself around, and rolled straight back into his room. The heavy wooden door slammed shut with a violent crack.

That night, Mom slipped into my bedroom. She wrapped her arms tightly around me, pouring out a steady stream of excuses. "Skylar, please don't hold this against him," she whispered. "He lost his leg. He lost Summer. He's a completely different person now. He's just spouting nonsense. Don't let it get to you."

I rested my chin on her shoulder and gave a compliant, perfect little nod. "I know, Mom."

But I knew the absolute truth. Not a single word out of Hunter's mouth was nonsense. It was the heavily constructed, bulletproof delusion he needed to keep breathing. His personalized, entirely fabricated "truth."

Starting that very next day, his entire strategy shifted.

He completely stopped antagonizing me in the open. He became unsettlingly quiet. Polite, even.

He started asking Mom to leave his bedroom door wide open, claiming he didn't want to rot in total isolation anymore. He would park his wheelchair in the living room, flipping through a book or staring blindly at the TV. Whenever I walked through the front door after school, hed actually look up, offer a stiff nod, and sometimes even ask, "You're home?"

Mom and Dad practically collapsed with relief, totally convinced he had finally turned a corner.

But I knew exactly what was happening. The rabid beast hadn't been tamed; he had just retracted his claws to blend in with the shadows. He was upgrading his tactics, silently circling his prey for the perfect ambush.

And his golden opportunity presented itself soon enough.

It was a dead-quiet Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad had both gone out to run errands, leaving just the two of us locked inside the house.

I finished up my homework and stepped out of my bedroom to grab a glass of water.

He was parked right beside the living room couch, completely absorbed in a hardcover book. The late afternoon sunlight poured in through the massive windows behind him, tracing a golden halo across his broad shoulders.

He looked perfectly still. Completely harmless.

Chapter 11

"Skylar, come here." His voice was dead calm.

I walked over.

He pointed at the couch opposite him. "Sit."

I sat down.

He snapped his book shut and rested it on his lap. He laced his fingers together and locked his eyes on me, looking exactly like a judge about to hand down a death sentence.

"I finished the diary." He leaned back into the cushions, unapologetic, examining me like I was his latest trophy. "Drop the pathetic victim act. If I hadn't smashed that lock, I never would have discovered your Oscar-worthy performance."

I froze, perfectly letting the color drain from my face as I played the bewildered sister. "Hunter, what are you talking about?"

He completely ignored my question. "That diary was the missing piece," he said, his eyes burning with a terrifying clarity. "It made everything finally click."

He leaned forward, locking his gaze entirely on mine. "You're a very smart girl, Skylar. Far smarter than I ever gave you credit for."

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

"At first, I couldn't figure it out." He kept talking, analyzing the situation out loud like he was dissecting a complex chessboard. "Your diary was way too clean. So spotless it was obviously planted for me to find."

"I couldn't wrap my head around it. If you really hated me, if you genuinely wanted me dead, why the hell would you write 'I hope he stays safe' in your own private book?" A twisted smirk slowly stretched across his face.

"Then came the dinner party. I watched you cry in front of the whole family. You looked so heartbroken, so utterly helpless. And that's when it finally hit me."

"Every single word you wrote, every single tear you shedit's all a performance. You meticulously crafted that diary to be flawless. You deliberately disguised yourself as the ultimate victim."

"Because you knew exactly how this was going to play out. You knew the second I crashed, I would come looking for you. You built yourself a bulletproof alibi before the brakes even failed."

His voice never rose above a conversational volume, but every word slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer.

"You didn't write 'I hope he dies' because that would be too obvious. It would expose your motive. Writing 'I hope he stays safe' was the ultimate, master-class curse."

"Because when you say 'stay safe' to someone you already know is riding straight into a death trap, those two words become the most vicious, sickeningly sarcastic venom on the planet