“Bad lady! You’re a bad lady! Gimme my little sister back! I’m telling Daddy so the police can catch you!”
At that point, Shawn’s expression became stormy, and he was so angry that his fingers trembled. “To think I was worried about you… You must have learned to act pitiful from your mother!”
I shook my head, screaming desperately—no, no!
Aster was the most well-mannered child there was! Why wouldn’t he believe his own son?
Shawn ordered the bodyguards to throw Aster out of the room.
Aster collapsed onto the floor, motionless.
Even after Shawn retrieved his watch and finished comforting Jasmine, he found Aster still lying face down outside the door.
“Still keeping up the act, huh? So young, yet so manipulative.”
At that, he took a picture and sent it to my phone.
“Come and get your son! Do you want to embarrass yourselves even more?”
What Shawn didn’t know was that I was already kneeling beside Aster, crying as if I had died all over again.
At that moment, I hated myself more than I hated Shawn and Jasmine.
Why did I have to stand by and watch my son suffer such cruel abuse?
Why did I have to die so soon?
If Jasmine truly became Aster’s stepmother one day, would we have to endure this living nightmare forever?
Seeing that I didn’t message him back, Shawn scoffed and walked away, and that’s when Aster slowly came to.
His sweat and blood had dried, sealing his eyelids shut.
Too weak to stand, he groped blindly toward the familiar staircase, crawling forward with great effort.
“Mommy… I want to go back to Mommy…”
Doctors and nurses passing by whispered among themselves—some in pity, others in ridicule.
I followed behind Aster, my soul pierced by a thousand needles.
Step by step, each feeling like a lifetime.
By the time he finally made it back to me, my blood had long since frozen in the cold night air, but Aster didn’t understand. He smiled brightly. “Mommy’s not bleeding anymore!”
Without his desperation keeping him awake, he passed out by my lifeless body.
The next morning, a janitor was the first to notice something was wrong.
She screamed in terror, stumbling up the stairs. “T-They’re dead!”
Shawn, jolted awake by the commotion, stormed out in frustration, shoving aside the medical staff.
“What now, Astrea? Did you get the janitor in on the act too, after what you told Aster to do yesterday?”
The moment he saw my face, paler than the walls around me, every last trace of color drained from his own.
