Her voice was shrill, piercing my skull like an ice pick. The frustration and injustice I had bottled up for years finally exploded.

I couldn't hold it down anymore.

"Grace Fox, I never touched you! Who taught you to lie like this?"

My control snapped. My hand rose.

But Mom was faster.

*Smack!*

Her palm landed heavy and hard across my face. The force knocked my head sideways. A high-pitched whine filled my ears, and the copper tang of blood flooded my mouth.

Mom's eyes bored into mine. Profound disappointment. Cold disgust.

"You dare hit your sister right in front of us? I can only imagine how you bully her behind our backs."

"Get out." She spat the words like poison. "I don't have a daughter like you."

Dad gathered Grace into his arms, shielding her. "Michelle, if you can't be a good sister, then don't bother coming back."

I swallowed the bloody foam pooling in my mouth.

Bitter.

"Fine."

I turned on my heel and walked away. My movements were calm. Mechanical.

That slap had finally knocked some sense into me.

The truth was, I had lost my parents a long time ago.

The farewell was a disaster—a messy end to a messy life—but I still had to pull myself together. I had to figure out how to survive these last few days.

I was a walking tragedy. About to die, yet still desperate for a quiet, clean place to take my final breath.

I reached out to Eliana Norton. She told me to come to her place. Her husband and daughter had both passed away in that house, she said, so adding one more dying soul wouldn't make a difference.

I moved in. While the online buzz about the "rich girl and the sanitation worker" was still hot, I started filming videos with her. It was my way of repaying her kindness. And also a way to earn enough for food during my final countdown.

When the timer on my arm showed only thirty hours left, Dad and Mom started calling me like crazy.

I didn't answer.

So they bombarded me with texts.

*You don't dare answer the phone? Think your wings have hardened, do you?*

*Grace had a nightmare and has a fever from the shock. It's critical. Hurry back and use Resurrection on her.*

*You have time to film those trashy videos, but no time to save your own biological sister?*

*I think you haven't learned your lesson yet!*

I calmly put my phone away.

Whether Grace was faking it or actually dying, it didn't matter.

I wasn't going back.

I had no Resurrection charges left.