“No!” I screamed, my voice breaking. I tore and thrashed, but the hands holding me were iron; they pinned me so I could not move.
The footage replayed again and again, each loop slicing into my chest like a knife.
In the background, the steady ring of shovels striking earth grew heavier with every blow.
Madness crawled at the edges of my mind. Tears blurred my vision until everything smeared.
“Stop! I’ll teach! I promise—I’ll teach!” The plea ripped from my throat, ragged with desperation.
Charlton raised his hand, and his men froze.
Mariam, smiling with almost pleasant cruelty, paused the tablet. The image froze on my child’s final pale face.
She leaned close, towering over me with mock tenderness. “Isn’t this better?” she whispered, sugar-smooth and merciless. “If you’d behaved like this sooner, none of this would have happened.”
My body shook so violently I could barely breathe. Tears fell, each one a cold drop on the hard earth.
They had taken everything from me five years ago.
Now, five years later, they dragged me back into the same burning pit of despair.
But in the hollow of my heart, something snapped alive.