This Time, Enjoy Your Deadly Journey

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.