Watched Me Suffer and Called It Growth? Goodbye Forever to All Four of You! Chapter 04

Colin brought me home with almost nothing left on my body.

Tessa saw me and draped a jacket over my shoulders.

“Paige, are you okay?”

“It’s their fault. I kept saying we should bring you back. They wouldn’t listen.”

“They insisted you needed to suffer more.”

“I’m here now. It won’t happen again.”

I stood there blank. Even breathing took everything I had.

Garrett watched my empty face and gave a cold laugh.

“What’s wrong with you? Say thank you to Tess.”

“If she hadn’t been worried about you, I never would’ve let you in the door.”

Spencer looked down at me.

“You’ll stay in a room in the west wing. Don’t bother Tess and Colin.”

Their warnings kept coming. I barely heard them.

I stared at my phone.

So they’d been livestreaming me from day one.

Every moment of fear, every humiliation, every second of despair–they’d watched it all.

Just a joke. Something to watch from the other side of a screen.

After every stream they ran viewer polls.

[Is Paige still clingy today?]

[What should we use to scare Paige tomorrow? Pick two!]

I threw the phone. My whole body went cold.

I’d believed that if I just faced everything and grew up, I could go home. But it had been a setup all along.

None of it mattered anymore.

I looked at the faces that used to be familiar.

“What am I to any of you?”

“A toy?”

Even a dog gets bones and a place to sleep.

I had nothing.

I couldn’t make fire on that island. I ate raw meat. I chewed tree bark.

Tears slid down before I could stop them.

No one answered my questions. Colin moved to shield Tessa instead.

“Paige, you’re scaring Tess. You’re back. Why keep digging this up?”

“We only used it to cheer Tess up when she was feeling down. And it gave us a way to monitor whether you were correcting yourself.”

Spencer scoffed. “Making a scene over nothing. You haven’t changed at all.”

The taste of dirt from the island still sat in the back of my throat.

“Do you know how many times I almost died? Several!”

“Just a couple days ago I–”

Garrett cut me off, impatient.

“Enough. The snakes and insects we put there had been made harmless. You got a little pain at most.”

“Still that fragile. Old habits never die.”

Harmless?

Then why did my flesh still rot.

Tessa walked over smiling and took my cold hands.

“Paige, it won’t happen again.”

“Colin and the others only wanted you to grow up faster. You have to understand. We’re only trying to help you.”

I shoved her away hard.

“Shut up. You make me sick.”

I’d brought her home as my best friend. This was what it bought me.

“Ah–”

Tessa stumbled and fell, hands flying to her stomach.

“Colin, I was only trying to help. Why is she like this…”

“My stomach hurts. What if something happens to the baby? I’m scared–”

“Tess!”

Colin scooped her up. When he looked at me his eyes were pure hate.

“Paige Bennett, you’ve turned even more vicious.”

“If anything happens to her or the baby, we’re not done.”

He rushed Tessa to the hospital. Garrett and Spencer each kicked me once on their way out, then followed right behind.

Two hours later Colin walked back in, cold from head to toe.

“We lost the baby.”

I laughed. “Good.”

Colin’s smile was ice. He grabbed my hair and dragged me into the family memorial room.

Someone held my head down and drove it against the floor again and again while he demanded an apology.

Blood filled my eyes. The pain blacked me out.

Later, through the haze, I heard a housekeeper’s voice.

“Sir, Mrs. Mercer is fine in her room. The young lady has already fainted. Maybe that’s enough…”

Colin’s voice stayed flat. “No. Even if Tess and the baby are fine, she shoved her. She needs to learn.”

Garrett sounded lazy. “I found a hard, ridged mat. She can kneel on that tonight.”

Spencer added, “No food either.”

I? I couldn’t take any more.

I opened my eyes, grabbed the paring knife from the table, and ran for the primary bedroom like something had snapped.

“Tessa, I’ll kill you!”

Colin burst in. “Paige, you’re insane!”

Then I saw the curve of Tessa’s stomach. My gaze froze. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“There. Are you satisfied now?”

At the last second I turned the blade.

It went straight into my own heart.