Revenge12 min read
I Woke Up to Kill the Game
ButterPicks12 views
"I opened my eyes."
I sat up so fast the room spun. Light came through heavy curtains. Lavender scent filled the air. I touched my face. Clean. Whole. I was in a bed that did not smell like rot.
"Emersyn, you awake?" Brantley Bauer's voice came from the door.
"I am," I answered. My throat was raw, but my voice came out steady. I had a name now: Emersyn Bender. It fit the new life that had slid into my chest.
"Good. Take it slow." Brantley bowed and left the door open.
I swung my feet off the bed and stood. My legs felt like someone else’s. Memory hit like a cold wave. A dark roof. A bowl of soup shoved into my mouth. My sister laughing. The sound of a phone that told me Nicholas Hunter was dead. The smell of cheap medicine. The way my ribs burned like knives.
I swallowed. I remembered the worst thing: I had buried myself to run away from the man I thought wanted to use my child. I remembered the hand that pushed the spoon. I remembered her voice.
I had done a stupid thing once.
Now I had a second chance.
"Miss Emersyn," Brantley called when I reached the door. "Breakfast is ready downstairs. Nicholas is waiting in the study."
Nicholas. I stopped. He was supposed to be dead in that other life. I felt a strange, small joy bloom. "I'll come."
The hallway smelled of coffee. I walked like I owned the floor. My heart beat like a drum against my ribs.
He was there when I entered the study. He sat by the window. He looked worse than in photographs—thin, pale—but when he turned, I almost forgot to breathe.
"Nicholas." I walked to him before my brain finished deciding.
He watched me come. He didn't greet me. He watched me like someone watching a fragile bird. Then, when I lifted my face, he reached for me. His hand trembled.
"Emersyn," he said. There was something small and raw in his voice.
I stepped up and kissed his cheek. "I woke up."
Brantley cleared his throat. "Sir, breakfast?"
Nicholas smiled then. It was half pain, half wonder. "Stay. Please."
I did. I spent the morning like a child with a secret. I learned the house again. I learned the names of people who had watched me like a thing to be admired and poked. I learned that my "sister" Jess Graves had grinned to cameras and whispered plans when I was naive. I learned that my grandfather, Eleazar Lemaire, had kept a small kindness for me in his chest. Most dangerous of all, I learned the truth that had been hidden: the hand that shoved that spoon had belonged to Jess and Carly Larsson, our stepmother.
"I don't want this," Jess had said to anyone who would listen last life. "I deserve better than being ignored."
"She is part of this family," Carly would say with a fake sigh. "We must control it."
Control. They had used that word like a blade.
I smiled a small, cold smile and let them keep thinking I was the same small thing. That was the old me. The new me was nothing like that.
"What's your plan?" Brantley asked one afternoon as we walked the courtyard.
"First," I said, "I learn everything. Then I make them show their hands."
Brantley nodded. "We will be ready."
At Tang manor—Eleazar's house—family fights burst like old fires. Jess played her part: sweet in public, sharp in private.
"You must let me handle this, Grandpa," Jess said in the dining room one night. Her voice had the practiced tremble of a woman who had used anger like a dress.
Eleazar's eyes were kind, but tired. "Jess, the business is old. Take care."
I listened. I let them think I was small. Then I pushed.
"Grandpa," I said softly, "I am going to my classes at the university. I will be fine."
Jess made a face. "You? In front of people? You are better in the country."
Carly smiled like a viper. "Leave the child alone."
The room watched me like a play. I wanted to turn the room into a storm.
So I did what the storm does: I rose.
The first real blow was small. I slapped Jess once. Hard. The sound was neat and bright.
"You slapped me?" she screamed. Her cheeks flushed crimson. "How dare you—"
I ignored her. "Do not speak to my grandfather like that."
That was the first crack. The second crack I set up slowly. I learned where Jess kept her messages. I found bank transfers. I found emails that asked her to act while she collected favors. I made copies. I kept each one in a silver envelope.
They thought the world was watching them. They were right. I had a plan to give them a stage.
"You sure that's wise?" Brantley whispered when we packed the evidence.
"Perfectly," I said. "They only hurt people because they think they can push the truth away. I will make it public. I will make sure they beg."
The day came when Eleazar hosted a charity gala. People from the city, cameras, velvet and wine. It was perfect.
"Emersyn, wear the green," Eleazar said. He loved the green I took from the countryside. "It suits you."
I did. I let Nicholas pin a small brooch at my throat. I let Jess parade in a dress that cost a fortune. Carly wore pearls like trophies. The room hummed.
"You sure about this?" Nicholas asked, his hand on my wrist. He sounded small with worry.
"Yes," I answered. "I need them to fall so everyone sees the bones."
We entered. Lights flashed. Cameras clicked. I heard whispers—my presence teased them.
I walked to the center of the ballroom, and the hush arrived like a curtain.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, and I raised my voice so the chandeliers would tremble. "Tonight is a night of truth. I have a confession."
No one understood. They waited like beasts at the scent of meat.
"They told you I was a country fool," I said. "They told you I could be bought. They told you my life was a joke. They lied."
I signalled Brantley. He hit the stage switch.
The large screen behind me lit up with messages, photos, and bank transfers. Jess's texts with a man arranging to bribe a driver. Carly's phone recording advising a doctor to mislabel medicine. The table by table gasps rose like wind.
"Where did you get that?" Jess hissed, voice thin.
"I found it," I said. "I found everything."
One by one the lies unrolled. A video about a phone call—Jess's voice, orchestrating the plan to poison me slowly so I would appear unstable. A photo—Carly handing a bottle to a nurse. The crowd clicked their cameras. A hundred phones rose. The room filled with the sounds of recording.
"What is this?" Eleazar whispered.
"Evidence," I said. "And tonight you will answer for it."
Jess's face rotated through colors—pink, red, white. She took a step forward. "You—this is a lie. You are insane!"
"Is it a lie when your bank shows transfers to the driver? Is it a lie when your words are on tape?"
"No!" Jess screamed. She looked older, smaller, and not at all sovereign. Her voice broke.
Carly put a hand to her mouth. "This is slander," she said.
"Call security," a guest said.
Jess lunged toward the dais. A waiter stepped between us and she stumbled. People recorded, whispered, spread. Nicholas moved close. He held my hand.
"Emersyn," he said quietly. "They will lie."
"Let them," I said. "They stopped lying when they thought no one would watch."
A woman near the buffet shouted, "Traitor! How could she—"
"Silence!" I shouted, and the room paused.
"Listen," I said. "I want Jess to tell you what she told me when she fed me that last bowl in the ruined building. I want Carly to explain why they advised a doctor to change labels."
Jess's face contorted. "I didn't—"
"You will!" I said. "Right now, in front of everyone."
A murmur rose, but the cameras pointed and kept pointing. Jess looked around. She could see the sea of faces, the glow of phone screens, the way mouths formed 'what?'. Pride is a fragile thing. When the world turns, pride cracks.
She began with denial, a practiced loop.
"It isn't true," she said. "Emersyn is trying to ruin me. She is jealous. She wants my life."
"Jealous?" A woman from the front row scoffed. "Of what? Her standing? Her money?"
Jess's eyes darted. "I—"
A man shouted, "Show your messages!"
Brantley slid forward with a small box. He opened it. The room leaned in.
The messages were cruel proof. Jess's voice, recorded, planning to convince me Nicholas only wanted me for the baby. Carly's text asking a friend in the hospital to "slow the diagnosis." Photos of meetings. Signed receipts for payments.
The first reaction was stunned silence. Cameras flashed. People murmured. Some put hands to mouths. A few children undergrown with aristocratic ease watched with uninterested faces.
Then the faces turned on Jess.
"How could you?" someone cried.
"Shame!" another shouted.
Jess had been prepared to have a stage. She had not prepared for full collapse.
Her denial became frantic. Her shoulders shook. Her voice went high and small. "You don't understand. I needed them to—"
"You needed to steal a life?" I asked softly. "You needed to make me less so you could be more?"
She staggered backward. A waiter caught her. People in the crowd started to stand. "Get her out!" someone shouted.
"Jess," I said. "Get down."
She didn't obey. Pride makes power. Anger finds voice. Then the manor's butler stepped forward with two security guests and placed a folding chair in front of the stage. They pulled Jess down, gently at first, then with a firmness that showed the house had turned.
On cue, they stopped. The room fell into a silence that felt like a held breath.
"On your knees," I said.
A hundred people watched. Jess looked at me with a face full of panic. She took one trembling step, then another. She fell to her knees in the carpet. Her dress smeared. The cameras closed in; flashes made her look like a hunted bird.
"Tell them," I said. "Tell them the truth."
She made a sound that was not a word. She reached out to Carly. Carly had been silent, and the silence had turned to ash on her throat. Carly's eyes were full of pleading and fear at once.
"I didn't mean—" Carly began. Her voice shook. "We were trying to save the company. We thought—"
"You thought murder was an option?" A man in the crowd spat. "That you could sell anyone's life for shares?"
Carly's face drained of color. Her voice dropped. "We didn't expect it to go that far."
"What did you expect then?" someone else shouted.
"I'm sorry!" Jess screamed. "Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
The words came raw and ugly. She looked at the crowd. Faces reflected back at her the enormity of her acts. Phones filmed. Someone uploaded. The first repost appeared on one guest's screen. Another guest began to cry. A banker suddenly turned his face away. A socialite smacked a hand to her chest.
Jess's knees trembled. She looked to Carly. Carly shook her head as if to say, "No choice." Jess looked back at me, with hatred, then a hollow pleading.
"Please!" she sobbed. "Please forgive me! I will give back everything! I'll sign away—"
"Get up," I said. "Stand. Say it."
She rose slowly. Guests crowded closer. The room smelled faintly of perfume and candle wax. I could hear the world outside change.
"Jess Graves, did you help plan to poison Emersyn Bender? Did you bribe the driver? Did you help falsify her treatment?" I asked.
Her face collapsed. "Yes," she said. "I—"
"Did you encourage Carly Larsson to tamper with medications?"
Carly's eyes bulged. She couldn't say no. "Yes."
The crowd's reaction was immediate. Gasps, curses, the sharp sound of a phone slapping leather. A woman nearby laughed, a small ugly sound. People began whispering into phones. Cameras recorded the confession. Someone clapped, a short cold sound that seemed to ask, "Is this entertainment?"
Jess's laughter came first—wild and then a turn to weeping. "I wanted to be the one," she said. "I wanted the life. I was tired of being second."
"Why?" someone shouted.
"Because they always picked the other," she screamed. "Because my life felt small. I'm sorry!"
She fell to her knees again. This time, no one helped her up. People took videos. They recorded her begging. They filmed Carly bent over, hands pressed to her mouth, chest heaving.
A guest in a dark suit stepped forward and spat on Jess's dress. "You took a life," he said.
Another guest pointed a finger. "How many times did you celebrate someone else's pain?"
The room shook with voices. Jess's face went pale. She staggered and sank to the floor, hands over her head.
Carly collapsed into a chair and covered her face. "Please," she begged. "Please don't—"
"Leave," I said.
They were escorted out by security with their collars turned down. The cameras followed. Outside, a mob of reporters and socialites waited. They shoved phones into each other's faces and chanted for a statement. Jess fell to her knees again on the marble steps, hair messy, mascara running.
"Please! No—" Jess cried.
Reporters pushed microphones.
"Why did you do it?"
"Who else was involved?"
"Will you pay back the money?"
Carly dropped to the steps and made a raw sound of fear. "I will sign the papers," she wailed. "I will do anything."
A camera's red light blinked. A woman yelled, "Apologize to her!"
Jess looked up. The cameras were hungry. The crowd already had a million clips. Her facade was gone. She began to sob like someone who had been carved open and left raw.
She pulled at her dress. "Please—Nicholas, help—"
He stood still. For a wild second I thought he would sprint to her. He did not. He looked at her with ice in his eyes.
"No," he said sharply. The single syllable dropped like a seal.
Jess's knees slid. Carly collapsed into herself, weeping.
Then Jess did the one thing I had been waiting for.
She crawled across the marble, covered in shame, and buried her face in my hands. "Please," she whispered. "Please forgive me."
Her voice was small. Her eyes were red and pleading. Her clothes were ruined. People shoved phones closer. "Tell them, tell them I'm sorry," she begged me. "Say I'm forgiven."
I felt the crowd press into us like tidewater. A voice behind me whispered, "She should be on trial. She should be arrested."
I looked at Jess. The woman who shoved the spoon into my mouth. The woman who had laughed as I cried. She was small and human in a way I had never wanted her to be.
"Stand up," I said. "Stand."
She did. The cameras took every inch.
"Jess Graves," I said to the sea of faces and the phones and the microphones, "you will return every cent. You will resign your shares. You will reveal every person you called."
She nodded like a doll with a broken string.
"On your knees again," I said.
She sank.
Carly collapsed, lost.
Reporters shouted. Phones uploaded. The video went viral within minutes.
Jess tried to stand, but the crowd would not let her. Someone spat at her shoes. Another shoved a bouquet into her hands and laughed. Her mother called for a lawyer. A security guard from another table forced his way forward.
No one helped Jess up. No hand reached out. She screamed. Her voice split the night.
"Please!" she begged. "Please believe me!"
A woman in the crowd said, "You will be remembered for this."
"Let the public decide," I said.
I left the ballroom with Nicholas beside me. Cameras followed. The clip that showed Jess on her knees with tears—later, after the day ended—would be the clip everyone shared. They would watch it and nod and say justice had been done.
Afterwards, Eleazar put a hand on my shoulder. "You handled that ferociously," he said quietly. "I did not know you had it in you."
"I had to make them scream in front of people," I replied. "They needed to be seen."
Nicholas took my hand. He looked at me like I was fragile and solid both.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Are you sure you can live with this?"
I looked at him. "I am sure. I am not the scared woman who would let them feed me poison."
He nodded. "Then live, Emersyn."
Life moved on. Jess's fall was the beginning. There were court papers, resignations, and a cascade of small public collapses. Carly paid fines and resigned. People in the city whispered about the way they had chewed my name.
The worst part of punishment is not the fall. It is the moment when they look at you with real fear and beg. I had waited for that moment, and when it came, I watched. They begged. They knelt. They were filmed. The world watched. Nobody forgot.
Months passed. I studied medicine at the university. I sat in Nicholas's office and learned what no book could teach. He taught me to read scans. I read hearts like language. I learned that his disease would never be simple to cure. I learned to love him not because he saved me but because he chose me despite fear.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked one winter night as snow slid past the window.
"Because you wanted me once and I let myself run away," I said. "Now I won't."
He took my face. "Then stay," he whispered.
I did. I stood by him while he battled his body and the people who still wanted his fortune. I let him lean when his chest cramped. I learned to sleep when alarms blinked and not to flinch when the room went quiet.
We built a life on careful things: a clinic where I learned to stitch, a small garden Nicholas tended when he felt like sun, and the knowledge that some wounds need time, not fire.
Jess watched all that from behind glass as she repaid debts. She begged at councils. She wrote public apologies that were thin as tissue. She performed penance in boardrooms and on social channels. She lost friends. People spat when she passed.
"Will that be enough?" someone asked me once.
"Enough for what?" I said.
"For peace."
I thought of the bowl. I thought of the dark room. I thought of the phone that said he was dead. I thought of a thousand small cruelties.
"Peace is not a thing you earn," I said. "It is the thing you make. I will not be made smaller again."
Nicholas kissed me then in the rain. It was small, honest, and messy. The cameras had been there once. This time we turned them away.
Years later, Jess sat at a table at a public hearing. She had lost the house's favor and her power. The city came to see the end of that story. She had been kneeling so often the skin on her knees was rough. She did not stand out now. She was another warning.
"People remember the fall," she said quietly to a reporter. "They don't remember the reasons."
"They remember the action," the reporter answered.
She looked at the camera and lowered her eyes.
I watched from across the room. Nicholas squeezed my hand. "You okay?" he asked.
I smiled. "Yes."
I had been small. I had been used. I had learned to be dangerous. I had learned to make the world see.
I was Emersyn Bender. I nodded once. "Let's go home," I said.
We walked out together, steady.
The End
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