In my last life, I'd been fooled by that exact look for an entire lifetime. I didn't learn the truth until the moment I died.
Someone carried Chester's two children over. They were so young. The boy was barely five, the girl only three. The chaos had them wailing, their small bodies trembling.
Carmen crouched beside them and hissed in their ears. "Go on, tell everyone. Who killed your mommy and daddy? It was this woman!"
The little boy shook from head to toe, but through his sobs he screamed, "Murderer! You're a murderer!"
The little girl cried after him, her words slurred and broken. "I want Mommy and Daddy! Kill her!"
These children. In my last life, I'd nearly destroyed myself raising them. And they'd grown up to become trophies paraded around by the very people who ruined me.
Now they were still so small, and already being used as weapons.
I opened my mouth to explain, but the words died before they left my lips. No one was listening.
Carmen and Alden kept howling for my life. The relatives egged them on. The villagers' murmuring swelled into a roar, every voice certain I was the poisoner.
"Call the police! Let the cops investigate. They'll prove she did it!"