Chapter 139
"Where are you?" I forced myself to stay calm.
"I... I'm on the roadside outside the north gate. The car went this way! Sophia, come quick! I'm scared of being here alone!" Amelia urged.
"Call the police! Call them right now!" I said.
"I did! I already called! But it'll take time for them to get here! Let's follow and check the situation first, we can guide the police too!"
"Sophia, Liliana is your good friend, and she came here with you this time. If something happens to her, how will you explain it to her parents, to James, and his grandmother?" Amelia cried out.
Logic told me this might be a trap, but what if it was real?
What if Liliana was really in danger, and I delayed things by hesitating? I could never forgive myself.
"Wait there, I'm coming right now." I hung up and immediately called Liliana's phone. It was off.
I called Ethan. It rang for a long time before he answered, with lots of background noise.
"Sophia?"
"Ethan, is Liliana with you?"
"Liliana? No, she said she was tired and went back to the hotel to rest half an hour ago. What's wrong, Sophia?"
My heart sank.
Liliana wasn't with Ethan.
I quickly sent Andrew a message: "Liliana might be in trouble. Amelia and I are going north to look. Police are on their way. I'm going out now to look for clues. If you can't reach me, bring people to find me right away!"
After sending the message, I didn't have time to think. I grabbed my coat and rushed out of the room.
Amelia was indeed outside the north gate, looking around anxiously. When she saw me, she ran over and grabbed me: "This way, I saw the car go this way. Let's go over there, there's a small path, maybe we can take a shortcut."
I felt something was off, but before I could react, Amelia pulled me into a small forest path by the roadside.
The path got more and more remote, with thick snow and ice on the ground.
I felt increasingly uneasy: "Amelia, are you sure you saw clearly? Was Liliana really taken this way?"
"Yes! I saw it with my own eyes!" Amelia didn't look back. "We're almost there. There's an abandoned observation deck ahead. The car seemed to stop near there!"
We trudged through the snow, one step deep, one step shallow. The surrounding trees grew denser, and the light dimmed.
Ahead appeared a relatively open ice surface, like a small lake or pond frozen over in winter.
She led me onto the ice. My heart skipped a beat, and an ominous feeling rose.
Sure enough, the next second, Amelia suddenly stopped and turned to look at me.
On her face, there was no longer any panic or urgency from before, only cold mockery and bitter hatred.
"Sophia, you're so stupid and gullible."
My heart plummeted, and my blood seemed to freeze instantly.
"Amelia, you lied to me? Liliana is fine?" I forced myself to stay calm while discreetly observing my surroundings, looking for an escape route.
"How would I know if she's okay or not?" Amelia giggled, her voice particularly harsh on the empty, quiet ice surface. "But you're about to be in trouble."
She slowly moved toward me, somehow now holding a fist-sized rock in her hand.
"Sophia, why you? Why do you always act so high and mighty? Why does James still think about you after the divorce? Why does everyone take your side? Even that idiot Liliana came to scold me because of you!"
Her eyes were crazed and venomous: "You shouldn't exist! Without you, James would be mine! Everything in the Smith family would be mine!"
"Everyone's attention should be on me. You, and the child in your belly, should both die!"
"Sophia, go die. Once you're dead, James's heart will come back to me, and then I can rest easy." She threw the rock in her hand at me.
"Amelia, you're insane!" I dodged the rock she threw and slowly backed away. Under my feet was slippery ice. "Murder is a crime punishable by death!"
"Punishable by death? Who'll know I killed you?" Amelia sneered. "This is the middle of nowhere, no cameras. You accidentally walked onto the ice, slipped, and fell into a hole you accidentally made in the ice and drowned."
"See, even God is helping me. How perfect."
She weighed the rock in her hand: "Sophia, if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being too soft-hearted and trusting others."
"After you die, don't resent me for killing you. Just say you were stupid, killed by your own stupidity."
As soon as she finished speaking, she violently hurled the rock in her hand at me!
I was prepared and quickly dodged to the side.
The rock grazed my shoulder and flew past, hitting the ice behind me with a dull thud.
The ice surface seemed to tremble slightly.
"You're still dodging? I don't believe you can dodge them all." Seeing her first attempt miss, Amelia grew more furious and bent down to pick up another rock.
The ice was too fragile. If Amelia kept throwing rocks, she might smash a big hole in the ice. I had to get off this ice surface.
I turned to run back, but the ice was too slippery. In my regular shoes, I couldn't run fast.
I didn't dare run too fast either. One hand desperately protected my belly—if I fell, at least I wouldn't fall on the baby.
Two more rocks flew at me. I dodged desperately. I hit the ice with my feet, and a clear cracking sound rang out.
I looked down and saw several cracks rapidly spreading from where the rock landed.
Amelia seemed to see it too and grew even more crazed: "Run! Let's see where you can run!"
Like a madwoman, she kept picking up rocks and throwing them at me, not trying to hit me directly, but to destroy the ice beneath my feet.
Cracking sounds filled the air.
The ice under my feet began to shake. Freezing lake water seeped through the cracks, soaking my shoes and socks. A bone-chilling cold immediately shot up.
"Help!" I shouted with all my strength, hoping someone patrolling the mountain or tourists nearby might hear.
"Stop shouting, no one's coming." Amelia sneered, and another rock hit the ice not far in front of me.
A large section of ice finally gave way and collapsed, revealing the dark, freezing lake water below.
I was only steps away from that hole in the ice!
The ice beneath my feet was also on the verge of collapse. I wanted to move toward shore, but Amelia was blocking that direction, still holding rocks.
I was trapped!
"Go die!" Amelia saw her chance and violently threw the last and largest rock in her hand at the ice beneath my feet!
The ice completely shattered. A feeling of weightlessness came over me, and the freezing lake water swallowed me whole.