“Mom, I’m safe now. Don’t worry.”

A familiar voice came through the line. The tone was deliberately light, but I could hear the faint tremor underneath.

If everyone had said the same thing, it would have only sounded more like a carefully coordinated lie.

The police officer in the hospital room clearly noticed it too and was about to step forward to ask questions when the calls abruptly ended. It was as though the signal had been cut.

The parents exchanged nervous glances. The fear they had been holding back erupted. Some of them could not help but cry out.

It was not long before the police brought news.

The moment they landed in Tanond, the so-called local guides tricked them into a telecom fraud operation.

The boys could barely keep in touch, but most of the girls suffered inhuman abuse.

Those who resisted fiercely did not even manage to send a single message of reassurance to their families.

This rare case of high school students encountering danger abroad quickly caused a media frenzy.

However, since the incident occurred overseas, there was nothing the police could do.

Only some resourceful parents managed to reach certain families there, rescuing a few of the students.

I opened the news feed. Sure enough, Natalie’s name was on the list.

The Dunn family was immensely powerful in the country. It was no shock that they managed to get her out.

Natalie’s eyes were vacant when she faced the cameras. She answered the reporters’ questions mechanically.

However, when the last question came, she suddenly shivered and her eyes flashed with venom.

“You want to know why we went to Tanond?”

Her voice was sharp and terrifying.

“It was Zoey! She forced us to go see the strip show! We were all tricked by her!”

…

I stared at the scrolling news on the screen. My fingers clenched the phone so hard my knuckles turned white.

I was not surprised that Natalie tried to pin the blame on me.

A selfish person like her would always try to scrub herself clean and dump the dirt on someone else.

She was afraid that the parents who had lost their kids would tear her apart, so she shoved me forward as the scapegoat.

I took a deep breath, running my fingers over the photos in the police report.

Fortunately, I had already filed a detailed statement at the station, documenting the entire Tanond trip.

With that, no matter how she tried to shift the blame, it would not stick.

Just as I felt a flicker of relief, a thunderous roar exploded outside the door.

“Zoey Stone! You murderer, come out!”

“Give me back my child’s life!”

A shiver ran down my spine. I did not even have time to properly put on my slippers before I bolted outside.

I saw a dark mass of people outside my courtyard. Natalie’s mother stood at the front with a megaphone. Her eyes were bloodshot and, behind her, other parents clutched pictures of their children.

Even further away, reporters had their long lenses and cameras aimed at me. The camera flashes stabbed sharply against the gloomy sky.

The sheer spectacle of this made cold sweat run down the back of my neck.

I tried to turn back inside, but a rough hand grabbed my wrist. Someone — one of the parents had already forced their way through the gate of the courtyard and was trying to drag me out.

“Where do you think you’re going? Trying to hide after doing something wrong?”

The man’s voice was icy cold and his knuckles were digging into my skin.

Pain shot through me as I slammed my fists against his hand.

“Let go! Who do you think you are?!”

The response was even more brutal.

He let go suddenly, and I was flung onto the concrete. My forearm scraped harshly across the rough surface, tearing open a gash instantly. Flesh curled back and blood gushed out in a torrent, quickly creating a dark red stain on the ground.

“Zoey Stone, you little troublemaker!”

A woman dressed in black lunged at me. Her fingernails nearly jabbed into my face.

“My daughter’s only seventeen! How dare you trick her into going to a place like that!”

The parents around me erupted like a pack of lit firecrackers, closing in on me from all sides.

Spit flew into my face as a torrent of curses rained down on me.

“Murderer!”

“Heartless monster!”

“You deserve to die!”

I struggled to get up, but someone kicked me hard in the back, slamming me down again.

My eyes were filled with blood and dirt, and my vision went completely fuzzy.

“I didn’t!”

I wiped my face. My voice was hoarse and raw.

“I never told them to go to Tanond!”

“Liar!”

The crowd suddenly parted. Natalie walked out, flanked by several other survivors. Her eyes were red and she looked pitifully fragile.

“Zoey! You were the one who begged everyone to go to Tanond to see a strip show! Then you disappeared at the airport. You must’ve taken money from those people and tricked us into going!”

Another girl immediately jumped in. Her voice was sharp.

“Yeah! And she kept bragging that she was Sebastian’s girlfriend! She said if anyone refused to go, she’d have Sebastian beat them up! We only went because she threatened us!”

A deafening roar exploded in my head.

“You’re lying!”

I pushed myself up. The torn flesh on my arm was burning with pain.

“It was Natalie who first suggested going to Tanond to see the show! I had nothing to do with it! Sebastian is her boyfriend. What does he have to do with me?”

“You had nothing to do with it?”

Natalie’s mother suddenly stepped forward, jabbing a finger at my nose with a cold laugh.

“Then why was the whole class there except you? You knew something was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“I knew there was something off about that girl!”

A fat woman shoved her way to the front, spitting as she shouted,

“She’s always been weird in class and never got along with anyone. It turned out that she was plotting something all along! To get back at her classmates, she actually tricked the whole class into going to Tanond… Do you have any heart at all?”

“We sold our house just to look for our child!”

“My husband’s in the hospital from the stress. How are we supposed to live with this?!”

The cries and curses crashed over me like a rising tide.

Then, out of nowhere, someone threw the first punch. In an instant, dozens of hands grabbed my hair, dozens of feet slammed into my back and stomach.

“Argh!”

Agonizing pain exploded throughout my body.

Curled up on the ground, I tried in vain to shield my head with my arms.

Kicks and blows rained down on my back, my legs, even my face. That suffocating, crushing feeling was so familiar.

Then, through the haze, I remembered that this was exactly how it felt the last time I jumped off that building.

Was I going to die again?

Just as my consciousness started to fade, I heard police sirens wailing.

Lights flashed through the gaps in the crowd. I heard the police officer shouting loudly.

“Stop right there! Assaulting someone is a criminal offense!”

The chaos faltered for a moment. Seizing the chance, I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. The screen was cracked from being stomped on, but the recording light was still blinking.

“I have evidence!”

I screamed with every ounce of strength left in me. My voice was raw like sandpaper.

“It was Natalie! She’s the one who took everyone to Tanond! I have the chat logs showing how she started the group and asked everyone to go!”

As soon as I finished, Natalie’s face went deathly pale.