Chapter 5

The car stopped by the riverbend. A crowd of onlookers gathered outside the police tape.

Julian put on his gloves, his face expressionless, and knelt down.

"Mama! Mama!" Lily, still in the car, excitedly pounded on the window when she saw the red suitcase.

Captain Miller, the detective, frowned. "Dr. Vance, why did you bring the child?"

"Aubrey's bastard," Julian said without looking up.

"I'll drop her off at the orphanage after this."

"No! She's your daughter! Julian, you can't send her away!"

I screamed with all my might, but Julian couldn't hear me.

Captain Miller sighed. "This child is truly unfortunate, stuck with a mother like Aubrey."

"Unfortunate, really?" Julian sneered.

"Like mother, like daughter. She's only five and already learned how to lie and manipulate for money."

I watched my Lily crying, gasping for breath, my heart in agony.

I turned to look at the now cold Julian, remembering seven years ago, when he saved me and his arm was gashed open, bone-deep. He had firmly told me,

"No matter what happens, I will always trust you."

But who could have imagined now...

The sound of the zipper opening was jarring, and a putrid stench instantly spread. Several young officers covered their mouths and rushed to the side, retching.

My face inside the suitcase had been disfigured by acid, my hair shaved clean, and my body twisted into a grotesque angle.

Julian used tweezers to turn over the corpse's arm, telling Captain Miller,

"The deceased's arms are covered in needle marks, indicating long-term drug injection. Preliminary assessment points to a junkie."

"The cause of death is excessive blood loss. The killer's method is highly professional, more like an execution."

He stood up, took off his gloves. "Send her to the dissection room."

Julian slid back into the driver's seat. In the back, Lily was still crying, her small fists pounding against the window, her voice worn to a raw, hoarse whisper.

"Mama... please don't go..."

A cold glance in the rearview mirror. "Shut up," Julian said, his voice low and sharp as ice. "That is not your mother. God only knows whose bed a woman like that is in right now."

"Make another sound, and I'll leave you out here for the dogs."

Lily shuddered, immediately silenced, but tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

In the dissection room, Julian shrugged into a blue surgical gown, his face a mask of detached professionalism as he stood over the table.

"Another typical junkie," he remarked to his assistant, Dr. Anya Sharma, his gloved finger pointing with open disgust at the track marks littering the inner arm of the corpse.

"People like this will do anything for money. She deserved what she got."

I floated beside him, looking at those needle marks.

They weren't self-inflicted. They weren't self-inflicted. The traffickers had forced the injections on me daily, just to keep me under control.

But he didn't know any of this.

When Julian examined the ankle, his hand paused.

There was a scar there, burned by a cigarette, skin puckered and gruesome.

"This scar..." Dr. Sharma leaned closer. "The pattern suggests self-harm. It's common among marginalized individuals with psychological trauma."

Julian said nothing, just stared at the scar for a long, long time.

So long that I wondered if he was remembering something.

I would never forget that day.

Julian pointed at the new butterfly tattoo on my ankle, his face grim.

"No shame at all, Aubrey? Getting trashy ink to help you sell yourself?"

I didn't explain. I just took a cigarette lighter and burned my skin, over and over, right in front of him.

The smell of burning flesh filled the air. I trembled with pain, but I bit my lip, not shedding a single tear.

"Are you satisfied now?"

He looked at me, his gaze shifting from shock to confusion, finally settling into utter disappointment and disgust.

"Since you insist on debasing yourself,"

"Aubrey, then don't blame everyone for looking down on you!"

That was the last time we ever saw each other.

...

Julian's hand, holding the scalpel, stilled. After a long moment, he seemed to snap back to himself and resumed the dissection, his movements now even more precise than before.

It wasn't until Dr. Sharma, sliced open my stomach that she let out a sharp gasp.

"Dr. Vance, wait! There's something... solid inside."

With painstaking care, she used forceps to extract the object and carried it to the sink.

The water rinsed away the grime, revealing a ring. And there, etched inside the band, was a tiny inscription:

"JV❤AH, 2019.5.20."