Chapter 1
Rusted steel mill smokestacks tower like massive tombstones, stabbing up into a gunmetal-gray sky. This industrial town is where I was born—but today, it’s my execution ground.
I have been dragged onto a towering steel scaffold in the center of the ruined square. Below me, a dense, suffocating sea of villagers surges, their faces twisted in rabid fury. My frame weighs almost nothing, frail as a dead leaf, and every drag of air through my lungs tears at me like raw scrap metal.
Standing in front of me is the girl who used to be my best friend: Emma.
It’s been ten years. She’s nothing like the teenager who used to grab my hand and sprint laughing across the meadow. Now she’s CEO of a globally renowned tech conglomerate, draped in a sharp, custom black trench coat, staring down at me from above. Those blue eyes that once held nothing but warmth are now poisoned with unbridled hatred and undisguised revulsion.
“That heartless monster right there! Her best friend got raped, and she knew who did it but kept her mouth shut!”A burly man in the crowd hurls a half-rotten tomato straight at my face. Sour, mushy juice seeps down my forehead and burns my eyes.
“Burn her alive! When the girl drowned herself, her mom knelt begging outside Ivy’s door till her head split open, and Ivy wouldn’t even unlock it!”
“Hang the bitch—enablers don’t deserve to breathe!”
“Lily’s watching you from the grave, Ivy! Don’t you toss and turn at night with all that blood on your hands?”
“Emma’s a legend for this! Rip every secret out of her brain, let the whole world see how rotten her soul is!”
The onlookers roar, hurling reeking rotten eggs and jagged stones at my body. One rock slams hard into my forehead; warm blood trickles down my cheek and seeps into my mouth, thick and metallic-tasting.
I’m swallowed whole by wave after wave of vicious jeers and slurs.
Emma stands off to the side, her brows twisted tight in an unbreakable scowl.
Aside from Lily’s blood family, no one on this earth hates me more than her. Ten years ago, Lily, Emma and I were inseparable, closer than sisters. After Lily was violated near my home and took her own life, everything between Emma and me shattered completely. All because Lily’s suicide note stated plainly that I’d seen the attacker. Overnight, everyone labeled me an accomplice to a rapist.
And truth be told, I did hide the man who’d done it.
“You’re finally getting what you deserve, Ivy,” Emma’s icy voice booms through high-wattage microphones, loud enough to drown out distant thunder. “Ten years ago, Lily was assaulted, and she killed herself out of despair. Her suicide note spelled it out plain as day—you saw the attacker. But you? You shielded that monster for a full decade, not uttering a single word to anyone.”
“I didn’t…” I force the words out through cracked, parched lips, my voice so faint I can barely hear it myself.
“You didn’t?!”
“You didn’t cover for him? Then why’d you run and hide out in the hills like a rat the second Lily was buried? Why never step foot in the sheriff’s station?”
I can’t answer. The secret I kept sits on my throat like a red-hot branding iron, sealing my mouth shut.
Emma leans in close to my face, snarling through bared teeth. “Tell me his name right now. Get on your knees and beg Lily’s ghost for forgiveness. If you don’t, this memory extractor I spent ten years perfecting will flood your brain with high-frequency pulses that grind every bone in your body like they’re being crushed under a thousand tons of steel.”
“E…Emma…” My chapped lips tremble, my voice thin and rattly as a busted furnace vent. I need to warn her, beg her not to flip the switch, not to watch what’s locked away in my head.
“Shut up. The sound of your voice makes me sick,” Emma shoves my head roughly aside, pulling a silk handkerchief out to scrub her hand like she’s touched filth.
“I’m gonna dig every dirty secret buried in that skull of yours, bit by bit. The whole world’s gonna see exactly what kind of person you really are.”
“No…” I thrash violently against the restraints, the leather belts cutting deep into my skin, drawing thin streaks of blood. “Emma, please—don’t turn it on. If you watch those memories, you’re gonna regret it more than anything.”
“Regret?” Emma lets out a bitter, mocking laugh, like I just told her the dumbest joke she’s ever heard. “The only regret I carry is ever calling you my friend. Fire up the machine.”
Several lab-coated technicians step forward, pressing dozens of electrode pads to my temples and the crown of my head. Cold conductive gel makes me shudder.
“I’m giving you one last chance, Ivy. Say his name,” Emma’s gaze locks hard on mine.
“Don’t look… Emma, please don’t look…” I beg hopelessly, tears mixing with tomato pulp and dripping into my mouth, bitter and rank.
She spins away without a second thought and slams her palm down on the big red button on the main control panel.
“Initiate forced memory extraction.”
A deafening mechanical roar erupts. Dozens of thin, cold metal probes pierce straight through my scalp, driving deep into my skull.
“AAAAGH!!”
A savage surge of electricity rips through my brain stem in an instant.
For a split second, it feels like an invisible giant’s hand tears my soul clean in two. Blinding white light explodes across my vision. My body convulses uncontrollably against the alloy restraints, the metal scraping with a shrill, ear-splitting whine, and I hear a sickening pop as one of my wrist bones shifts out of place.
Agony—agony no words could ever describe. It’s as if hundreds of rusted scalpels are churning, carving through the soft tissue of my brain.
My jaw hangs open, but I can’t even draw breath to scream anymore.
“Already breaking? That’s just the start,” Emma’s cold voice drifts through the blinding pain, distant and hollow. “Ivy, the whole world’s about to see every rotten thing you’ve hidden away for ten years.”
A massive holographic screen flickers to life, static hissing across its surface, faint blurry shapes flickering into view. The crowd erupts in wild, bloodthirsty cheers—they’re a pack of starved wolves, ravenous to tear apart the sins I’ve buried.
