Just like in my previous life, she was discovered on a remote, desolate road outside the city. Covered in blood, she lay in the back of a beat-up van that looked like it belonged in a junkyard, trembling and coughing up blood.
When I saw her, my heart stopped. Both of her legs had been broken, twisted in unnatural angles, and her tongue had been cut out.
Naomi collapsed, sobbing as she pulled her into her arms.
When Zelene spotted me, her whole body trembled. With what little strength she had, she dipped her finger in her own blood and scrawled on the ground.
[Dad did it. He wants to kill me.]
My blood boiled.
“Zelene, why… why would you lie about me like this?!”
But she only stared at me in terror and grabbed my arm, frantically banging her forehead on the ground as if begging for mercy.
By the fifteenth time her head hit the floor, her tiny body gave out, and she collapsed unconscious.
Naomi tried to lunge at me, fists flying, but the police restrained her just in time.
And that’s when I realized there was something clenched in my hand. A blood-soaked ball of paper.
My daughter had slipped it to me when no one was looking.
With shaking hands, I unwrapped it and read the words smeared in red.
My pupils shrank, and my chest tightened.
The truth had been right in front of me all along.
