Chapter 2

Two days later, Ethan told me he wanted to throw me the eighteenth birthday party I'd missed three years ago.

He had a gown delivered to my room, and his eyes went red when he said it.

"Every birthday you lost these three years, I'm going to make all of them up to you."

But when I got to the hotel, what the invitation actually said was: [Lily's Blessing Celebration]

Julian's voice stayed level. "Lily was tortured by those comments for three years.

"The prophecy is finally gone, so the whole family wants to celebrate that she grew up safe.

"Your welcome-home dinner works better as part of it. It makes for a bigger night, and it clears up the misunderstanding people have about the Turner family."

Lily sat at the center of the head table with Samuel beside her.

My three brothers took turns filling her plate and taking the drinks people pushed on her, while my place was in the corner closest to the exit, with no china and no knife in front of me.

There was only a plastic bowl and spoon, the kind every psychiatric hospital hands out, so patients couldn't hurt anyone.

Julian saw it and gave a flat explanation. "Our friends and family don't know yet that you've recovered. This is safer, and it lets everyone relax."

Once the party started, one of the relatives asked me where I had been for the past three years.

Lily's face went white all at once, and she caught hold of Samuel's sleeve. "The comments are back. They say the death prophecy won't disappear for good until Ashley admits in public that she was sick, and that she once tried to kill me."

Julian had someone open a livestream on the Turner family's official account right then and there.

Marcus set a sedative down on the table. "Don't get worked up. The second you lose control, everyone here decides you never got better."

Ethan took out the confession Lily had written ahead of time and walked me through it line by line, and Samuel himself put the microphone in my hand.

Samuel said, "Say the whole thing and everything before this gets wiped clean. Once you're normal again, I'll still marry you."

I looked up at Julian.

Back in high school, somebody spread a rumor that I had cheated on an exam, and he stayed up all night going through every security camera in the building.

Then he stood in front of the entire school and said, "Nobody in the Turner family carries a stain they didn't earn."

Now, to clear Lily's name, he wanted me to destroy my own out of my own mouth.

The camera was aimed at my face, and people in the live chat had already started asking questions.

I held the confession, and my fingers shook so hard the paper moved.

Ethan pressed a hand down on my shoulder. The motion was gentle, but his fingers tightened bit by bit. "The way they taught you in the hospital. Read it properly."

The glaring lights, the cold restraint straps, and the sound of the current came flooding back into my head all at once.

I didn't dare hesitate any longer, so I looked into the camera and said the lines flat.

"I have paranoid delusional disorder. I tried to hurt Lily once.

"My brothers had me committed because they wanted to save me.

"Every part of my treatment these three years was something I agreed to.

"Lily has never lied about any of it."

The second I stopped talking, the live chat section filled with abuse.

Some people called me a lunatic who had tried to kill her own sister.

Some praised Lily for being kind enough to forgive me at all, when I had wanted her dead.

Others said the Turners had already gone above and beyond by taking me back in the first place.

Lily cried and threw her arms around Samuel. "I don't have to be afraid anymore."

The guests closed in around my three brothers and told them how they had never given up through those three years and how much they had done for their sick sister.

Samuel didn't tell anyone that I was supposed to be his fiancée.

After the livestream ended, Julian had the confession video pinned to the top for good.

Lily watched the view count climb, and something close to a smile moved through her eyes.

A moment later, she grabbed Samuel's sleeve again. "The comments say Ashley was faking that confession too."

All four of them changed color at the same time.

And in front of my eyes, the real comments surfaced.

[Life Countdown: Four Days.]