Chapter 2

I woke up with a gasp, the feel of champagne bubbles on my tongue. The air was thick with expensive perfume and the low murmur of high-society chatter. I was at the engagement party. Julian and Eleanor' s engagement party.

The system had never sent me back this far.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew what was coming. I saw her across the room, Eleanor, looking like a tragic porcelain doll in her white dress. Her eyes found mine, filled with a pain that was all too familiar to me now.

Then she looked at Julian, who stood beside me, his hand resting possessively on my lower back.

"Julian?" Eleanor' s voice was a fragile whisper. She took a step, then another, her eyes locked on his hand on my body.

Julian didn' t move. He just watched her, a flicker of something cold and calculating in his eyes.

Eleanor' s face crumpled. She stumbled back, knocking over a tower of champagne flutes. The crash silenced the room. She snatched a large shard of broken glass from the floor and held it to her wrist.

"Eleanor, no!"

This time, Julian moved. But not toward her. Not at first.

He shoved me, hard. I stumbled sideways into a waiter, sending a tray of drinks crashing to the floor. The cold liquid and sharp glass bit into my skin.

Then he rushed to Eleanor' s side.

"My only love," he cried, his voice ringing with panic and devotion. He carefully took the glass from her hand, cradling her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

The guests gasped, their eyes turning from the dramatic scene to me, the disheveled, drink-soaked girl on the floor.

Julian turned his head, and his eyes met mine over Eleanor' s shoulder. They were filled with icy triumph.

He held his weeping fiancée close and pointed a shaking finger at me.

"Her! It was her! She' s a slut, a gold-digger! She drugged me, trying to trap me!"

The accusation hung in the air, thick and poisonous. Whispers erupted. "Disgusting." "From the working class, you know." "What did she expect?"

Eleanor sobbed in his arms, playing her part perfectly. Julian comforted her, all while his eyes burned into me, a silent promise of what was to come. He gestured to two burly security guards.

"Get her out of my sight."

They hauled me to my feet. My arms screamed in protest. As they dragged me away, my bare legs scraping against the broken glass on the floor, Julian leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear.

"I know you always come back, Chloe," he whispered, his voice a venomous caress. "But this time will be different. This will be the last time."

He straightened up and spoke to the guards, his voice loud enough for the nearest guests to hear.

"Take her to a back room. Have some fun with her. And make sure she can' t carry anyone' s child ever again."

The guards grinned, their grips tightening on my arms.

They dragged me toward a service door. The pain from the glass, the humiliation, the raw, brutal truth of his hatred-it all crashed over me. But as they shoved me into the dark, foul-smelling room, something inside me didn't break.

It went quiet.

The pain from nine deaths flooded my senses. Drowning. Freezing. The agony of a forced miscarriage. It all converged into a single, clarifying point of light.

This was futile. This was hell. And I was done.

As the first guard' s hands tore at my dress, I closed my eyes and spoke to the only power that mattered in this world.

"System. I quit. I' m abandoning the mission."

A cold, mechanical voice answered in my mind, a sound no one else could hear.

[Request Confirmed. Mission Abandoned. Subject Chloe will be extracted from Target World in 15 days.]