Chapter 70 SCARS THAT NEVER HEALED
“We were going to have a science exhibition at school, and our teachers promised to discuss it with the head proprietors so they would allow the children to go on a three-day trip.
I was so excited. Especially after learning that the school would be sponsoring the entire trip, which meant I could actually attend. For once, money wouldn’t be the reason I had to stay behind.
But when I got home that day and told my mum about it… she refused.
She said I wasn’t going. That no one would be there to take care of my sister if I left.”
I paused, taking a deep breath before lifting my gaze to Jaxon’s.
The way he looked at me made my chest tighten. As if I were something fragile. Something precious he had just uncovered after years of being buried.
“And then what happened?” he asked quietly, his voice softer than usual, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made it hard to breathe.
“I begged her,” I continued. “I begged and pleaded with her to let me go—just this once. I told her I would make up for it. I told her I would do anything.”
My throat tightened at the memory.
“But instead, she called my teacher herself and told her I wouldn’t be attending the exhibition.”
The humiliation of it still burned. I remembered standing there, listening to her voice through the thin kitchen walls, final and unyielding. Like my feelings didn’t matter. Like I didn’t matter.
“I have never asked my mum for anything and received it,” I said bitterly. “But whenever Annabella asked for something, she got it in a heartbeat. No questions. No hesitation.”
I swallowed hard.
“Simply because she was the one with asthma… and I wasn’t.”
The words tasted sour.
“I paid the price for being healthy,” I admitted, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. “Sometimes I wished I was the one with asthma. Just so I wouldn’t have to carry everything on my shoulders. Just so my mum would look at me the way she looked at her. Just so she’d be a little kinder to me.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“I was literally my sister’s slave.”
Even now, saying it out loud felt wrong. Harsh. But it was the truth.
As I spoke, the memories felt unbearably vivid—like I wasn’t sitting here with Jaxon, but standing in that small house all over again. Watching my childhood slip through my fingers.
The unfairness.
The loneliness.
The quiet resentment I buried so deep it almost swallowed me whole.
And the pain…
The pain still felt as raw as it did back then.
Jaxon’s POV
The anger in her eyes was beyond anything I could put into words.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t explosive.
Deep-rooted.
And in that moment, something inside me clicked.
I remembered the little girl who had seen me walking down the street in hospital clothes—my head wrapped in a massive bandage, my feet bare against the cold pavement. I must have looked like something dragged out of a nightmare.
And she… she had stopped.
Without hesitation, she had taken off her hoodie and handed it to me. Then her shoes. Even though they were too small. Even though she barely knew me.
She had looked at me like I was human.
Like I mattered.
I couldn’t believe she was that girl.
But now, the constant familiarity I’d always felt around her—the strange pull, the unexplainable connection—it finally made sense.
Fate had a twisted sense of humor.
Who would have believed this?
“Let me guess,” I said carefully, my voice quieter than I intended. “You fought with your mother… and then ran away from home?”
I remembered her younger self telling me she ran away because her mum was being too mean to her—because she wasn’t the sick one.
Back then, I hadn’t truly understood what she meant. I had just listened. Nodded.
And secretly wished I had a mother alive to nag me.
God.
I still couldn’t believe that little girl was her.
And I couldn’t help but feel relieved that her life had somehow turned out better than mine.
Almost twenty-one years ago, we were just two kids who never should have crossed paths that night.
Because somehow…
I became her doom.
She was kidnapped alongside me. Forced to endure a trauma no child our age should have ever experienced.
“Was it that obvious?” she asked, pulling me back to the present as her gaze locked with mine.
“Yeah,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper.
After we were rescued by the Boss, I had begged him to let her go. I remember clinging to his coat, barely able to stand from the beating I had endured during our captivity.
But I had been too badly injured. Too unconscious.
I never got to say goodbye.
When I later asked the Boss about her, he told me he had sent her back to her family.
I’m glad he told the truth.
“How could she always treat me like I didn’t exist?” she asked suddenly.
The anger in her voice hadn’t faded. If anything, it had sharpened with time.
She was still that little girl—still carrying wounds that never healed.
“Anyway,” she continued after a moment, swallowing hard, “I ran away the following day. I took the little savings I had and bought a train ticket to Brookleigh.”
Her voice trembled slightly, but she kept going.
“I thought I could catch up with my teachers and classmates who had already left for the trip. I really believed I could make it in time.”
A sad, almost self-mocking smile touched her lips.
“But I ended up getting lost in the city of Brookleigh. That’s where I met this boy.”
My chest tightened.
“He was alone. Cold. Hungry. Probably scared,” she said softly. “He was wearing hospital clothes, and I figured he might have run away from the hospital… but he wouldn’t say a word to me.”
Her eyes held mine then.
Longer this time.
“He had these sad blue eyes…”
Silence stretched between us.
Thick. Heavy.
“He looked like he had been abandoned by the world,” she whispered. “Like no one was coming back for him.”
Her gaze didn’t waver.
“And that night, we were both abducted by Ravyn Vale. We spent one… maybe two weeks locked up somewhere. A basement. Or maybe it was an abandoned shipyard—I don’t really remember anymore.”
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides.
“But it was pure torture,” she continued, her voice trembling despite her effort to remain steady.
“They starved us for days. No food. No water. Nothing.”
Her fingers tightened against her knees.
“They beat him over and over again… and they made me watch.”
My jaw clenched.
“Sometimes they would take him away,” she whispered. “And when they brought him back, he would be covered in injuries. So many of them. Bruises. Cuts. Blood.”
Her breathing grew uneven.
“He begged them to stop. He begged.” Her voice cracked. “But they wouldn’t.”
I felt something dark stir inside me.
“And whenever I pleaded for them to stop hurting him… they would make me take the rest of the beating.”
Her eyes dropped to the floor.
“They did worse things. Things I don’t want to talk about.”
Silence filled the room, heavy and suffocating.
“He would pass out when they beat him,” she said faintly. “He was so young. So helpless.”
A pause.
“We both were.”
Her words shattered something inside me.
“Then one day, Ravyn Vale took him away,” she continued. “And they never brought him back.”
My chest felt tight.
“I didn’t even know what happened. They separated us. And the next thing I knew, I was being brought back here… to Hollowmere.”
Her gaze hardened.
“I never found out what they did to him. But I swore that day that I would make that devil pay.”
The fire in her eyes was no longer just anger.
It was vengeance.
“I want him to pay for everything he did,” she said, her voice turning cold. “But if he harms Mia in any way… I will kill him. That’s a promise.”
I could feel the rage radiating off her like heat from an open flame.
But I was exhausted. Weak. Not physically — but emotionally.
“I’ve already killed Ravyn Vale a million times in my head,” I admitted quietly. “And a thousand times in my dreams.”
I let out a heavy breath before continuing.
“There was a girl,” I said, forcing the memory out. “About Renna’s age.”
Nancy looked at me, waiting.
“Her mother fell victim to their loan shark business five years ago. She borrowed money because her daughter was sick. All she wanted was to save her little girl.”
I swallowed hard.
“But they trapped her. Threatened her. Destroyed her.”
My voice lowered.
“She was killed. And so was her daughter.”
I wasn’t ready to dig into my own pain beyond that.
Not yet.
“We have to be more careful with these people, Nancy,” I said firmly. “They’re dangerous. They don’t give a damn about anyone’s life.”
I leaned closer.
“You’re angry. I get it. I feel the same way.”
My jaw tightened.
“But I’ve learned how to keep my anger in check. I hold it back. I control it… until I have them exactly where I want them.”
I met her eyes.
“And I need you to learn how to do the same.”
She didn’t argue.
She just listened.
“I’ll fix a bath for you,” I said after a moment. “If you’re strong enough before noon, we’ll head back to Hollowmere this evening. If not, we leave tomorrow morning.”
She nodded quietly, her gaze going distant for a few seconds before lifting to meet mine again.
“Book the evening flight,” she said. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t convinced.
“But I’m visiting that hospital again before we leave,” she added. “And this time, I want you to come with me.”
There was something in her tone that made me pause.
“You paid Zoe’s hospital bill, right?” she asked suddenly.
Her question caught me off guard.
I frowned slightly and shook my head.
“No. I didn’t. Why would you think that?”
Her eyes widened in visible shock.
“You didn’t pay Zoe’s hospital bills?”
“No,” I repeated, confusion settling deeper. “I didn’t.”
She looked unsettled.
“The signs were there… but I ignored them,” she muttered. “Right before security threw me out of the hospital, I saw the doctor in charge of Zoe’s treatment talking to a man in a suit in her office.”
Her brows furrowed.
“Zoe said something about dead bodies. I didn’t understand what she meant at the time.”
Her voice dropped.
“What did she see that cost her her life?”
A heavy silence followed.
“We’ll figure that out,” I said firmly. “But right now, you need to rest. I’ll have someone look into it.”
She studied my face for a moment, then nodded.
“Thank you, Jaxon. For everything,” she said softly. “I owe you one.”
I shook my head slightly.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
But I didn’t
say it out loud.
Instead, I gave her a small nod and stepped out of the room.
I needed to make a phone call.
And this time…
I was going to dig until I found blood.