The day my sister finished her SATs, she clung to me, nagging me to buy her a Miu Miu slip dress. So I grabbed her by the hair and put her in the hospital.

It was because, in my last life, my heart had ached for the ten brutal years she'd spent buried in textbooks, so I'd gritted my teeth and blown more than half a month's salary on that dress.

But the very next day, I became the criminal who had lured my own sister into selling her body, the one who'd driven her to jump off a building.

The investigators threw down a stack of screenshots, every one of them an intimate video of her in that slip dress, posted from an account registered under my ID card.

I fought to clear myself, but every payment record on my sister's phone, every transaction from her clients, was linked to an account tied to my bank card!

Even my ever-attentive boyfriend turned on me, claiming I'd been forcing my sister to sell herself the whole time.

My mother sobbed until she nearly fainted, clutching my sister's corpse, jabbing a finger at me and screaming:

"You animal! You'd sell your own sister for money? I should never have given birth to you!"

My father snatched up a rolling pin and broke my leg with it, pointing at the front door and ordering me out.

I had no way to defend myself. I was thrown into prison, where my furious cellmates beat me to death.

When I opened my eyes again, my sister was burrowing into my arms, shoving the product page for that dress at me.

"Sis, I just want this one dress. Buy it for me, please!"

——

I gripped the phone, the Miu Miu logo on the screen stabbing at my eyes until they ached.

My sister, Olivia Harding, was still squirming against me, dragging out the last syllable, soft and long.

"Sis, all my classmates have one, I'm the only one who doesn't. You're the best."

In my last life, it was that one line, "You're the best," that emptied my wallet without a fight.

And not just that. I'd pulled all-nighters for months tutoring her in math for the SATs. For that delicate stomach of hers, I'd come home from work every day and spend three hours simmering a special diet to settle it.

And what did I get in return?

A shattered shinbone. Cold fists and feet in a prison cell. An injustice I never managed to clear, all the way to my death.

I looked at Olivia's innocent, pure face, so much like my mother's, and my stomach heaved.

"Crack!"

I lost my grip, and the phone hit the floor, the screen splintering instantly.

Olivia froze.

I didn't give her time to react. I seized a fistful of her freshly dyed, light-brown hair and slammed her head hard into the wall.

Another dull thud.

It soothed me far more than the sound of the phone shattering.

"Ahh——!"

Olivia screamed, collapsing to the floor with her arms over her head, blood seeping out between her fingers.

My mother came rushing out of the kitchen, the spatula slipping from her hand to the floor.

"Amanda Harding! Have you lost your mind?!"

She threw herself down and gathered Olivia up, the look she gave me full of shock.

My father bolted out of the study too, jabbing a finger in my face, his lips trembling with rage.

"You, you little monster! She's your own sister!"

My own sister?

I laughed.

In my last life, this was exactly how they'd been. One cradling Olivia's corpse and cursing me as an animal, the other breaking my leg and ordering me out.

I ignored their roaring, calmly picked up the smashed phone, and dialed 911.

"Hello, I'd like to report an incident. I just hit my sister. She's bleeding."

The dispatcher on the other end clearly went still.

I kept going. "The address is Goldwater Residences, Building 3, Unit 1, Apartment 1202. I think there's something wrong with me mentally. I'm requesting an involuntary psychiatric hold and police involvement."

With that, I hung up. Under my parents' shock-frozen stares, I walked to the entryway and fished my father's car keys out of his coat pocket.

"Before the ambulance and the police get here, I'll take her to the hospital myself."

I hauled the limp Olivia up, ignoring her wails and struggling, and dragged her toward the door.

The hospital corridor was a blinding white, and the smell of disinfectant crawled up into my nose.

Olivia had been wheeled into the ER, her head wrapped in gauze, still crying in broken little hitches.

My parents stood guard at the door. My father didn't say a word, but I could feel the anger he was holding back.

My mother just glared at me, like she wanted to tear me apart and swallow me whole.

The police arrived quickly. After getting the basics and taking a look at Olivia's injuries, they brought me to the hospital's security office to take my statement.

"Why did you hit your sister?" the young officer asked.

"She wanted a very expensive dress. I wouldn't buy it for her, so we started arguing." I answered without flinching.

"You argued, so you put your hands on her? And this hard?"

I lowered my eyes, letting just the right amount of fragility creep into my voice.

"Work's been really stressful lately. My emotions have been all over the place. I couldn't control myself."

"Officer, can I request a psychiatric evaluation?"

"I'm scared something might actually be wrong with me, that I'll hurt my family again."

The way the officer looked at me shifted, the scrutiny softening into something closer to sympathy.

As we were talking, the door to the security office swung open.

My boyfriend, Gerard Gilbert, rushed in, his face all anxious worry.

"Mandy, your mom and dad told me what happened. Are you okay?"

He went around the officer and reached for my hand. I twisted away.

In my last life, it was him. He'd shown up with a stack of intimate photos of the two of us, and told the police, with all the heartbroken sincerity he could muster, that my private life was a mess, that I'd been thinking about pimping out my sister for money long before any of this.

Beneath that tender, devoted shell of his was nothing but calculation that couldn't stand the light of day.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I was worried about you." His brows knit together as he turned to the officer.

"Officer, there's definitely been a misunderstanding here. Mandy adores her sister. She'd never lay a hand on her for no reason."

He played the part so well.

The disgust in my chest was enough to make me sick, but on the surface I still had to perform that old dependence and fragility, my fingertips trembling just slightly.

My mother had followed in too, crying as she pleaded with the officer.

"Officer, my younger daughter just doesn't know any better. Her sister's been under so much pressure with school and work. We won't press charges. We'd like to drop the case."

I watched the two of them play their little duet with cold eyes.

They wanted to file this away as a "family dispute," to slap an "emotionally unstable" label on me, so they'd have an easier time smearing me down the road.

I didn't wait for the officer to speak. I stood up.

"No. I want this filed as a formal case. I need legal protection and medical intervention."

Everyone froze.

Gerard recovered first. He stepped closer and lowered his voice.

"Mandy, haven't you made enough of a scene? Do you really have to blow this up?"

I looked at him, and a sudden catch came into my voice.

"Gerard, my old ID card is missing. It must have fallen out on the way to the hospital. Can you go report it lost for me first?"

For a split second, Gerard's expression went stiff.

Of course he knew where my ID was.

"Okay. I'll go right now." He composed himself quickly and gently stroked my hair.

"Don't be afraid. I've got you."

I watched his back as he turned and walked away, my eyes rimmed red, but the smile at the corner of my mouth turning colder and colder.

I spent the whole night in the hospital's observation room.

The police took my suggestion and kept me under their protection until my psychiatric evaluation was finished.

Early the next morning, the preliminary results of my evaluation came back.

Acute stress disorder, brought on by a prolonged high-pressure environment.

Not quite an illness, but more than enough to serve as my reason for losing control.

My parents came to pick me up, exhaustion and impatience written across their faces.

"Amanda, you've had your fun. Now come home with us." My father's voice was hard.

My mother didn't say a word, but those eyes, full of disgust, said everything.

I didn't move.

"Where's Olivia? How is she?"

"Mild concussion. She's already home resting." My mother's voice was cold. "Satisfied?"

I nodded.

"Good."

I followed them out of the hospital. Gerard's car was parked right out front.

He pulled the door open for me, his eyes brimming with concern.

"Mandy, get in. I made you some soup to help you recover."

I slid into the seat, and he handed me a beautifully wrapped box.

"Didn't your phone break? I bought you a new one, and I got your SIM replaced too." He smiled, gentle as ever. "The passcode is your birthday."

I opened the box. Inside lay the latest model.

Exactly the same one he'd so thoughtfully given me in my last life.

I lifted my head and gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you, Gerard. You're so good to me. You're all I have now."

A flicker of smugness crossed his eyes and was gone.

Back home, the air inside was so stifling it was hard to breathe.

Olivia lay on the couch, gauze taped to her forehead. The moment she saw me, she shrank behind my mother like she'd seen a ghost.

My mother instantly wrapped her up like a hen guarding her chick, glaring at me.

I ignored them and walked straight into my own room, closing the door.

I held the new phone and drew the curtains shut.

In my past life, it wasn't until I was in prison, just before I died, that I remembered how this phone always ran abnormally hot and drained its battery far too fast.

There were even several times when I was in the shower and the screen, left outside, would light up on its own.

I didn't go hunting for cameras. Instead, I pulled out an old secondhand phone and downloaded a local network sniffer tool.

Then I threw myself onto the bed and, facing the new phone, launched into a half-hour-long "complete breakdown," sobbing my heart out.

I cried the whole time while keeping my eyes locked on the screen of the secondhand phone.

Sure enough, a hidden data stream was uploading like mad.

I traced the IP address by capturing packets across the local network.

In the end, the readout showed the receiving end was right next door. My own mother's room.

I clenched my teeth hard, a chill running through my whole body.

Early the next morning, I went to the hospital for a blood draw and a hair analysis.

In the months before everything went wrong in my past life, I'd often blacked out and felt constantly drowsy. Back then I'd assumed it was just exhaustion from working too much.

Looking back now, someone had probably been tampering with my food and drink.

The rush results came back that afternoon.

My hair tested positive for residue of long-term use of neurological sedatives.

Lab report in hand, I went to an internet café and hacked into the surveillance network in my family's living room.

I pulled up the footage from those nights I'd blacked out.

On the screen, my mother took out an old ID card of mine and sat down at the computer.

She held up my phone, aimed it at my face as I lay passed out on the couch, gently pried my eyes open, and completed the facial recognition scan.

That was how she'd bound the overseas accounts that posted the private videos and the bank cards that collected the payments.

The cold shot up from the soles of my feet straight to the top of my head.

Coming out of the internet café, I dialed Adrian Dickerson.

Adrian was the man my grandfather had left for me. He acted only on instructions.

"Adrian, lend me some people. There's something I need to look into."

I deliberately created a hidden file on my own computer desktop, named "Mental Breakdown Cry for Help."

It was filled with the ravings of someone desperate to strike back.

I knew my mother's surveillance was certain to see it.

The moment they panicked, they would use that overseas IP to stir up public opinion, sealing their own crimes beyond any doubt.