Tricked by my boyfriend into going to a remote, lawless compound deep in the backwoods, I was reduced to nothing more than a breeding machine. The day the local quack cut my stomach open to deliver a breached pregnancy, I lay in a pool of my own blood. Through the haze, I heard the two women guarding the door chewing sunflower seeds and gossiping: "These college girls from the city are so gullible. She actually thinks she was kidnapped by human traffickers." "Right? Who told her to mess with Mr. Vance's precious best friend?" "Mr. Vance paid our boss a hundred grand to have the whole compound play along with this 'escape room' game. He even personally mailed the labor-inducing drugs." "I heard Mr. Vance say that as long as she rots in this hellhole for three years and experiences the pain his 'bestie' went through, he'll mercifully take her back to the city to marry her." Through the crack in the door, I saw the video call from my fiancé, Arthur Vance, playing on the woman's phone. So, this pitch-black purgatory I had endured for three years was just a customized punishment he orchestrated to make his female best friend happy. The excruciating pain in my abdomen tore at my nerves. As my consciousness teetered on the edge of collapse, a mechanical voice echoed in my mind: [Host, the abuse meter for the target, Arthur Vance, is full. Do you wish to abandon the conquest and detach from the current world?] …… I opened my eyes, staring at the blackened wooden beams of the ceiling. The heavy wooden door was violently kicked open. The hinges snapped, and the door crashed into the mud, splashing filth everywhere. Arthur Vance, dressed in an immaculate black suit, stepped into the dim, foul-smelling barn. Behind him were five bodyguards in sunglasses. And two private doctors carrying medical kits. The local quack was squatting beside me, holding a rusted needle threaded with coarse black string, hovering over my abdomen. The flesh there had been brutally sliced open, and blood was relentlessly pouring out. Arthur stopped in his tracks, looking at the blood-soaked hay and pig manure covering the floor. He raised a hand and pointed at the quack. "Stop. Get the hell out." The quack dropped the needle and thread. With his hands covered in dark red blood, he scrambled and crawled out of the barn. Arthur turned his head, issuing a command to his private doctors. "Give her a shot of adrenaline. Use a high dose of stimulants. We can't have her sleeping through this." The two doctors immediately stepped forward. One opened a medical kit, pulling out a long syringe to draw a clear liquid. He grabbed the shriveled flesh of my inner thigh and drove the thick needle into my vein. The liquid was rapidly pushed into my body. Ten seconds later, the drug's effects spread through my bloodstream. My muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. My body thrashed and twitched against the filthy hay. With every convulsion, more blood gushed from the unstitched wound on my stomach. The blood ran down my thighs, pooling into a dark red puddle on the dirt floor. Arthur took a step back, avoiding the blood creeping toward his Italian leather shoes. "Stop acting. I know all your little tricks." He stared down at me from his high horse. "I read the script the compound boss sent me. The fake wound and the pig's blood pouch on your stomach? Nice prop work." He let out a cold, mocking laugh. "Do you really think making yourself look like a tragic heroine is going to erase what you did to Chloe?" The stimulation from the drugs made my brain throb with agonizing pain. My upper body violently lurched forward, my hands instinctively reaching out. My skeletal, withered fingers brushed across the mud and grazed the hem of Arthur's tailored trousers. The moment my fingertips touched him, I used my raspy, broken throat to force out a faint whisper. "Arthur... it hurts..." Arthur's face darkened. He violently kicked my hand away. The back of my hand smashed against a stone trough, scraping off a layer of skin. He pulled a pristine white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Bending down, he aggressively wiped the spot on his shoe where I had touched him. "Put away that disgusting face." He crumpled the used handkerchief into a ball and threw it directly at my face. It slid off, landing in the bloody puddle on the floor. "Chloe hasn't forgiven you yet. You have no right to touch me." I looked at the handkerchief and didn't reach out again. I had to leave him. Arthur stood up straight and waved at his bodyguards. "Take her away. Don't get my car dirty." Two bodyguards stepped forward. They grabbed my arms and dragged me up from the hay. My legs had been broken months ago. The bones had healed misaligned; I couldn't straighten them. As they dragged me, my paralyzed legs carved two long trenches through the mud and gravel. The skin on my knees was torn open by the sharp rocks, exposing the white bone underneath. Arthur walked out of the barn and stood on the dirt road at the edge of the compound. Old Man Cletus, the compound boss, stood by the road with a few locals, clutching several thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Arthur swept his gaze over them. "You all played your parts well these past three years. Her acting in this little setup of yours was very convincing." Cletus nodded profusely, stuffing the cash into the pockets of his ragged coat. The bodyguards dragged me over to Arthur and dropped me. My body slammed heavily against the gravel road. Arthur looked down at my broken legs. "You didn't want to do farm work, so you actually went far enough to break your own legs." He scoffed through his nose. "Playing the beggar to get sympathy? Making yourself smell like an open sewer—did you really think that would soften my heart?" I closed my eyes. Three years ago today, I was slicing an apple in the kitchen of our mansion. The knife slipped, leaving a tiny, shallow cut on my index finger. A single drop of blood welled up. Arthur had sprinted in from the living room, snatching the knife away from me. He held my finger under running water for ten minutes, brought out the first-aid kit, and wrapped my finger in a thick cocoon of gauze. A month later, he rented out an entire private island. He covered it in red roses. He knelt on one knee in the flowers and slipped a flawless ten-carat diamond ring onto my finger. Two days later, Chloe Miller returned from abroad. She moved into the guest room of our mansion. A week later, Chloe walked down the stairs wearing a white dress that belonged to me. She picked up a pair of scissors from the coffee table and sliced a shallow bloody line into her own forearm. Arthur pushed the front doors open and walked in. Chloe clutched her arm, pointing at me. "Arthur, Stella cut me with the scissors!" Arthur snatched the glass of water out of my hand and shielded Chloe behind him. Another week passed. Chloe was holding a cup of boiling hot coffee. She poured the entire cup directly onto her own shoulder, screaming and shrinking into the corner of the sofa. Arthur rushed down from the second floor. Chloe pointed at me. "Stella tried to burn me to death with boiling water!" The next day, Chloe stood on the edge of the thirtieth-floor rooftop. Arthur rushed over and tackled her to safety. Following that, in front of a swarm of reporters, Arthur shredded our prenuptial agreement. He froze all my bank accounts and had his bodyguards shove me into a car. He personally drove me to this remote backwoods compound and handed a massive stack of cash to Cletus. He told me to rot here for three full years to experience the pain Chloe had gone through. And those three years were authentic, unfiltered torture. After taking the money, Cletus locked me in the barn. A heavy iron chain was padlocked around my neck. Every day, my only food was rancid pig slop. Every night, those backwoods creeps would walk into the barn. In the suffocating darkness, I suffered miscarriage after miscarriage. The bodyguards hauled me up by the arms and threw me into the trunk of the SUV. When the private jet took off, I lay crumpled in the corner of the cabin. I opened my mouth, wanting to make a sound. Only a broken, raspy wheeze squeezed past my throat. Sitting on the plush leather sofa, Arthur put on a pair of black noise-canceling headphones. "Enough, stop playing mute. Save your energy. When we get back to the city, you're going to crawl on your knees and beg Chloe for forgiveness." The jet landed at a private helipad in downtown Manhattan. The bodyguards wrapped me in a black industrial tarp and shoved me into the very back of a luxury van. The vehicle pulled into the underground garage of the Grand Continental Hotel. The elevator went straight to the penthouse ballroom. The grand doors were pushed open. The ballroom was lined with thick red carpets, the crystal chandeliers radiating blinding light. The bodyguards pulled off the tarp and threw me directly into the center of the room. Arthur, holding a microphone, stood under the spotlight. Surrounding us was a crowd of high-society elites holding flutes of champagne. Arthur pointed a finger at me. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gift I prepared to help cleanse Chloe of her bad luck." He scanned the crowd. "A vicious, toxic woman I dragged back from the backwoods." A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd. Several women in expensive evening gowns stepped forward, swirling their wine glasses. They looked down at me. "I heard she stayed in the woods for three years?" "Covering herself in mud on purpose, smelling like a rotting fish... is she trying to disgust Chloe?" I lay flat against the red carpet. I reached out my right arm, planting my elbow against the floor, and dragged my body forward. My broken legs trailed behind me, leaving a dark, wet streak of blood and grime across the immaculate carpet. Chloe, wearing a pristine white tulle gown, walked down the grand spiral staircase. Seeing the blood on the floor, she let out a dramatic gasp. She collapsed into Arthur's arms, gripping his suit jacket tightly. "Arthur... her blood is so red... I'm scared..." Arthur's face instantly went ice-cold. He turned to the hotel security guards stationed by the door. "Bring buckets of water. Wash that filthy blood off the carpet right now!" Two guards ran over carrying heavy plastic janitorial buckets. The buckets were filled with freezing, dirty mop water. Arthur pointed at me. "Dump it over her head. Help her wash off this pathetic, vulgar disguise." The guards lifted the buckets. The freezing water, mixed with dust and grime, crashed down directly over my head. The torrent washed over my matted hair and seeped deep into the unstitched, gaping wound on my abdomen. The bone-chilling cold triggered violent, agonizing muscle spasms. Arthur walked up to me, his polished leather shoe stopping just an inch from my fingertips. "Crawl over here. Bow your head to the floor three times for Chloe." He looked down at me. "Admit that you faked your pregnancy and faked your death just to fight for my attention. As long as you do that, I'll give you a chance to be a janitor at the company." I lowered my head. The gala transitioned into its second half. The bodyguards dragged me out of the ballroom and tossed me into the corner of the hallway outside the women's restroom. My clothes clung tightly to my body. The bloody water from my abdomen dripped steadily onto the marble tiles. Chloe walked out of the restroom holding a compact mirror. She stopped right in front of me. She lifted her right foot, bringing the razor-sharp heel of her stiletto down hard onto my broken right index finger. She ground her heel left and right. The pain shot straight to my heart. My body seized violently, instinctively trying to shrink back. Watching me, Chloe let out a light, airy laugh. "Did you really think Arthur set you up at a nice little farm retreat?" She bent down, staring right into my face. "The day Cletus got the money, he texted me, asking how I wanted you handled." She stood up straight, smoothing out her dress. "I texted back: Play with her however you want. Just leave her with one breath." Chloe stared at the blood pooling around my stomach. "These past few hundred days and nights... tasted pretty good, didn't they?" The sharp click-clack of leather shoes echoed from the other end of the hall. Arthur appeared around the corner. Chloe immediately threw herself backward, crashing heavily onto the marble floor. She grabbed her ankle, massive tears rolling down her cheeks. "Stella, I know you hate me, but why did you push me..." Arthur's face changed instantly. He sprinted toward us. Without even glancing at me, he swung his right foot directly into my body. The toe of his leather shoe slammed precisely into the gaping wound on my abdomen. The fragile skin instantly ruptured. Blood and shredded tissue splattered against the wallpaper. I lay flat on my back, my eyes wide open, my breathing coming to a dead stop. Leaning against the wall, Chloe panted, her face pale. "Arthur, I was so scared, my anemia is acting up... I feel so dizzy..." Arthur immediately turned his head, his gaze locking onto me like ice. "Since you have enough energy to push her, you can use your blood to compensate Chloe." He pulled out a walkie-talkie and called his private doctors waiting outside. Seconds later, a doctor ran down the hallway with a medical kit. Arthur pointed at my arm. "Draw her blood."
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