Chapter 9
The moment the true killer was revealed, everyone knew it was Ivana's father.
The Priscilla Corporation stock plummeted. People demanded Ivana answer for her father.
But Ivana was consumed by guilt.
She apologized to Lucy's parents, knelt before them.
Lucy's parents beat her until she bled and threw her out.
She wept constantly, desperate to make amends.
At a press conference, she confessed her father's crime to the world.
"My father, Vincent Priscilla, committed a heinous act. He assaulted and destroyed the life of an innocent girl named Lucy Paige. He then took his own life, leaving his crime hidden."
"For ten years, one person carried this secret alone. Not to protect a criminal—but to protect me."
"Her name is Selena. And because of my blindness, my rage, and my arrogance, I subjected her to a public trial that nearly killed her."
"I don't ask for your forgiveness. I don't deserve it. But I ask you to remember her name."
The press conference was watched by three hundred million people.
Within hours, #JusticeForSelena trended worldwide.
People who had cursed me, thrown eggs at me, demanded my death—they flooded social media with apologies.
The village that burned my house started a fund to rebuild it.
The man who strangled me on stage turned himself in to the police.
None of it mattered to me.
I was in the hospital, connected to machines that beeped slower each day.
Ivana sat by my bed every hour she wasn't handling the fallout. She held my hand and talked—about Lucy, about the snow mountain, about the three of us catching fireflies by the stream.
"Remember when Lucy fell in the river trying to catch the big one?" She laughed through her tears.
"She was so mad. Her shoes were ruined."
"She wore mine home. They were two sizes too big."
"She looked like a duck."
We both laughed. It hurt my lungs, but I didn't care.
Daniel, my doctor, told Ivana privately that I had days. Maybe a week.
The organ failure was too advanced. Ten years of malnutrition, untreated injuries, and the damage from the memory machine had accelerated what was already inevitable.
Ivana used her fortune to fly in specialists from around the world. None of them could do anything.
"There has to be something," she told the last one. "I have unlimited resources."
"Ms. Priscilla, some things money cannot fix."
On my last night, the village came.
Not with torches. Not with anger.
They came with lanterns.
Hundreds of them, glowing softly in the dark, lining the path from the hospital to the river where Lucy had died.
Adam and Maya stood at the front. Maya no longer held the doll. Her eyes were clear.
"We're lighting the way," Adam said when Ivana wheeled me to the window. "So Lucy can find her when she crosses over."
I looked at the lanterns floating on the water, golden and warm.
"Iva."
"Mm?"
"I was never mad at you. Not even once."
She pressed her forehead against my hand and sobbed.
"How?" she choked. "How can you say that after everything?"
"Because you came back. Even if it was for revenge—you came back. You didn't forget Lucy. And you didn't forget me."
The heart monitor beeped slower.
"Tell Lucy I said hi," I whispered. "And tell her… the fireflies are still there. By the stream."
The last thing I saw was the lanterns on the river.
The last thing I felt was Ivana's hand, warm and tight around mine.
The last thing I heard was a whisper—maybe Ivana's, maybe Lucy's, maybe the wind:
"You were the best of us, Selena. You always were."
