By the time the pain nearly knocked me unconscious, Xenia kept searching the room.

She was thorough and relentless. She won't leave a single corner untouched. She was determined to dig up every piece of evidence against me.

Finally, she kicked the bed aside and reached for a dusty metal box.

My heart seized.

No.

What was inside that box mattered more than my life.

"Don't touch that!"

I didn't know where the strength came from, but I crawled toward her.

My sudden desperation shocked Xenia into a pause. Then, the mockery in her eyes deepened. She kicked me aside with ease and flipped open the latch.

Inside the box was a word journal and a police badge carefully wrapped in red cloth.

She picked up the journal and flipped through it casually.

Every page recorded the pain and medication dosages during my chemotherapy.

"March 7th, clear. 80 milligrams of OxyContin. It hurts.

"March 9th, cloudy. Morphine injection. It hurt so much I wanted to die. I thought I saw Xenia on the street today. She's still just as beautiful as the first time I saw her.

"March 15th, rain. Increased dosage. It feels like my bones are going to break."

She let out a cold laugh and held the journal up to the camera.

"Look at what we have here. It's a junkie's diary."

She read the line about me seeing her. Her voice was dripping with ridicule. "Were you having hallucinations from being high? Why were you still thinking about me? You're disgusting, Caleb."

She tossed the journal straight into the trash can in the corner of the room.

Then, she picked up the badge wrapped in cloth.

It was my dad's. He had been her mentor.

The moment she saw it, her expression turned ice-cold.

"You don't deserve to keep this," she said, walking toward me. "You're the son of a fallen officer, yet you've turned into a parasite on society. What would your dad think?"

I shook my head desperately, tears mixing with sweat. "No… You're wrong…"

She didn't listen to me at all and pulled a lighter from her pocket.

A blue flame flickered to life.

She set the journal on fire right in front of me.

I lunged for it, but she stomped down on my hand and ground it into the floor.

Sounds of bone shattering filled the air as I let out a scream of agony.

"Watch," she ordered.

She forced me to look at the pages curled and blackened. "What's the point of keeping this journal? So people know what a piece of trash you were after you die? Or maybe you wanted everyone to know that I once dated a drug-addicted criminal?"

The flames devoured the paper. It felt like they were burning straight through my bones.

Aaron spoke up. "Ms. Jensen's right. That journal's just trash. Burning it is the right thing to do."

I lay on the ground with my hand pinned beneath her foot.

I stopped struggling and screaming.

I just stared at the fire until the last page of the book turned to ash.

That journal was the last thing I had left to prove I was innocent.

Now, it was gone.

…

At dawn the next day, two officers dragged me out of the apartment.

24 hours of forced withdrawal had left me too weak to even stand.

The pain from bone cancer and the morphine withdrawal burned through what little sanity I had left.

A dense crowd had gathered outside my apartment. Cameras with long lenses packed the narrow hallway until it was completely blocked.

"That's him! The drug addict!"

"He looks normal enough. How can he be so rotten inside?"

Xenia stood at the front of the crowd in her crisp police uniform. Her expression was cold as she faced the cameras. "Everyone, this is Caleb, the drug user we arrested yesterday. He's a textbook case of someone who fell into ruin because of vanity and greed."

The moment she finished speaking, someone in the crowd hurled a rotten vegetable straight at my face.

Then, more followed. Some hurled rotten vegetables, some threw eggs, and someone even spat on me.

In the chaos, the wig I wore to cover my chemo-bald head was yanked off. My bare scalp was exposed.

"Freak! He's bald!"

The crowd's laughter and insults crashed over me like waves.

I stood there numbly, letting the filth drip from my head, down my neck, and into my clothes.

Then, an old, furious voice broke through the noise. "What are you doing? Stop! Leave him alone!"

It was Frank Stewart, my landlord.

He pushed through the crowd with a broom in hand and threw himself in front of me.

"Caleb isn't a bad person! He's sick, you monsters!"

He blocked a wave of garbage meant for me with his frail body.

I stared at him as his graying hair was now smeared with egg and rotting vegetables. My heart tightened so hard I could barely breathe. "Mr. Stewart…"

"Get that old man out of here," Xenia ordered with a frown.

Several officers immediately stepped forward and dragged him away.

Aaron seized the moment and turned to the cameras with a practiced tone of concern. "Don't be fooled, everyone. Many addicts are good at gaining sympathy from kindhearted elderly people. We're doing this for the old man's safety."

The crowd stirred again, their anger reignited.

"That old fool got tricked by a junkie!"

"He's probably in on it! Birds of a feather!"

The crowd shoved Frank. He stumbled and hit his forehead on the ground. There was blood.

"Mr. Stewart!" I screamed.

Xenia stepped close to me. Her voice was low enough that only I could hear her. "See that, Caleb? If you don't want that old man dragged into this mess for harboring a drug dealer, you'd better behave."

My body went stiff.

She was using the only person who still cared about me as leverage.

What else could I do?

I lowered my head and stopped resisting. I let the filth cover me.

I stood shaking in front of countless cameras like a condemned prisoner.

…

I was taken to the city square.

A massive, fully transparent glass enclosure had been built there overnight.

It was like a cage meant to display a monster.

I was the monster.

I was shoved into the enclosure. Blinding lights snapped on from all directions, forcing my eyes shut.

A sea of people gathered outside the glass. Their faces were filled with curiosity, disgust, and excitement.

Countless phones and cameras were pointed at me. They livestreamed everything, 24 hours a day.

Without morphine to suppress it, the pain from my bone cancer finally broke free and erupted inside me with terrifying intensity.

It hurt.

It hurt so badly I couldn't breathe.

The pain was so sharp I could almost hear my bones cracking bit by bit.

I started thrashing on the ground and curling into myself. I tried everything to ease the inhuman agony.

I even slammed my head against the glass wall.

I just wanted to pass out or just outright die.

Outside the glass enclosure, the crowd burst into gasps and laughter.

"Look! Withdrawal's kicking in!"

"Disgusting. Serves him right!"

Xenia stood outside the enclosure with a microphone in her hand. "Everyone, this is what drugs do to a person. Once you're hooked, you lose all dignity. You become nothing more than a beast driven by craving. This is the price of self-destruction."

Her voice sounded through the speakers. It reached everyone. It reached me.

My consciousness began to blur. Hallucinations crept in.

The Xenia outside the enclosure was no longer the ruthless police captain.

She was the girl I knew from seven years ago. She was in a white dress. She stood under the sunlight and reached out to me with a smile.

"Don't be scared, Caleb. I'm here. I'll take you home."

"Xenia…"

Tears streamed down my face as I reached toward her. With the last bit of strength I had, I called her name. "Xenia… Help me…"

My pleas looked completely different to everyone else.

Aaron snatched the microphone. His tone was laced with pity and disdain. "As you can see, the suspect is experiencing severe hallucinations. This just shows how the drugs have destroyed his mind."

His analysis spread instantly across the livestream. The screen flooded with mockery and insults.

"This guy is beyond saving."

The illusion shattered. Pain swallowed me whole again.

I couldn't take it anymore. Everything went black as I fainted.

…

A bucket of icy water was dumped over my face. The cold shocked me awake.

The public execution continued.

I didn't know how much time had passed. At the peak of another wave of agony, my body gave out completely.

A warm wetness spread from my abdomen and soaked through my pants.

I had lost control in front of the entire country.

In that moment, the pain, humiliation, and anger I had felt all disappeared.

All that remained was numbness and despair.

The last shred of my dignity was crushed to ashes.

…

Somewhere in my fading awareness, I heard the glass door slam open.

Footsteps rushed in, and a hand grabbed my collar. It was a furious Xenia. "Caleb! Get up! Stop faking it for sympathy!"

She was so furious that she lost control of her grip.

A sharp cracking sound rang out.

It was the sound of my collarbone—already weakened by cancer—snapping clean in two under her grip.

Her hand hung midair. Her eyes flicked from her hand to the visible collapse beneath my shoulder.

A normal addict wouldn't be this fragile. They wouldn't break from a single shake.

For the first time, there was a flicker of fear in her voice. "Caleb… Your bones…"