Rebirth12 min read
I Came Back to Take It All Back
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I woke to the taste of iron and the memory of concrete pressing into my cheek. For a moment I could not tell whether I had died or been buried alive. The dark had a shape I could count on: it had held me for three years.
"Do you remember me?" I whispered to the ceiling, to the rat-scratched stone, to whatever small part of me survived. My voice sounded like someone else's.
A woman came then, her steps bright as bells. She crouched, lifted my chin with fingers I had loved once.
"Look at you," she cooed. "Gwendolyn, you look… awful. You should have taken my advice, sister. My baby will be so pleased."
"Get away," I spat. The words felt rusty.
She laughed. "Oh, don't be dramatic. We all play parts. You just played yours too stubbornly."
Her name in that life was Daisy Campos. I had trusted her smile. I had believed her when she said I should leave a man who hurt me. I had trusted her and gotten traded for a prettier lie.
"You told him I was dead," I said. "You told everyone."
Daisy's hand closed on my wrist. "He finally stopped looking three days ago. It was poetic, really. A car. No witnesses. All the family affairs signed and—" she patted her swollen belly. "Everything is settled. When he is gone, everything is mine."
I tasted bile and blood. Behind Daisy in the doorway stood Bryson Voigt, smiling like a man who had already decided other people's fates.
"You cowards," I said. "You think you can kill me and call it a favor."
Daisy hummed. "You never had strength, Gwendolyn. You couldn't keep him, you couldn't keep your place. This was necessary."
I laughed. My laugh bounced off stone and came back foreign. "Necessary," I echoed. "Fine. Then let's all go down together."
She took that as madness. She did not hear the small, steady beeping—the device I had hidden when they thought they had finished with me. She did not hear me count.
"You won't get away," she said to me, smug and certain.
"Listen," I said, and the beeping grew louder in my bones. "You won't either."
The explosion came as a bright, stupid boom in my dream. Pain unrolled, a red curtain, then nothing. I had meant to take them with me. For a long second I believed it had worked.
I woke again to sunlight on my eyelids and a man cursing right beside me.
"You're ridiculous," he said. "How many times will you do this?"
I blinked. The scent of antiseptic replaced stone. Ulysses Hamilton's face hovered in focus—the face I had thought ruined, the face I had left curling with anger before I stumbled over my own shame. He was nearer than any memory allowed.
"Ulysses?" I breathed. The name tasted like home.
He seized my wrist, sharp with worry. "Gwen, stop playing. Say you'll stay."
I sat up too fast and winced. "I—" My wrist stung. Dry blood. "I remember. I—this can't be a dream. I remember everything."
"You fainted again this morning," he said, and there was something raw in his voice. "You tried to convince them to leave you alone."
"We?" I laughed, small and dangerous. "No. I was going to fight back."
He looked at me with that slow, fierce tenderness that had melted me before. "Then fight here, not there. Not like that."
"Ulysses," I said, and the first of a plan uncoiled. "What if I don't run away this time?"
He let out a breath. "Then I'll be here."
We did not talk like strangers. He had stayed for three years, or so I had been told in fragments—he had not stopped calling, not stopped searching. Daisy and Bryson had lied to the world, but not to his heart. He had kept believing and it had not saved me. That note would become currency.
"Are you sure you're not dying?" he demanded, half joking, half broken.
"I'm alive," I whispered. "And if I'm alive, I can fix what we couldn't before."
"Fix?" He said the word like a dare.
"Fix everything," I said. "Listen—this time I know the moves they will make. I remember the exact way they lied. I remember the contracts, the room numbers, even the phrase Daisy used when she told me to leave. I remember the way Bryson liked to brag. They have left a trail."
He considered me. "Then let's follow it together."
"Promise me something," I said quickly. "If this goes wrong, tell my parents the truth first. Tell them I didn't leave them to die."
His fingers tightened, then relaxed. "I promise."
We rose to the world and it felt like a miracle—sunlight on skin, the scent of jasmine from the garden. For the first time in years I let the sun cleanse me like an ember being fanned into life.
I changed my name only in work. Designers call themselves by brand names. Ulysses called me "Daina" as a joke, because my sketches always begin with the letter D. When a monstrous, headstrong man in an industry of cold logic asks if you'll join his house, you listen.
"Are you really applying to be our chief designer?" he asked the evening I signed the contract.
"It was your call," I said. "You said the person you wanted didn't exist yet. You said you wanted talent, not an identity. I can be both."
He smiled that small, dangerous smile. "Then come be my chief. But you belong to me, Gwendolyn. Not work. Not fear."
There were moments—little, ordinary slices of life—that patched the wound in my chest. He would cover my shoulders with a coat without being asked. Once, standing on the office rooftop, when a breeze tried to pull my scarf down, he reached across and tucked it back.
"You're stupid for standing in that wind," he scolded.
"I'm happy," I said.
He laughed, a sound that knocked at my ribs. "You know I like that smile. Don't make me go after it like a child."
He held doors for me, but more than manners, his quiet looked like a vow. Once he found me watching old sketches, fingers tracing a dress I had designed and then lost because of their theft.
"Keep that one for me," he said softly. "Make one for me too."
So I did. I made him a suit stitched with lines that, at a glance, were ordinary—but close up, the stitches spelled his name. When I presented it to him in a small box, his throat closed.
"Is this for me?" he asked.
"Only for you," I said.
He put the suit on in the bathroom mirror and looked at himself like he had never seen his reflection loved. "Only you could design a suit that looks like an apology and a promise."
"Both," I said. "I apologize for leaving. I promise to stay."
"Good," he murmured, and leaned in. For a moment I forgot everything I had been preparing, and the world narrowed to his kiss.
But revenge was patient and practical. I used what I had left: sketches, contacts, a small studio of friends who had not abandoned me. Francesca Everett, my best friend, returned like a comet when I called. "You did what?" she demanded over coffee.
"I survived," I said. "Now help me file a case. Public exposure, contracts, a staged leak. We must take away what they took and more."
She clapped both hands, eyes alight. "Finally. I was waiting for the fun part."
Kimber Long, Lisa Burks, Julio Gordon—they all stepped in. They patched old debts, rewrote old patterns, turned half-ruined drafts into a storm.
"Are you sure you want this?" Francesca asked late that night.
"Do you want me safe?" I asked back.
She nodded. "I want them to feel the small cold of being powerless."
"Then we will do it when there is an audience."
We planned with the patience of surgeons. Daisy loved charity galas. Bryson loved being admired. The night they chose to appear in public, I chose the stage.
"Are you nervous?" Ulysses asked from beside me in my car.
"A little," I said.
He kissed the back of my hand. "Nervous is good. It means you care."
We arrived to a hall that glittered with staged light. Men's suits, women's gowns, the hum of cameras. I felt like I had walked into the mouth of a beast with a tiny blade in my sleeve.
"Daisy, Bryson, smile," I said when I stepped onto the small platform meant for a charity announcement. People took photos as I began.
"Good evening," I said. "I have something to share about two people who have had a very public role in my life."
They smiled, polite, the kind of smiles that hide nerves. Daisy's false brightness was like varnish under a lamp.
"Do you know what it's like," I asked, "to be erased?"
"What are you talking about?" Daisy said, voice high.
"Don't play naive." I held up a file. "Bryson, Daisy—these are copies of contracts signed right after an accident. They told the board a date of death. They declared me 'irretrievable.' They profited off of my absence."
A rustle moved through the crowd. Cameras flickered. Someone started recording.
"You're making a mistake," Bryson said, voice thin.
"Am I?" I tapped the files. "Here are bank transfers. Here are messages. Here is the recording where Daisy says, 'If I have to write her obituary, I will.'"
"Daisy Campos," I said into the microphone, "you told everyone I was dead. You took the fortune that belonged to my parents. You had someone plant evidence. You told lies to a grieving man."
The room smelled of perfume and surprise.
"You conned the board, Mr. Voigt," I went on. "You are listed as a lead partner in a shell company. Here are emails between you and the person who took my parents' signatures."
Bryson's face paled. He laughed, a bark edged with panic. "You can't do this. These are forged—"
"—and the forgery trail points back to your private server," I cut in. "You used photographs that were staged. You used a fake accident report."
A tide of phones raised. "This is happening," someone whispered.
"Explain to them why you built a false testimony of my death," I told Daisy. "Explain why you took my child—what claim is there? A pregnancy claim on false representation? You lied to everyone present. You lied about love. You lied about grief."
Daisy's smile cracked. "You're insane," she whispered.
"Maybe," I said. "But I have now presented evidence to the regulators, to the press, to every board member on the director list."
"You're out of line," Bryson sputtered. "I've paid good people. You can't—"
He reached for the microphone and the audience silenced. "People of the board!" he cried. "This woman is making false accusations. She is unstable. She stole documents. Remove her!"
"Is that what you want?" I asked calmly. "A scene?"
The audience murmured. Ulysses took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
Then I called someone else to the microphone. Francesca. She was ready with a printed ledger.
"We have all the transfers," she said, voice steady. "This man used a dummy company to transfer funds. He used a second company to launder payments. The charities he claimed to donate to were shell accounts. We have the tracing."
"That's not proof of intent," Daisy hissed.
"It's the beginning of an investigation," Francesca said. "And it's public now."
Cameras went wild. Voices rose.
Bryson's face went from smug to pale to a color that made my chest feel clean. "You're lying," he said. "You fabricated this."
"Prove I'm lying," I said. "Send a lawyer. Or don't. This footage will be online in minutes."
Someone in the back stood and filmed everything. People began clustering, whispering. Without a script, the evening became a storm.
Daisy tried to speak, but the room had moved beyond her. Women's faces hardened. Men's faces shifted. The people who had let Daisy into their lives looked at her like she had shown them an ugly secret.
"Where is the child?" someone demanded. "Who is this father you listed?"
Daisy could not answer.
Security edged in, then backed away, unsure whether to intervene. Reporters shouted questions. A board member demanded Bryson explain his side; his side evaporated.
Bryson tried to lodge a legal threat. Someone read the clause from his signed contract—his company had a clause that allowed unilateral termination for fraud. The interpreter in the law firm smiled thinly. "That would be difficult to justify, Mr. Voigt."
He was losing the room.
Daisy's eyes went wild. She swallowed and reached for me.
"You monster," she hissed. "You think you can take my child? You will pay!"
"You played with people's lives," I said. "You thought you could erase me like a file. You robbed my parents' memory and pocketed their money. You thought I wouldn't come back."
She began to cry, an ugly, theatrical sob. People recorded it.
"Take her out," Bryson begged. He wanted to vanish.
"Stop," I said. "I have one request."
The crowd leaned in.
"Stay. Let everything be recorded. Let your voices be the proof."
They tried to flee. Phones streamed the scene live. The viewers online multiplied. Lawyers began calling their institutions. Board members demanded emergency meetings. Donors withdrew pledges.
By midnight their names were toxic. A company that had been courting Bryson's "entrepreneurial" ventures publicly severed ties. Daisy's child-support claim collapsed under forensic audit. Her social accounts were flooded with comments and screenshots. The charities she had used as fronts issued statements: they had never received funds.
When the gala ended, Daisy and Bryson were not dragged to jail. They were dragged to humiliation. For a woman like Daisy, a public unmaking is worse than chains. She stood on the curb outside, hair unkempt, a camera or two still blinking. People came up to her, some angry, some simple bystanders who wanted to record, took photos, whispered accusations. No one helped her.
"You see?" I said to Ulysses, who held my hand as we watched. "You don't have to kill them. You have to show them."
He dipped his head to kiss my temple. "You did well."
"No," I said. "We did well."
There was more to finish: contracts to nullify, fake affidavits to expose, the shell companies to sink. We orchestrated meetings where donors publicly revoked their support. We let auditors loose, we quietly tipped the press with factual files, and we made certain bankers knew where to look. Bryson's accounts seized under new investigations. Daisy was asked to resign from a charity board that had once welcomed her.
The public punishment was slow and savage in the medium that mattered: reputation. People filmed her breakdown, a live feed that lasted fifty minutes and had thousands of viewers. They watched Daisy go from proud predator to pleading to blank as the camera captured each stage. She begged once, then twice, then looked desperate. There were murmured curses from those who remembered what she had done. Others printed the evidence and left stacks on her doorstep.
At one point, a woman from a small cafe recognized Daisy. She walked up, ordered two coffees, and handed one to Daisy without a word.
"Here," she said quietly. "Drink. Maybe think."
The gesture—small, public, human—cut deeper than any lawyer. People watched as Daisy sipped, as the shame got affordable, as the crowd's scorn turned into a complex watching. Some applauded us. Some shook their heads at the social spectacle. Many in the online comments called for law. The regulators began inquiries. The two were stripped of board positions, reputations that had been built over a decade crumbled in a week.
Afterwards, when the city was sleeping and the echoes of cameras still rang, Ulysses and I went home. He held me all night until I stopped shaking. We had not been cruel; we had been exact.
Days later, my old friend Kira Johansson came to me like someone reborn. Kira, with the big eyes and gentle voice, had been lost in another kind of darkness: depression, a ghost of herself. She had been one of those I had told I would save if I had the chance.
"I saw her," she said, hands trembling. "I saw the person I loved."
"You did?" I asked, and Jasper—my small white companion who was a spirit I had met in those strange hours between life and sleep—purred on the windowsill like an ordinary cat who knew secrets.
"Yes," Kira whispered. "She told me she chose me to carry on. She said—" She swallowed. "She said she trusts me."
The ghost I had read about, the girl burned in a fire three months ago, had been waiting for someone to speak her back into forgiveness. Gunnar Ellis, the man who knows the thin places between us and the other side, came to help. He stood in the candlelight and said the words that opened doors.
"You did right," he told Kira. "Whatever you do now, do it for both of you."
"I will," Kira said. "I will. I promise."
I promised too. Jasper winked at me with his feline mischief and nudged my hand.
Ulysses wrapped both of us in his arms. "We have work to finish," he said.
"Yes," I said. "One more circle, one more clean slate."
There were small things after—fashion shows, contracts, a black card that opened doors we kept for friends. There were soft mornings where he brewed coffee in a kitchen that smelled like new beginnings. There were times he would turn away from his desk to watch me work and say, as if he were discovering a small revenge of his own, "You make things beautiful."
"I make our life," I said once.
"You make my life," he countered.
I thought of the dark basement, of the beeping I thought might end us all. I thought of the taste of iron and the sound of bombs. I thought of Daisy's face when she realized a public world could judge her as effectively as a courtroom. I thought of the woman from the café handing a cup in the open air and how small kindnesses could break a cold machine as surely as any file.
One night, after the suit had been shown at a private dinner and the ring was secure on my finger, Daisy sought me.
"Please," she mouthed in front of the cameras, voice small, "forgive me."
"You hurt people," I said. "You hurt my parents. You hurt my life. You didn't just take what you wanted—you destroyed the people who loved me."
Her face showed fractures—pride, denial, then the slow collapse. "I—"
"Public exposure wasn't vengeance," I told her. "It was truth. You need to live with that truth."
She knelt—one final, stuttering kneel for pity—while the crowd recorded. Her supporters had left. A few onlookers spat insults. A teenager made a short clip and called it "karma." Officials took statements. The law moved.
Daisy's reaction had everything: a flash of fury, then pleading, then a dull, catastrophic shame. People whispered. A woman snapped a photo and then, incredulous, turned and hugged me as if our triumph belonged to everyone wronged.
"Don't throw stones," the woman said into my ear. "Let the law decide."
I nodded. "Let the law decide. But let the truth be known."
The truth matters. Not for triumph—I had that—but for the quiet ledger of my life. For the memory of my parents, the memory of what Ulysses had done when everything else had failed. For Kira, who had to remember to breathe.
I had wanted them to hurt. I had wanted them to know the cold of being helpless. But I had also learned, while rebuilding myself in the light, that cruelty can twist the rescuer too. So I asked for justice, not cruelty. I asked the world to see, and the world had seen.
That night, when I lay awake and the city hummed, Ulysses spooned me and whispered, "You are my stubborn miracle."
"I am yours," I said.
Outside, a news clip ran: "Designer Gwendolyn Charles Exposes Corruption. Charity Gala Ends in Shock." Jasper went to sleep on my sketchbook, tail curled like a question mark. Francesca texted me a gif of confetti. Kira sent me a picture of herself smiling with more lights in her eyes than before.
"We win a different way," I told Ulysses.
He kissed the top of my head. "You win every way that matters."
And I believed him.
The End
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