After I Learned To Obey Why Did My Family Start To Regret It? Chapter 04
Near lunchtime, Sean shoved open the cell door and threw a box at my face.
The clasp broke. Its contents scattered across the floor.
Ashes spilled over the stone.
Among them lay a black bangle.
My body went rigid as I picked it up. The moment my fingers closed around it, tears blurred my vision.
“Recognize it?” Sean said. “Your foster mother raised you badly. She made you what you are. That makes both of you guilty.”
My throat closed.
I could not speak.
Sean stepped closer.
“Tiffany was spoiled by all of us, and she still grew up sweet. Look at you. Your foster mother raised you for years, and you don’t even react when you see what’s left of her.”
The tears came without warning.
I clutched the bangle until my broken fingers burned.
My foster mother’s gentle figure rose again and again in my mind, only to blur into the ashes scattered at my feet.
She had died eight years ago.
She worked herself sick, then caught a cold and never recovered.
Before my birth parents found me and brought me back, I had buried her beneath the peach tree on the back mountain.
Sean saw the calm leave my face. A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Take it.”
The attendants beside him moved at once.
I refused to let go.
They pried my fingers open. Bone cracked.
The sound made Sean frown. He pushed the attendant aside and snatched the bangle himself.
The force dragged me to the ground. Every bit of strength seemed to leave my body.
Sean held the bangle in front of me.
“You’ll get it back when you admit what you did.”
He turned to leave.
My head rang.
I threw myself at him.
“Don’t go! Sean, I was wrong. I’ll do anything. Please, give it back.”
I hit him hard enough to make him stagger.
The bangle fell.
It broke into two pieces on the floor.
A scream tore out of me. I crawled toward it and gathered the broken pieces against my chest.
Why?
I was already dying.
Why wouldn’t they leave me anything?
Sean stared at me. For the first time, uncertainty broke through his anger.
Then he looked up and saw Gerald standing at the entrance.
As Alpha, Gerald had come to punish me himself.
He walked into the cell, his voice flat.
“I thought you had learned your lesson. Then you pushed Tiffany out of the car in front of us. You still haven’t changed.”
I barely heard him.
I gathered the ashes with my hands, bit by bit.
For a moment, I thought I saw my foster mother.
My body grew heavy. A sharp pain cut through my chest.
Gerald walked past me.
I stared at the tips of his shoes.
The last light inside me went out.
My eyes closed.
My hand slipped.
Then my body collapsed onto the floor.
This time, just as they wanted, I truly died.
Gerald stopped.
He turned back and stared at my lifeless body.
Shock stripped the color from his face.
