After Ten Years of Revenge, He Built Time Machine Bring Me Back Chapter 01

After Ten Years of Revenge, He Built Time Machine Bring Me Back Chapter 01

Margaret Voss, the matriarch of the prestigious Voss family, had been in a vegetative state for ten years after being pushed down the stairs by an unidentified attacker.

Now, she’d woken at last.

Every prominent figure within Havenbrook Elite Circle flocked to the private medical wing of Havenbrook Premier Private Medical Center to pay their respects.

They lined up to heap praise on Silas Voss, gushing over his unwavering devotion to his mother, and the ten years of relentless punishment he’d inflicted on the girl responsible for her fall.

No one cared that the perpetrator had once been Silas’s high school sweetheart. He’d shown zero mercy from day one.

But once the crowd fell silent, Margaret stared blankly at all of them.

“What culprit?” she murmured. “No one pushed me. I slipped and fell all on my own.”

A sharp clatter cut through the room.

Silas’s fruit knife slipped from his grasp and clattered against the marble tile.

He stared at his mother, stunned rigid.

“What did you just say, Mom?”

The woman who’d left his mother bedridden wasn’t Elowen?

Panic crashed over Silas in a brutal, suffocating wave.

He’d spent every single year of her coma hunting Elowen down, torturing her without pause.

And now he was being told she’d never done a single thing wrong?

“Where’s Elowen?” Margaret asked, voice sharp with urgency.

“I disapproved of you dating her back then, she came from a single-parent household, after all. I never imagined she’d dive straight into the lake to save my life when I fell in. Are you two still together? Married? Do you have kids yet?”

Three simple questions hit Silas like three heavy sledgehammers to the chest.

His throat burned dry, and he couldn’t force a single word out.

Because three years prior, he’d forced Elowen to move in and live with a blind beggar out in Westside Slum Flats.

***

Three years earlier.

The Siren Lounge.

Elowen scrubbed a grimy toilet, her oversized staff uniform swallowing her thin frame whole.

When she finished, she sank to the cold tile floor, exhausted, and pulled a crumpled vintage Polaroid portrait from her pocket.

The photo held Dr. Elias Hale, herself, and Lila, her little sister.

“Elowen, one of the private booths has a mess of vomit. Go clean it up at once.”

Elowen tucked the Polaroid away carefully and stood fast.

She’d been released on full parole three months prior. Her first plan had been to head straight to the State Youth Foster Facility to collect Lila.

Staff there required proof of steady employment before releasing minors to former felons, though.

Jobs were nearly impossible for her to land. She only held a high school diploma, paired with a felony record. Even diners refused to hire her as a line server.

The Siren Lounge asked no questions about past mistakes, so she’d taken the janitor position without hesitation.

A dozen young socialites laughed and shouted inside the private booth, playing cards and singing along to loud music. None spared the janitor a glance.

Elowen dropped to her knees and mopped up the thick puddle of regurgitation.

A male voice sneered out of nowhere.

“Well look who it is—Havenbrook Private Preparatory’s valedictorian, our campus sweetheart. Remember how she’d wipe any pen someone borrowed off her desk with rubbing alcohol? Now she’s on her knees mopping up other people’s puke without a word of complaint.”

Elowen recognized him instantly. Jasper Cole had once begged her to date him. When she’d turned him down, he’d smiled and claimed they could still be friends.

After the incident with Margaret, he’d become her cruelest tormentor of all.

The mess reeked, and Elowen quickened her scrubbing without a sound.

Jasper kicked her hard square into the puddle of slop from behind.

“Are you deaf when people talk to you?”

“Ah!”

Elowen bit back screams of pain and disgust, a bitter taste flooding her mouth.

Deaf, wasn’t she?

Silas had locked her away on false charges, and within her first month in prison, a “workplace accident” orchestrated by his men had blown out her left eardrum entirely.

Jasper raised his fist to strike again, but another old classmate pulled him back.

“Quit wasting your energy on trash like her.”

“Elowen used to be untouchable. Her mother passed young, but Dr. Hale was the most renowned cardiac surgeon in the whole city. She was gorgeous, top of every class, and Silas’s whole world.”

“Now look at her—she takes every beating and insult without fighting back.”

He spat straight onto the top of Elowen’s head.

Once upon a time, she would’ve fought back without hesitation.

Three years of relentless bullying at prep school, three more years of torment after graduation, and three full years locked behind bars had crushed every ounce of her pride to dust.

If she’d had no one left to live for, she would’ve died fighting long ago.

But she had Lila.

Every time she dared stand up for herself, Silas sent word that Lila would pay the price instead.

“Serves her right!” another voice shouted.

“Silas nearly died rushing into the School Athletic Storage Wing fire to save her. He barely escaped with his life, and ran straight back in the second he heard she was still trapped inside. He’s left a massive, raised scar across his entire back, and lost half his voice for six months after the smoke inhalation.”

“And how did she repay him? Held a grudge over Mrs. Voss disapproving their relationship, and shoved her down the stairs while Silas recovered from surgery!”

The group seethed with righteous anger as they recounted the story.

Hundreds of harsh stares bore into Elowen, dragging her back to the nightmare of her senior year.

Everyone had pointed their fingers and screamed that she’d hurt Margaret Voss.

Silas had believed every word, and hated her with every fiber of his being.

With one single command, he’d destroyed Dr. Hale’s reputation overnight, branding him a violent criminal until he took his own life behind prison walls.

He’d turned Havenbrook Private Preparatory into a living hell for her, orchestrating daily beatings and harassment. She’d fought back at first, even tried to transfer schools to escape.

Every time she resisted, news arrived from the prison that her father had been assaulted.

The day she’d attempted to switch campuses, word came that he was dead.

Silas had shown up to Elias’s funeral with a single white larkspur bouquet, bowing respectfully to the casket.

His polite gesture clashed violently with his ice-cold tone.

“Behave yourself inside the cage I’ve built for you, and Lila stays safe. Do you want to watch her end up in a casket too?”

She’d aced the SAT, scoring in the nation’s top fifty students. Silas had erased every Ivy League Acceptance Letter sent to her address, blocking all avenues to higher education.

He’d banned her from every respectable career path, forcing her to wander the streets busking, scavenging trash, begging for spare change.

He’d stripped every chance of a dignified life away from her, turning her into a pariah everyone spat on.

One small, fabricated charge later, and she’d spent three years locked up.

Elowen finished cleaning the booth as fast as she could, rushing to flee the room.

She rounded the corner straight into another woman’s body.

“I’m so sorry,” Elowen babbled, bowing low.

“Get off me!” the woman shrieked. “You’ve ruined my Vianne Designer Handbag! Get away from me, you filthy thing!”

Elowen’s blood ran cold. She knew this woman—Celia Mercer, Silas’s college girlfriend.

Elowen had waited tables at their university café once, and watched Silas kiss Celia over and over, soft and tender.

He’d truly loved Celia. So much so that when Elowen accidentally scuffed one of her leather heels, Silas had thrown her in prison just to cheer Celia up.

“I’ll leave right now,” Elowen whispered.

If Celia was here, Silas couldn’t be far behind. She couldn’t let him spot her.

She hunched low, trying to slip past Celia unnoticed.

A voice that sent ice crawling down her spine stopped her dead.

“Elowen.”

A cold, mocking laugh followed the single name.

“Long time no see.”