Once Rejected, Now Rising Chapter 04

Once Rejected, Now Rising Chapter 04

Compared to them, what was my dignity worth?

I knelt without hesitation. “Yes, I am insane. My mother was insane too.”

I pressed a hand to my chest. “We are both sick. Our minds are clouded. What we say is false.”

“We are the thieves, the robbers. We want to steal your happiness, steal your good life.”

I looked at Azura. She was curled on Rinaldo’s shoulder, sobbing quietly.

“Satisfied now, Miss?”

At that moment, a servant came rushing down the stairs, pale as death.

“Sir! Mrs. Crowe! Something terrible, Koda is dead!”

Azura shot up, screaming, pushing Rinaldo aside, stumbling upstairs.

Everyone followed her.

In my father and stepmother’s bedroom, their bed held a horrifying sight.

Azura’s Bichon Frise, Koda, stripped of its skin.

She let out a wail, collapsing to the floor.

“Nerissa!” my father’s veins bulged on his forehead, finger trembling as he pointed at me. “You! You monster! Not even a dog can escape you! How can your heart be so cruel?!”

Rinaldo held the nearly fainting Azura, looking at me like I was a piece of garbage.

He didn’t speak, just pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

“Now. Immediately. Go to West Suburban Cemetery. Dig up Nola and her grandmother’s graves. Take the urns with you.”

“No!” I screamed, running out like a madwoman.

But it was too late.

The graves of my mother and Nola had already been opened.

“Where did they take them?!” I grabbed the staff’s collar, shouting.

He shivered in fear and gave a pig farm on the outskirts as the location.

I hailed a car and raced to the filthy, stinking farm. As soon as I arrived, I saw them.

By the pig pen, Rinaldo’s driver and two men stood.

One held my mother’s pale-blue urn. He casually tipped it, dumping the gray powder into a muddy trough.

Dirty pigs immediately swarmed, snuffling and pawing through the ashes.

A piece of something inside me broke.

A rusty cleaver lay on the ground nearby. I snatched it up and spun toward Rinaldo, ready to strike.

Rinaldo reacted instantly, catching my wrist.

“Nerissa’s lost it again. Take her back and ‘handle’ her properly.”

The two men grabbed my arms, wrested the cleaver away, and dragged me into the car.

I screamed, struggled, cursed, but it was useless.

Rinaldo gave a polite smile to those watching.

“Sorry to disturb you. This is my wife’s older sister, she suffers from mental illness,” he explained, tapping his temple. “Always causing trouble. I need to take her back to be treated.”

Those around us nodded sympathetically.

“Rinaldo is such a good man, so patient with his wife’s crazy sister.”

“Exactly. Someone else would have abandoned her long ago.”

“So sad… she’s attractive, yet insane.”

Rinaldo sent me back to prison.

To the guards in charge of me, he said, “She’s still disobedient. Give her some lessons, teach her manners properly.”

They brought me to a room.

One side held a massive platform of ice, mist curling from it. The other side, a steaming hot water pool.

I screamed uncontrollably, struggling as water splashed everywhere.

Ice and fire tore through my body, once cracking me with cold, then scalding me as if being boiled alive.

Repeatedly, they dragged me from the ice and shoved me into the water.

My throat went hoarse, my body shaking beyond recognition.

Rinaldo looked at my miserable form and said, “I just want to make it up to Azura, let her have a better life. Why do you have to resist me?”

“Can’t you behave a little?”

I collapsed to the floor, too weak to lift my head.

He stood, speaking to the guards, “That’s enough for today. We’ll see tomorrow.”

They locked the door and left.

I lay alone on the ice-water-stained floor, barely alive.

I don’t know how long passed.

The door was violently kicked open. A tall shadow walked in against the light.

He saw my pale, battered face, furrowed his brow, and muttered under his breath.

“Worthless… look at the mess you’ve made of yourself.”