Chapter 2

My soul drifted out of that old, abandoned factory and levitated in the air. In the end, I stopped beside my parents.

They were the one thing tying me to the world.

My mother was crying nonstop in the living room while calling out Naomi’s name.

“Naomi has never suffered like this!

“Dawn running around with Naomi must have caused this. That’s why they were kidnapped,” she grumbled to my father.

I cried out, “That’s not true! I didn’t run around! Naomi was the one who ran into an alley! I was the one who ran after her!”

I wanted to defend myself, but my mother could not hear me.

My father could only offer a comforting pat on her shoulder.

Before the kidnapping, I wanted to visit Naomi’s school, so I went with our driver to pick her up, but we ended up getting kidnapped in the alley not far from the school gate.

My mother continued crying, “Dawn came from the countryside and doesn’t act like our daughter at all. Was there an error with the paternity test?

“Once they come back, let’s send Dawn away. Otherwise, Naomi is going to be upset again.”

I felt my heart squeeze in pain. When I first met my parents, I stood before them with great unease. My mother had cried to my father and said that I looked like her. She even said that she could tell with just a single glance that I was her daughter.

But at that moment, she hoped that the paternity test was wrong and that I was not her daughter.

I cradled my chest and thought, “So, even the heart feels pain even after death?”

After my mother went to the Clark family to pick me up, she held me and could not bear to even go to sleep. She was worried that I would disappear the moment she closed her eyes.

When she saw the scars I had from the abuse I went through from the Clark family, she applied medicine on me while crying. At that time, I thought that I finally had someone who loved me.

At that moment, I was overwhelmed with despair as I thought, ‘My adoptive parents hit me and yelled at me, while my real parents hate me. Perhaps I should never have been born. Even when I’m alive, I’m just a burden.’

The kidnappers called again and asked my parents to hurry up with the money.

They must have realized that I was dead and were worried about revealing the fact that I was murdered. So, they wanted to get the money sooner.

Naomi called out to my mother delicately. When she heard her voice, my mother cried even harder.

I remembered that when I was first kidnapped, the kidnappers had handed the phone to me, and I called out to my mother immediately.

But she said this instead.

“Where’s Naomi? I want to hear her voice! Where’s my daughter?!”

Yes. My mother eagerly wanted to hear Naomi’s sister.

All the words I wanted to say died on my tongue. I could only hand the phone to Naomi.

After that, every time the kidnapper handed the phone to me, I would just shake my head and had them hand the phone to Naomi.

My mother seemed to have forgotten about me and never talked about me.

Every time, she would always ask for confirmation from the kidnappers. “Those fingers and feet are from Dawn, right? They’re not from Naomi, right?”

When she heard the kidnappers confirming that Naomi was safe, she sighed in relief.

“Naomi still has to play the piano. She can’t be without fingers. Dawn is tough. She can take a hit or two.

“She’s only been left without fingers and feet. She’ll be fine,” she comforted herself.

When we were kidnapped, the kidnapper told us that they were going to send one of each of our fingers to our parents.

I shielded Naomi and extended a trembling hand to them.

But I said calmly, “She’s not part of the Lewis family. Even if you cut off her fingers and they conduct a paternity test on it, they can’t be certain that they’re related.

“But I’m definitely Charles and Maria’s daughter. Cut mine.”

Just as I expected, my parents conducted a paternity test the moment they received the package.

The kidnappers had thought that since Naomi was not my parents’ real daughter, they were not going to pay the ransom. So, it was better for them to keep me. But they were also worried that Naomi would tell on them, so they refused to release her.

But through the phone calls, they gradually realized that my parents did not actually care about me.