THE HEART THEY STOLE: Rebirth of the Scapegoat Bride

I stood up, my legs feeling like lead. I walked toward the hallway mirror, my heart in my throat. I turned my head. There it was. The rose birthmark, vibrant and clear, tucked behind my ear.

I wasn't dead. I was back.

"She's here!" my father shouted from the front porch. His voice was full of a joy he had never once directed at me. "The car is pulling up!"

My mother scurried past me, nearly knocking me over in her haste to get to the door. She didn't even look back to see if I was following.

I stayed in the shadows of the hallway, my fingers gripping the edge of the doorframe so hard the wood bit into my palms. I watched the front door swing open.

The light from outside was blinding, silhouetting the figure standing on the threshold. It was Elena. She looked exactly as she had in the hospital-pale, dressed in deceptive white, her eyes wide with manufactured innocence.

"Elena! My darling girl!" My mother wailed, throwing her arms around her.

My brother, Leo, ran from the stairs, shouting with glee, sweeping his "long-lost" sister into a hug. My father stood over them, his eyes wet with tears, finally feeling like his family was whole.

I watched the scene, a cold, hard knot forming in the pit of my stomach. In my last life, I had run to her too. I had cried. I had apologized for "letting" her be taken. I had spent the next few months doing her laundry, giving her my jewelry, and eventually, giving her my life, all to make up for a crime I never committed.

Elena looked over my mother's shoulder. Her eyes scanned the room until they landed on me, standing in the gloom of the corridor.

For a split second, the "fragile survivor" mask vanished. She didn't look like a girl who had been suffering in the slums for years. She looked at me with a sharp, calculating glint of triumph. She arched a single eyebrow, a silent challenge.

I'm back to take everything, her eyes said.

I didn't flinch. I didn't cry. Instead, I felt a slow, wicked heat spread through my veins.

"Elara!" my father barked, noticing me. "Don't just stand there like a statue. Come give your sister a hug. And take her bags to her room. She's exhausted."

In the old life, I would have hurried forward, eager to please.

Instead, I stepped into the light, a small, sharp smile playing on my lips. I looked at Elena-really looked at her-and then at the thermal bag she was clutching. The one containing the special soup she had already prepared for her beloved brother. I'm sure this was what caused that fool to be sick

"Welcome home, Elena," I said, my voice steady and terrifyingly calm. "I've been waiting for you. We have so much to catch up on."

Elena's smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She sensed it-the shift in the air.

"You look... different, Elara," she murmured, her voice honey-thick and fake.

"I feel different," I replied.

I walked past her, not to take her bags, but toward the kitchen. As I passed Leo, I caught the scent of the soup. It was the same. Bitter, sweet, and lethal.

The air in the living room felt heavy, saturated with the cloying, artificial scent of Elena's perfume-a fragrance called 'Innocence' that smelled more like a funeral shroud to me. My mother was still weeping, her hands fluttering over Elena's face as if she were checking to see if her lost daughter was made of glass or gold.

"My poor, sweet girl," Mother sobbed, her voice cracking with a theatrical grief that had been my childhood soundtrack. "To think you were out there, cold and alone, while we were here with... with her."

The word her was spat upon me like a piece of gristle. I stood by the grand piano, my fingers trailing over the cold, polished ebony. In my previous life, I would have been on my knees, begging for a sliver of that affection. I would have spent the next three hours cooking Elena's favorite meal, only to be told it was too salty, too bland, or too much like a reminder of my greed.

But today, my blood felt like liquid ice. I was twenty-three again. My body was whole. My side didn't throb with the phantom ache of a missing kidney. My chest didn't feel hollowed out. I was a vessel of untapped health, a biological goldmine my family hadn't started mining yet.

"Mom," I said, my voice cutting through her hysterics. It was steady-sharper than they were used to. "If she's so fragile, perhaps she should go to her room and rest. I'm sure the 'kidnappers' didn't provide high-thread-count sheets."

My father, who had been pouring a glass of celebratory scotch, paused. He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "Elara, watch your tone. Your sister has been through hell. The least you can do is show some gratitude that she's back."

"Gratitude?" I tilted my head. "For what? For the fact that she ran out the gate because you forgot her favorite doll, and I was the one who got slapped for 'letting' her go? I've been paying the interest on her tantrum for seventeen years, Father. I think my gratitude is tapped out."

The silence that followed was delicious. Even Elena stopped her rhythmic sobbing. She looked at me over the crook of Mother's elbow. Those eyes-so wide, so watery-were as calculating as a shark's. She hadn't expected me to bite back. In the timeline that ended with my death, I had been her most loyal servant for the first month, desperate to make it up to her.

"It's okay, Daddy," Elena whispered, her voice a fragile reed. "Elara is just... she's always been a bit desirous of me. I don't mind. I'm just happy to be home.

She reached for the thermal flask sitting on the coffee table. The special soup.

"Oh!" Elena gasped, looking at Leo, who was lounging on the armchair, looking bored by the drama. "Leo, I made this for you. While I was... away... I met an old woman who taught me the secrets of health. This soup is full of rare herbs. It's a survivor's tonic. Please, drink it. I want my big brother to be the strongest man in the city."

Leo, always the fool for a pretty face and a doting sister, grinned. He was twenty-five, the male heir, and the most pampered human being I had ever known. He reached for the flask.

"Don't," I said.