"If what you are saying is true, that I did everything because you are more pitiful than I am, why would I send you out then? Wouldn't that only put me at a disadvantage?" Nora rebuked.
Her face was flushed, but Wynter could see that her eyes were shifting and her fingers were fidgeting.
"No. Because this way, you will make me more of the bad one who does not follow her family because she has seen the outside world. You were gloating a while ago, right after I spoke of my desire to leave. You were so delighted that you could barely hide it. Because I acted the way you wanted me to."
Nora gritted her teeth, "You are falsely accusing me."
"Am I? Grandmother? If I came back as still that good granddaughter, then you can gain points for letting me experience the outside world. But if I came back as a rebellious one, just like right now, then you can watch me be in more agony than you are. After all, wasn't your marriage not out of love but out of obligation for the family?"
Nora's lips trembled, "How dare you speak this way to me!!!"
Wynter shook her head, "Do you know what I think? I think of you as more hideous than the rest of the people here. Because you hide your real face behind those stupidly warm smiles while you find delight in me being abandoned and beaten by all of them. They are better because all of them have openly shown me how much they hated me."
*SLAP*
Wynter wiped the blood that trickled down the wound that opened from how hard Nora had slapped her.
A smile appeared on her lips, "Finally showing your true heart?"
Nora's hands trembled.
She hates Wynter's eyes the most.
Because no matter how much she was abused. No matter how much she was hated. No matter how much she was not loved.
The fire in her eyes never disappeared.
It kept blazing, making Nora feel inferior, even though she should be the one feeling superior instead.
She harrumphed and left, slamming the door behind her.
Wynter sighed and lay back down on the cold floor.
The basement had no windows, and there was a bed not far from her but she no longer had any energy to even crawl up to that place.
'I will live. No matter what they do or what they decide, I will live and someday, I will surely be able to live freely,' she thought.
Her eyes continued blazing with life, not even a slight feeling of giving up.
She slowly closed her eyes, knowing full well that she would be subjected to another bout of abuse in a few hours or so.
But she somehow found herself holding out hope.
Hope that her call for help was not for naught.
…
Meanwhile, Shawn returned home as he had said, but he did not say anything to his parents yet.
He wanted to wait for Wynter's next message, whether she had left her family or not.
And now the third day has come, he was anxiously looking at his phone.
"Why are you being so fidgety?"
He looked up to see his father come out of their room.
He would not have asked anything if the time had not been before midnight. And the look that Shawn has had suddenly returned home without a proper reason.
"You suddenly came home even though you still have classes and had been acting weird ever since you came. What is going on, son?" Dominick added.
He gritted his teeth, knowing how powerless he was. He was supposed to speak with his father the moment he arrived, but he could not bring himself to do so.
Until the last hour, of him not receiving any messages from Wynter.
"Dad, please help me."
The sleepiness in Dominick's eyes instantly disappeared the moment he heard the tone his son was having.
Shawn was a cheerful, strong, and capable man. He asks for help from time to time, but never with a tone of helplessness.
"Tell me, what's going on?" Dominick asked seriously.
Shawn chose to play the voice message he received from Wynter while also telling his father of Wynter Morgrave's other identity.
"I never wanted to get anyone else involved. I just want to finish everything on my own, but I also know how they will react. And knowing that I sent you this message, if in three days you hear nothing from me. Can you please… help me?"
Dominick did not expect to hear this from Wynter Morgrave.
He did not know that the genius daughter of the Morgrave family was studying at the school where his son was studying.
He had heard that she was in a strict prestigious school all this time. And he had seen her in so many parties where she carried herself as the sophisticated young lady of the Morgrave Family.
The last time was Lenon's birthday party, she was portraying the perfect daughter so well that no one would have expected that she was not the beloved daughter, the Morgrave Family was portraying.
That such a child actually tried to reach out to someone for help.
"So the reason you asked that unexpected question back then was because of this," he said after a while.
"That day, she came to me and accepted the friendship I had been offering to Harmony Thomas. She told me that she had a secret and that it could cause disturbance to me and my friends if we were to know. But I told her that I will be her friend."