Chapter 3

When I got home, the house was empty.

Mum and Dad must have gone out looking for me.

Just as I reached for the phone to call Mum, a familiar voice called from behind me.

“Becky, where have you been?”

It was my mum.

My eyes filled with tears, and I ran into her arms.

Mum looked down at my clothes and realised something was wrong.

She didn’t ask questions, just held me tight, stroking my back.

I cried until I could barely breathe, until I had no tears left. I cried for all the pain, in this life and the last.

In my past life, I didn’t try to reach out to my parents after I left with Gareth.

He had told me that after what had happened, my parents would be ashamed of me.

I wanted to deny it, but I ended up nodding anyway.

A week later, I got the news that a fire had destroyed my family home. My parents died in that fire.

I didn’t even attend their funeral.

Dad arrived home, and I continued to cry—my eyes were swollen, my throat hoarse.

This time, after I finished crying, I swore to myself I would never cry so easily again.

In my past life, I had cried too many times, in the arms of different men, in Gareth’s arms.

Now, every tear I had shed because of desire disgusted me.

I told my parents everything that had happened.

Dad’s face turned red with rage. He looked like he could kill those men with his bare hands.

Mum aged visibly in that moment. She held me again, gently asking if I wanted to clean myself up.

I shook my head.

“Mum, Dad, we need to call the police. I can’t wash. The evidence is still on me. I need to make sure those monsters pay.”

4

Sergeant Clarke and his team, wanting to protect my privacy, took me to St. Thomas' Hospital with my parents for an examination.

They collected evidence, and I was given post-exposure medication.

Constable Sarah Harris stayed with me, trying to counsel me, but I wasn’t broken. I stayed calm.

I’d lived through this moment over and over in my head. I knew what had to be done.

I gave the police a detailed account of everything—how I was assaulted, how they hit me, and how they held me down.

The marks on my body, the bruises, and the torn hair were proof of it all.

Mum was on the verge of fainting from crying.

“My Becky, my poor Becky…”

With the DNA evidence collected, it wasn’t long before the identities of those men were confirmed.

The police arrested them quickly, but the men denied everything, claiming it was consensual.

Because I was eighteen, they said if they could prove I consented, they wouldn’t be charged.

One of the officers lost it.

“You’re saying an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl voluntarily had sex with a group of middle-aged homeless men and let them beat her senseless? Have you no shame?”

One of them smirked, showing no care.

“Don’t believe us? We’ve got a witness.”

Their witness was Gareth.

“Yes, I was there,” Gareth said calmly. “The girl seemed willing. I didn’t see any struggle. She was making all the right noises.”

Gareth looked at me, his eyes full of something different from before.

His smile was smug, knowing.

At the police station, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

“Becky, you’ve come back too, haven’t you?”

“There’s no point fighting. You enjoyed it, didn’t you? I know you better than anyone. I know exactly how much your body loves being treated like that.”

“Becky, I’m waiting for you to return to me.”

5

slapped him.

When I saw the mark on his right cheek, I frowned.

It wasn’t even. So I slapped the left side too.

Even with all my strength, the slaps left only faint pink marks.

Like me—barely there, with no real weight.

Gareth just grinned, licking his lips like I’d done something entertaining.

It was ridiculous. A slap from a woman is often seen as flirting, not a serious blow.

“Becky, you’ve learned to hit,” he said, amused. “But I prefer it when you bite me in bed.”

I stared coldly at him and kicked him in the crotch.

Gareth’s expression finally changed as he grabbed my shoulders in a vice-like grip.

“Becky, I’ll tolerate your little outbursts, but don’t push me.”

I couldn’t break free, so I kicked him again.

Then, I pulled out the leather belt I hadn’t had a chance to use earlier and struck the cheek I’d just slapped.

Finally, Gareth’s face started to swell, blood seeping from his mouth.

He looked hideous.

“You disgust me, Gareth.”

He finally let go, feeling the pain, glaring at me with hate.

“Rebecca Swift, you’ll regret this!”

6

The court’s verdict was announced. The homeless men were found guilty of assault, having committed the crime not only in a public place but as a group. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, with two of them receiving the death penalty.

On the day of the trial, I went there myself, carrying my new identification.

After talking it over with my parents, I had chosen a new name for myself.

From that day onwards, I was no longer Rebecca Swift. I became Rebecca Steel, with a name as tough as iron.

My parents didn’t fully understand why I had given myself such a "masculine" name, but they supported me regardless.

“Maybe when you first named me Becky, you hoped I’d spend my whole life sheltered under your wings, happy and safe without needing to show any strength.”

But that name, which now felt like a typical romantic heroine’s name, only made me feel sick.

For the first time, I saw fear on the faces of those men.

Gareth wasn’t there. I knew by now that they had been abandoned.

But even so, they refused to name Gareth as their accomplice.

As they walked past me, those once lust-filled eyes were now filled with hatred and regret.

If you do something wrong, you deserve to face the consequences.

I pulled out my leather belt and carefully traced its length, putting all my strength into it.

Half an hour later, five swollen, pig-like faces had emerged.

No one stopped me. Everyone understood the rage burning inside me.

I took a six-month break from everything and returned to school, enrolling in a retake class to finish the final year I hadn’t completed in my past life.

I arranged to live on campus and avoided that alley at all costs.

Life at school was peaceful. In the final year, everyone was too busy to notice a classmate who had been missing for a while.

But news of my assault spread like wildfire, and soon the school bulletin board was plastered with photos from that night.

It turned out that Gareth hadn’t just been standing there at the alley’s entrance—he’d had the audacity to take pictures.

When the photos appeared on the notice board, Gareth was on a visit to the school as an honoured alumnus, giving a speech.

The headteacher was showing him around when they came across the photos on display.

The students gathered around the board, too shocked to move, whispering quietly to one another.

My face and body weren’t blurred out, and everyone immediately recognised their classmate.

Their stares were like fire on my skin, burning through me.

I even heard a boy mutter under his breath.

“Who would’ve thought Rebecca Steel had such a hot body?”

“Yeah, mate. I’ve only seen that kind of thing in porn…”

How disgusting.

I turned and looked at Gareth, standing far away with a smug expression on his face.

I was trembling, but tears of laughter streamed down my face.

Gareth, oh Gareth, so this is the best you can do?