Chapter 2
"Your mom said we should let her rot here. That's the ending she deserves," Edison said, his voice cold and dripping with contempt.
His eyes burned with hatred and frost, staring at me, like I was nothing but trash.
Edison spat, "Jason, don't sully your hands on trash.
"The only reason this bitch is still breathing is just to make Melissa look like a saint for her charity.
"What better charity than forgiving the woman who tried to burn us all?"
On his signal, a crowd of reporters rushed in like vultures.
They buzzed around me, snapping photos of my ruined self, like it was some kind of spectacle.
I was just a piece of meat now.
Totally at their mercy.
A pair of slender hands, carrying a scent I knew all too well, steered my gaze to the monitor.
On the screen, every inch of my ruined skin was exposed for everyone to see.
My hair was thin, yellowed, and brittle, and my scalp was full of ugly craters where the follicles had died.
My eyes locked onto the screen. A ghastly, skull-like face stared back at me.
The fake, flaunting the face that used to be mine, just made my own ugliness stand out even more.
No wonder...
No wonder Edison and Jason didn't recognize me anymore.
I could barely believe it myself. I was once a top star. Now, I looked like a monster.
I shoved the screen away in a panic. I was not like that!
But the imposter dramatically dropped to the floor, her shrieks filling the whole room.
It wasn't me. I didn't even touch her!
The next second, my world spun out of control.
Edison's eyes were blazing red as he seized the last wisps of my brittle hair and hauled me up.
His eyes crackled with fury. He looked like a god of death, ready to destroy me.
"How dare you lay a hand on her again, right in front of me?" he shouted.
"Wasn't killing my mom enough for you? Now you want to hurt my wife too?" he snapped, his voice trembling with rage.
But suddenly, he went silent. His eyes landed on my dislocated pinky finger, and he froze.
That was a secret only the two of us shared.
On our honeymoon, Edison nearly got swept away by a tsunami.
I didn't care about the danger or anyone trying to stop me. I risked everything to save his life.
But the price I paid was brutal. While I tried to protect his head from smashing into the rocks, my pinky finger was crushed beyond repair.
It left me with a permanent disability.
Edison, heartbroken, kept kissing the tip of my nose, again and again.
His tears streamed down my face and into the corner of my mouth as he cried and swore he'd love me for the rest of his life.
Instinctively, I raised my left hand, trying to make the seagull gesture.
He always did that to make me laugh.
I believed if I just did this, he'd know it was me!
For a second, Edison's face flickered with shock and suspicion, but just as he was starting to see and remember, the imposter's sudden scream broke the moment.
"Don't let her show that finger!" she snapped.
"Hon, she killed Cheryl and tried to run away. That's how she got caught—a beam fell and crushed her pinky. Did you forget already?" she said, her voice laced with a sly edge.
Edison's eyes went cold with disgust as he snapped out of it, all that flicker of doubt vanishing in an instant.
He'd almost fallen for it.
Let that monster get inside his head and make him doubt his own wife.
The imposter kept egging him on with her poisonous words, never missing a chance to make things worse.
"I have no idea how you found out about our secret, but I already had a specialist fix my finger. No one can tell anymore," she said with a smug smile.
"You really do put on quite the act, but Edison would never confuse anyone else with the real Melissa," she added, her voice dripping with arrogance.
I shook my head, devastated.
No, that was not true.
I was the real Melissa.
Despair threatened to overflow from my eyes as I raised my hand, making the seagull gesture.
The instant Edison saw it, his eyes flashed with astonishment.