Chapter 4

After some time, the darkness cleared.

I sat up eagerly, ready to find mom.

Then someone slapped me hard onto the floor.

"You worthless girl. All we did was send you to the slum to reflect. And you pull this stunt the moment you see Xander. Do you have any idea what you've done? He almost drowned trying to pull you out."

Callum Dad's voice came from above me.

His face was dark with fury.

Of my four dads, I had been closest to Callum.

The others were constantly occupied. So the task of raising me had fallen on him.

He taught me to read.

He taught me biology and medicine.

He was always gentle.

No matter how badly I misbehaved, he guided me with patience and never once punished me.

But the Callum who never raised his voice at me struck me on Jade's very first day back.

That time, Jade had contaminated Callum's pathogen samples herself.

Then she told him I did it.

Callum took a belt to me.

"Lily, this is my failure. I raised you to be reckless and careless. Do you have any idea how many lives depend on those samples?"

Later, when Jade claimed I'd injected her with an untested serum, Callum did the same to me — strapped me down, pumped his experimental serum into my body, and locked me in the ward as a test subject.

The serum burned through me like acid — every nerve screaming, my skin splitting open, my body convulsing until I nearly stopped breathing.

Though Callum treated me afterward, I still lost an eye.

Now he stood over me, silent fury building.

He raised his hand to strike again.

At the last moment, Xander caught his wrist.

"Eli, calm down. Today is Jade's ceremony. She apparently can't handle it. She's already tried to kill herself three times in front of me."

I glanced at Xander.

He had changed clothes.

His wounds were bandaged.

But his face was pale.

I remembered what Callum had said.

Xander couldn't swim.

Whatever it had cost him to pull me out of that lake, it wasn't nothing.

Callum scoffed.

"Xander, you've been fooled. Four years ago you were away on a mission. She pulled these tricks constantly in front of all of us. She just wants our attention."

Xander relaxed slightly, as if something inside him unclenched.

"So that's what it was."

Callum looked back at me. "Lily, today is Jade's birthday. If you need to act out, do it in front of us. Don't take it to Ethan Dad or Nathan Dad. You know how those two are..."

He didn't finish.

I was already lunging toward his medicine cabinet.

I had lived with Callum long enough to know where he kept his most lethal drugs.

I found the worst one and swallowed it before anyone could stop me.

Callum went white.