Chapter 2

The holographic display gradually sharpened into a clear image. Desperate to protect the truth, my subconscious had violently fought back against the neural probe, throwing up my deepest trauma as a shield.

The frame showed a run-down cabin tucked deep in the remote mountain woods, wind whipping huge, swirling snowflakes all around it.

Back then, I’d wasted away to nothing. Clad only in a threadbare, tattered thin sweater, I huddled beside a rusted wood stove. My hands, raw and cracked with frostbite, carefully fed half a moldy loaf of bread to an emaciated golden retriever.

This was Buddy. The whole world had turned its back on me, yet this stray dog was the only creature willing to stay beside the woman branded a fugitive accessory online.

All at once, the memory’s footage lurched violently. The cabin door was kicked clean off its frame, bitter wind and stinging snow blasting straight inside.

A mob of a dozen villagers flooded in, wielding torches, iron crowbars, and pitchforks. Their faces burned with self-righteous rage and unbridled brutality.

“There’s the bitch right there! The online wanted poster didn’t lie—she’s hiding out here!” The lead brute roared, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and dragged me across the snow like a stray mutt.

“Beat the heartless enabler to pulp! Lapdog for a rapist!”

Blows rained down on me nonstop. I curled into a ball in the snow, shielding my head, not uttering a single plea for mercy. I knew it was useless; I’d endured beatings just like this countless times over the past ten years.

In that instant, Buddy let out a ferocious snarl. He charged forward without hesitation and sank his teeth deep into the lead man’s calf.

“Buddy, no! Run away!” A raw, agonizing scream tore out of my throat within the memory.

It was already too late.

“Die, you worthless mutt!” The brute raised his heavy iron club and smashed it straight into Buddy’s skull.

A sickening, hollow thud echoed through the cabin.

Buddy’s caved in instantly. He whined once and crumpled onto the snow, fresh crimson blood soaking through the pristine white drifts. Even then, he refused to back down. Dragging his broken hind leg, he dragged himself toward me, licking the blood streaked across my cheeks.

“You dare bite me? I’ll put both of you out of your misery right here in front of everyone!”

The villagers swarmed the dog, beating him relentlessly with metal bars and heavy work boots. I scrambled over in a mad frenzy, throwing my body over Buddy to shield him, but they kept raining blows down on me too.

It didn’t stop until Buddy’s body went cold and rigid, until flames swallowed the ramshackle cabin whole.

I clutched Buddy’s mangled corpse tight to my chest, wailing a feral, dying scream into the twenty-below-zero snow night.

The hologram cut to black abruptly.

I coughed up a thick mouthful of blood, my entire frame shaking violently from reliving the trauma.

Emma stood by the control panel, arms folded tight across her chest, not a flicker of sympathy softening her hard gaze. She watched my blood-soaked, broken form and twisted her lips into a cruel, cold smirk.

“You think parading these sob-story memories will somehow redeem you, Ivy?” Emma’s voice cut through the air like ice. “Did you honestly think you didn’t bring all this suffering on yourself? If you hadn’t covered for that monster, none of this would’ve happened to you. All your pain doesn’t amount to a fraction of what Lily endured.”

The crowd chimed in instantly, yelling over one another:

“Absolutely shameless! How dare she play the victim?”

“Trying to tug at our heartstrings with her sad little flashbacks? Total joke! Anyone covering for a predator is just as guilty—she deserves hell!”

“What nerve she has wallowing in self-pity! Lily’s whole family got destroyed; their daughter’s dead and her mom lost her mind. No one’s suffering compares to theirs.”

“Crocodile tears, it makes me sick.”

“No… that’s not how it was…” I shook my head feebly, blood-mixed tears dripping onto the ground beneath me.

“Quit faking distress! Skip this worthless filler footage, dig deeper!”

“Crank the power up,” Emma ordered without an ounce of mercy. “Bypass her brain’s defense barriers and pull the deep memory layers from that night.”

The technician shoved the power lever again.

A jolt twice as powerful as the last surged through my brain, shattering every mental barrier I had left. It felt like my soul was being ripped straight out of my body, everything blurring into blinding scarlet.

“Stop… Emma… please…” Foam bubbled at my mouth as my body convulsed uncontrollably against the restraints.

“Show me!” Emma locked her eyes rigidly on the holographic screen. “Who is it?!”