Chapter 3

I stared at Bella, a cold knot of frustration tightening in my chest.

Why was she clinging to me like this? Was she afraid that if she left my side, I would stop hearing her thoughts and deviate from her plan?

"No, Mom," I said firmly. "You need to rest. You're staying here."

Steeling myself, I made a move to lock her in the bedroom. But she just clung to Robert's hand, her eyes welling with tears, looking utterly betrayed.

She cried desperately.

[Daisy, don't abandon me!] Her thoughts echoed in my mind, full of fear and pleading.

Robert looked torn. He looked from Bella's pleading face to my stony one, and after a moment's hesitation, he came to a conclusion.

"Daisy," he said finally, "why don't you take her with you? I have to work late tonight, so I won't be here to look after her anyway."

I shot a glance at Bella and gave a reluctant nod.

He had me cornered. If I kept refusing, I wouldn't be getting out of the house at all tonight.

And a legitimate reason to leave was infinitely better than sneaking out.

God knows what would happen if I tried to run away secretly again. I still had nightmares about being hunted.

I decided to play along for now.

Bella smiled at me to please me.

[Daisy, this backrest is so hard! It's digging into my spine! Oh, it hurts! If only my sweet girl could hear me, she'd get me a softer cushion.]

I was about to ignore her, but an idea sparked in my mind.

"Mom, that cushion looks really uncomfortable. Let me go get you a new one," I advised.

Bella nodded, looking totally pleased.

I carefully helped her into her bedroom and said, "I'll just run down to the store. Be back in two minutes."

The second the door was closed, I spun on Robert.

"Go buy my mom a softer cushion," I ordered. "She's clearly in pain."

He nodded obediently and headed out.

I watched from the window as he went into the corner store and came back out. I watched as he unwrapped the new cushion and placed it in the wheelchair. Only then did I bring Bella back out.

"Here you go, Mom," I said sweetly. "A brand new cushion. Is that better?"

The moment I finished speaking, she recoiled as if she had been stabbed, tumbling out of her wheelchair with a pained cry.

Everyone just stared, completely bewildered.

Her hand shaking uncontrollably, Bella pointed a trembling finger at the new cushion.

A cold sense of understanding washed over me. I followed her gesture and flipped the cushion over.

And there, stuck deep in the new fabric, was a single safety pin, and its tip was smeared with a tiny, horrifying speck of blood.

Bella's thoughts immediately flooded my mind.

[Daisy, why are you being so cruel to me?]

[How can you be so heartless? I dedicated my life to you, and the moment I fall ill, this is how you treat your own mother?]

She whimpered, pointing a trembling finger at her own back, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

She looked like a martyr, a saint suffering a great injustice.

It was a perfect reenactment of my last life.

Except, last time, I was the one who had changed the cushion.

This time, it was Robert.

In my previous life, I had been consumed with guilt, convinced that a decorative pin from my own clothing had accidentally fallen into the cushion and injured her.

I felt such overwhelming remorse that it clouded my judgment. Whatever she said, I accepted it as fact.

But now, something felt off.

I feigned a flash of rage and hurled the cushion at Robert.

"How dare you hurt my mother!" I screamed, my voice shaking with fury. "Hiding a pin in her cushion? If you don't want to care for her, just say so! Why would you torture her like this?"

Robert was utterly blindsided, wearing a mask of pure confusion.

"I didn't! I swear! I bought it brand new from the store downstairs. I just took it out of the plastic and put it on the chair. I didn't do anything!" he argued.

Bella, who had been in the middle of a heart-wrenching sob, froze. The crying stopped. She just stared, dumbfounded.

I held the bloody pin aloft.

"Then how do you explain this? You and my mother are the only ones who touched this cushion. Are you trying to say she stabbed herself?"

I advanced on him, a thundercloud of righteous anger coloring my face.

"Admit it. You think she's a burden, don't you? You don't want to care for her!"

He stammered, flustered and panicked.

"No! I would never! She's your mother! Of course I'll care for her. It's my responsibility!"

I shot him a skeptical look. "I don't believe you," I spat. "My sister and I were in the other room. It was just you and her. So who else could it have been? Was there a ghost in the room?"

As the words left my mouth, something shifted in Robert's expression. He went still, and then his eyes, wide with a dawning horror, swiveled to Bella.

"Bella, you did this on purpose?" he whispered with disbelief and hurt. "Why? Haven't I always taken good care of you?"

Seeing the tables turn so dramatically, Bella began to shake her head frantically.

But she couldn't speak to defend herself, so she could only make those strangled sounds.

Her thoughts, however, were a chaotic mess of denial.

[No! It wasn't me! I didn't frame you! I... I don't know how that got there.]

I put on my best performance yet, my face crumpling as if my heart were breaking. I pulled Lucy back a step.

I demanded, "My mother is the most important person in the world to me. I will not let anyone harm her. Since you can't explain this, I think we need to let the police figure it out."

With a decisive tap, I sent the pre-written emergency text to the cops.

Robert's face went rigid with panic.

"Daisy, you don't believe me? I swear, I would never hurt your mother!"

He turned back to her, yelling, "Why would you do this to me?"

Bella hunched her shoulders nervously, her eyes fixed on me with a look of hurt betrayal.

I wiped at my dry eyes.

"It's not that I don't believe you, Robert," I said. "But this is my mother. I have to get to the bottom of this."

The police station was just around the corner, and they arrived in under five minutes.

Robert, looking utterly defeated, was escorted out.

The second the door closed behind them, my performance ended. My face went blank, cold as stone.

He would be held for at least one night.

And one night was more than enough time for me and my sister to disappear.