Rosamond dropped to her knees, scrambling across the ground like a woman possessed, gathering every fragment she could find.
Bryce glanced down at her with flat, empty eyes.
"Pathetic."
Then he gathered Olympia in his arms and walked away.
Rosamond clutched the broken pieces to her chest and wept. She wept until she couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't feel the shards slicing her palms open, blood running between her fingers.
"I'm sorry, Grandma. I'm so sorry..."
"It's all my fault. I couldn't even protect the one thing you left me..."
In the darkness, her phone screen flickered to life. A message from her mother.
Rosamond, your immigration paperwork is finalized. Your father and I will be waiting for you at the airport the morning after next.
Something stirred in the numb wasteland of her chest.
She could finally leave.
Rosamond stumbled back home and packed her things like a marionette, every movement hollow and mechanical.
All she wanted was to leave this place that had given her both boundless joy and unbearable pain, and never come back.
But the moment she reached the door, several bodyguards seized her and forced her into a car.
Rosamond fought with everything she had.