Hazel's lifeless body was dumped by the station, and since her abduction case was already on the table, it wasn't hard to get in touch with her family.
Seeing the dead body in the morgue, Jenna should be happy. She didn't like Hazel anyway, but her face was drained of color.
Hazel wasn't supposed to be dead. At least, not so soon.
Her cousin's death only meant that Jenna's rebirth and actions had triggered a butterfly effect. She winced at the thought.
How many more unknown variables would be triggered? Would it affect the apocalypse?
She bit her nail, pacing, feeling anxious. She was scared. The future she thought she knew was changing.
Her aunt was bawling her eyes out, wailing loudly, but the sound merely felt like annoying mosquito cries in Jenna's ears.
She was far gone in her thoughts.
"I can't stay here," she mumbled. "I have to return home as soon as possible and think of something."
With that, Jenna left the hospital and flagged a taxi.
On her way, she wondered who could have killed Hazel and dumped her body at the station.
Whoever it was didn't give her uncle face at all, which only meant they were fearless, vicious, most likely powerful than her uncle, and didn't shit about the law.
To kidnap a student in front of the school, in broad daylight, force the first ever St. Carwen academy's shutdown, murder the girl and dump her body at the station like discarded trash…
This was high level confidence that only someone who didn't fear, or even seen consequences could possess.
Who was this person?
Her uncle wouldn't make such a person his enemy. Uncle Ben was someone who stepped on the weak and bowed to the powerful. He had a full list of individuals and families he couldn't afford to offend and shared the list among his household, hoping everyone would be cautious, so as not to bring about the family's ruin.
Jenna's fingers tightened around her phone as the taxi sped through the streets. Her reflection stared back at her from the window—pale, eyes too sharp, too intelligent, worried.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated.
Jenna flinched.
She hadn't realized how lost she was until that small buzz shot straight into her nerves. She stared at the screen, expecting a missed call or an angry message from her uncle, his son, or his bawling wife.
Instead, it was an email notification.
A newsletter.
After her rebirth, Jenna had subscribed to dozens of newsletters on climate anomalies. Astronomical irregularities. Crime. And anything that would inform her of the apocalypse.
She opened it.
Breaking News:
{At approximately 02:17 AM last night, a violent prison break occurred at a maximum-security correctional facility.
The ringleader, a notorious gang leader and ruthless criminal known as De Warden, escaped alongside fifteen high-risk inmates…}
Jenna was unable to finish it. Her phone slipped from her grip and her soul jumped in fright.
He's out, she panicked.
The monster was out!
Her blood pressure spiked violently. A roaring rush pounded in her ears.
She sucked in a sharp breath, trying to calm herself. Telling herself – that he may not have been reborn, and even if he was, that he couldn't find her. That this was a pure coincidence. That the ring on her finger wasn't his. But nothing she told herself worked.
Fear has a way of messing you up.
She could feel it in her bones that she had courted trouble, and that trouble was coming for her.
Her fingers shook as she took the phone from her lap, eyes scanning the rest of the newsletter in a blur. Pictures of the escapees, mugshots neatly aligned with names, dates of birth, and criminal classifications. Each one was more terrifying than the last.
The last face stopped her cold. Broad shoulders, a square jaw lined with beard, eyes like molten obsidian… fearless, proud, and confident.
De Warden.
"We're here," the driver's voice jolted her from stupor, making her jump.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Y–yes," she paid and hurried out of the taxi as though the seat was on fire.
Even as she entered the gates of her father's mansion, Jenna couldn't relax. She half-walked and half-ran, subconsciously imagining being watched or followed, until she entered the house and shut the front door behind her.
Housekeeper Hajar hurried out of the hallway at the sound of the door slamming shut.
"Shouldn't you be at the hospital with your aunt, taking care of Miss Hazel? What are you doing here?" it seemed that she didn't know that Hazel was dead. "Don't for once think that because Miss Hazel is in the hospital that you can—"
She didn't get to finish before Jenna bolted past her and sprinted up the stairs, leaving the old woman stunned and feeling disrespected. Furious, she started complaining, but nothing she said made it past Jenna's door.
Inside her room, Jenna shut the door behind her and spun to sit on her bed. However, something immediately drew her attention: a neatly wrapped gift box sitting in the center of the mattress.
She froze.
Who would send her a gift? She stopped receiving gifts after Jake, her crush, moved abroad.
There was a note on the box which read; To Jenna Churchill.
But no sender.
Her brain was a mess. She couldn't fathom who would send her a surprise such as this.
Did they break into her room? Or was it placed here by Housekeeper Hagar?
Jenna shook her head. It couldn't be Hagar.
That woman hates her as much as her uncle's family does. And sometimes, she serves as the knife for her uncle's wife.
Many times the woman received parcels from Jake on Jenna's behalf and confiscated then. However, her intention was to give them to her granddaughter when she visited.
When Jenna couldn't take it no more and stood up against her, the woman lied to Jenna's uncle and his wife, claimed that Jenna was seeing multiple men and begging for gifts.
To prove her point, she showed them all the parcels Jake sent, changing the names on some and making it look as though they were sent from different men.
Her uncle was livid. He didn't allow Jenna explain and locked her up in the attic for weeks. When she was finally released, she tried to reach Jake but couldn't. He wasn't using his old number and social media handles anymore. Or maybe he blocked her, she couldn't tell.
His gifts stopped coming too. That was how she lost contact with him.
So, would he suddenly send her a gift after two years of silence? And would Hajar keep the gift on her bed?
None of that could happen. She was sure.
Jenna braced herself and picked the box, hands trembling slightly. Even though she told herself everything was fine, Jenna's instinct screamed otherwise.
Opening the box, a bloody female ring finger lay inside.
Jenna tried to scream, but the sound didn't make it past her throat.
The nail polish was a matte black. The skin was still fresh, the cut was rough and messy, unapologetically violent.
Jenna recognized it immediately. This was Hazel's missing ring finger.
Her stomach lurched violently. She slapped a hand over her mouth, bile burning her throat as her body folded forward.
She'd seen gruesome deaths, gore, and violence in her past life. In fact, she was dissensitized by now. However, what made her chest seize wasn't the gore, but the person or reason behind it.
Beside the finger lay a folded piece of paper, its edges stained dark red with blood. Jenna's fingers shook so badly it took three tries to pick it up.
The handwriting was sharp, bold, confident, and mockingly neat.
'Hello, Miss Churchill.
Heard you have something that belongs to me. You know what it is.
Should I come to you… or will you come to me?'
"De Warden," Jenna whispered, stepping back as the bloody paper dropped from her trembling hands.
Upon hitting the floor, it turned on its face. An address was boldly written on it.
It's his ring!
De Warden had come for his ring.
Jenna's blood ran cold. Her heart slammed so hard it hurt.
What was she going to do now? Her worst fear had caught up with her.
"System," she whispered.
[What can I do for you, host?]
"Can I… transfer the ring to someone else?" Jenna asked, her voice barely audible.
There was a brief pause.
The silence stretched just long enough for hope to bloom and die.
[Negative.]
Jenna released the breath she was holding.
[The System and the spatial rings have fully fused and bonded with the current host. They are now recognized as one body.]
Her fingers curled tightly at her sides. She loved the sound of that, but death was hovering over her head, so she couldn't feel happiness, instead, dread slammed into her.
One of the reasons she boldly stole his ring was because, she thought he wouldn't be reborn. And even if he was, he wouldn't find her until the apocalypse hit. By then, he would be too busy trying to survive instead of searching for it. Who would have thought things would turn out this way?
"So there's no way?" she pressed, panic creeping into her voice. "No loophole? No workaround?"
[There is only one condition under which ownership may be transferred.]
Her heart skipped violently. "What is it?"
[The death of the current host.]