Chapter 1

“Dad… please… help me…” I pleaded, my shattered ribs piercing my lungs, blood soaking the stretcher.

But Richard, the hospital's top surgeon and my biological father, didn't even glance at me. Instead, he rushed to the next bed.

“Don't be afraid, Chloe. I'm here,” he cooed to his stepdaughter, who merely had a tiny scratch on her arm. “Get the best equipment over here now!” he roared.

As the heart monitor flatlined and my soul left my broken body, I realized the chilling truth: in the choice between life and death, my father gladly let me die.

——

I lay strapped to a gurney, every breath ripping through me with the pain of shattered organs.

The ER lights were blinding.

Blood kept spilling from my forehead and chest, soaking the white sheet until it turned a dull, rusty red.

“BP sixty over forty! Heart rate dropping!” Nurse Emily shouted, frantic. “Massive intra-abdominal bleeding—she needs surgery NOW!”

Their voices came in fragments.

At that moment, the doors to the trauma bay flew open.

Richard Watson—my biological father, the hospital’s most celebrated attending surgeon—stormed in, his white coat flaring behind him.

The instant I saw him, something inside me sparked with hope.

I forced up the hand that had been crushed against the steering wheel, bones already broken, fingertips trembling as I reached for him.

“Dad… please… help me… it hurts…”

But Richard’s eyes lingered on my mangled body for less than half a second before sliding away.

“Where’s Chloe?” he demanded. “How’s my baby girl?”

He walked right past me and rushed to the next bed—where my stepsister, Chloe, was lying.

Chloe had a square of gauze taped to her forehead and a scrape on her right arm, maybe two inches long, beading with a few drops of blood.

When she saw Richard, she instantly burst into a piercing sob. “Dad! I’m so scared! My arm hurts so bad—what if I can never play the violin again?”

“Don’t be afraid, Chloe. I’m here. Nothing is going to happen to you,” Richard murmured, his voice so gentle it could’ve melted sugar—the kind of tenderness he had never once shown me.

Then he whirled on the staff and roared, “Get every unit of plasma, the defibrillator, and the best microsurgical equipment over here! If Chloe’s arm has ANY nerve damage and it affects her Vienna tour next month, I’ll have every last one of you fired!”

Nurse Emily’s eyes went wide. She shoved her way forward and planted herself in front of him. “Dr. Watson! Miss Chloe has superficial injuries. But Miss Audrey’s spleen is ruptured—she’s hemorrhaging internally. If we don’t open her up right now, she won’t make it ten minutes!”

“Shut up!” Richard snapped, shoving Emily aside, his face twisted with rage. “Audrey, that vicious little thing, drove into a guardrail because she can’t watch the road—and now she’s pretending she’s dying to steal resources from Chloe?”

“How can you say that?” Emily shot back. “She’s your daughter!”

“Enough,” Richard barked. “She’s jealous Chloe gets to go to Vienna. Give her a shot of painkillers and let her wait over there.”

Lying on the gurney, I went ice-cold.

Pretending? Competing for attention?

My breastbone had been crushed by the steering wheel. Broken ribs had punched into my lung. Every breath pushed up blood-flecked foam.

And Chloe—Chloe had a scraped arm.

When it came down to life or death, my own father didn’t hesitate. He handed the chance to live to his stepdaughter—and stripped mine away.

“Dad…” I whispered, tears spilling as blood and salt tracked into my hairline.

I wanted to tell him the truth: when the crash happened, it was Chloe’s car that skidded into mine. And in the last second, I’d yanked the wheel hard—turning the most lethal impact toward myself, just to protect her in the passenger seat.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything at all.

On the monitor, the waveform flattened.

A endless beeeep filled the room.

My body suddenly felt weightless. Then came a tearing pull—

and I was floating.

I looked down and saw myself: ruined, unmoving, eyes fixed wide open, still staring toward my father.

A few feet away, Richard was carefully picking grit from Chloe’s wound with forceps.

He didn’t even turn his head at the sound of the monitor.

“Turn that damn noise off!” he snapped. “Audrey, are you done with this pathetic little stunt? You think faking cardiac arrest will make me look at you? Let me tell you—if you really die here today, you’ll have only yourself to blame!”

Dad, you don’t have to keep yelling.

I’m already dead.