Discarded at Five,By My Reborn Brother

"She's the ragdoll. She's yours now." My own brother dropped those words before shoving me toward a boy scavenging through the trash. Tristan didn't even look back.

He just turned and strode away. I was only five years old. I couldn't even tell left from right on a good day. I stood there from high noon until the sun vanished.

My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached, and freezing tears crusted over my cheeks.

Right then, a bizarre, disembodied voice crackled in the dead air above me. [ "This villainous sister has no idea her socalled perfect brother has already been reborn." ] [ "In this life, he will only protect the tragically wronged heroine like a true sister." ] I couldn't understand a single word echoing above me.

My feet felt glued to the concrete, my tiny fingers curling into tight fists just to stop the shaking.

The boy casually wiped the thick motor oil and black grease from his hands onto the hem of his grimy shirt.

He reached out, his grip rough but surprisingly measured, and tugged at my hair clip. "Ragdoll, you coming home with me?" Chapter 1 The end of the dirt road remained painfully empty.

That ruthless silhouette never came back. I bit down hard on my cracked, peeling lips. With redrimmed eyes, I smacked his hand away with the viciousness of an angry little beast.

My voice shook when I finally spoke, but I forced the words out past the lump in my throat. "I can talk.

I'm not your stupid ragdoll!" My mom died bringing me into this world, and my dad vanished without a trace.

Tristan carried me into the orphanage when I was nothing but a swaddled infant. Since then, he had been my entire world—the only person who ever gave a damn about me.

He had drilled it into my head: never go with strangers. I dug my nails into my palms and planted my feet next to the reeking dumpster, waiting for him. Five years.

Not once in my entire miserable existence had he ever left me behind.

I didn't understand why the brother who swore to protect me forever had tossed me aside like a piece of garbage.

And I couldn't understand what those damn voices in the sky were muttering about "rebirth." I forced myself to believe he would be back any second.

The sky bled into bruised purples and blacks as the sun dipped behind the jagged treeline. My vision blurred.

I angrily swiped the wetness from my cheeks with the back of my hand and kept my eyes glued to the dirt road.

Pierce stood in front of me, his dark eyes dropping to study me intently.

I widened my eyes, glaring at him with every ounce of hostility I could muster. "My brother is coming back for me!

I'm not going anywhere with you!" He blinked, staring at my moving lips like I was a magic trick. It finally seemed to click in his head that I wasn't an actual toy.

His shoulders slumped in obvious disappointment. "Then stay put and don't run off. It's getting dark. I'm going home." The last sliver of sunlight was swallowed by the woods.

The shadows stretched, turning the world pitch black. Pierce trudged away, his silhouette shrinking until the darkness devoured him completely. The absolute dark settled in.

I looked down, barely able to make out the tips of my own ratty sneakers.

Eerie screeches echoed through the trees, and the tall grass nearby rustled with things I didn't want to think about. I bit my tongue, refusing to let out a single sob.

I curled into a tight ball on the dirt, my fingernails digging crescents into my sweaty, trembling palms. Hours felt like an agonizing eternity.

Exhaustion dragged at my eyelids like lead weights. But I couldn't let myself sleep. I forced my eyes wide open, straining to listen, bracing myself against the suffocating dark.

Until a shadow loomed over me out of nowhere. A familiar silhouette. A head taller than me. The dam broke. Hot tears spilled over my eyelashes and hit the dirt.

I scrambled to my feet, finally letting out the breath I had been holding in my burning lungs. My bleeding lips trembled uncontrollably.

A loud sob ripped from my throat as I threw myself into his arms. But the scent that hit my nose was the sharp, metallic tang of motor oil and grime. It wasn't Tristan.

The sob died in my throat. I shoved off him, stumbling two steps back.

Chapter 2 I squinted into the gloom, finally recognizing the filthy clothes on the boy standing a few feet away. It was the feral idiot who had been digging through the trash.

He stared at me in the darkness.

After a long moment, he stated with blunt simplicity, "Your brother definitely doesn't want you anymore." My nails bit into my palms as heat rushed to my face. "Shut your mouth!" The boy tilted his head, dead serious. "He said it himself.

He threw you to me like a ragdoll. Nobody picks up trash once they've tossed it." My jaw clamped shut so hard my teeth ached.

I wanted to scream at him, to tear his words apart, but my throat seized up. Only a pathetic, broken whimper managed to force its way out.

He glanced around the pitchblack alley. "Nobody wants you. If you stay here, the monsters are going to eat you." Without another word, he spun on his heel and walked away.

A violent shiver ripped through my body, and a sob tore from my chest. "You're a liar!

Tristan is coming back for me!" Before I realized what I was doing, my hand shot out and gripped the fabric of his torn sleeve.

I marched right behind him, my voice cracking as the tears spilled over. "Tristan is coming back! He promised to buy me a cake today!

It's my birthday!" "He saved up for months!" Just last night, his warm hand had enveloped mine. "Harlow, tomorrow I'm going to give you the biggest surprise." I lost track of how long we walked.

My sobs had reduced to violent hiccups when blinding streetlights suddenly pierced the darkness.

Those bizarre voices echoed in the air again: [ Wait, isn't this the elite military compound?

The place the female lead is about to get adopted into? ] [ Why did this feral idiot bring the villainess here? ] [ He's an idiot, what do you expect? ] [ Trespassing on a highsecurity military base is a federal crime. ] [ Looks like the evil villainess from the past life is going to get wiped out at five years old. ] Blinking through my tearblurred vision, I finally saw it.

Imposing iron gates towered under the harsh halogen lights, bearing a gleaming emblem.

Outside, sternfaced guards in immaculate military uniforms stood at attention, assault rifles strapped to their chests.

The air hitched in my lungs, cutting off my crying instantly. This time, I understood exactly what the invisible voices meant. My fingers dug into the boy's sleeve.

I opened my mouth to warn him we couldn't go anywhere near that gate. But before I could even take a step back, he flipped his hand and clamped his fingers around my wrist.

His grip was ironclad, possessing a raw strength I couldn't break. Without hesitation, he dragged me straight toward those imposing gates.

Suddenly, a young couple rushed out from the compound, their eyes locking dead onto us. The man wore a crisp officer's uniform, his jaw set in strict, simmering authority.

Beside him, a woman in an elegant, tailored dress sprinted toward us, her eyes rimmed with angry red.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she threw her arms around the boy beside me. "Running off again!

Sneaking out again!" "The entire base has been tearing itself apart looking for you!

Are you trying to kill your mother?" My hands instinctively dropped his arm and twisted into the hem of my own shirt. I swallowed hard, shrinking into the shadows.

The woman finally noticed me out of the corner of her eye.

She froze, confusion washing over her face. "Whose… whose child is this?" The boy proudly lifted his chin. "Someone gave her to me.

She talks, and she cries." The woman's face turned to stone. The intimidating man stepped forward, his heavy combat boots crunching on the pavement. "Nonsense.

Do you have any idea the trouble you've caused?" He forced down his commanding aura, crouching down to my eye level with a strained softness. "Little girl, do you remember where you live?

Or your parents' names? I will have you escorted home immediately." A violent shudder ran through me.

It took every ounce of my willpower to force the words past my chattering teeth. "I'm from the orphanage. I have a brother.

He… he accidentally lost me." The officer straightened up, handing the boy over to the armed guards.

Chapter 3 The officer had the woman in the elegant dress join him in the military jeep to drive me back to the orphanage.

As we pulled up outside the gates, I instantly spotted my brother's silhouette.

Under the sickly yellow glow of the streetlamp, he was gripping the orphanage director's arm, urgently whispering something. Heat flooded my eyes.

I shoved the heavy jeep door open and sprinted toward him. Seeing that I had found my family, the couple stayed behind in the vehicle, not bothering to follow.

I slammed to a halt just outside the gate, my eyes locking directly with Tristan's.

A flash of pure shock crossed his face, instantly replaced by a dark, simmering disgust and a silent warning. I thought the shadows were playing tricks on me.

Until his urgent, hushed voice drifted over, continuing his conversation with the director. "Haven't you always complained about how stupid she is?

How she can't even remember a route she's walked a hundred times? She's sickly." "She's nothing but a burden to this place. I accidentally lost her this time.

She's gone, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you." "That military commander and his wife… they were looking at Stella too, weren't they?

Let them adopt Stella instead." "Stella is smart. She knows how to navigate things. She’ll definitely come back and make it worth your while…" I froze in place.

It felt like someone had just slammed a sledgehammer directly into my chest. My stomach violently heaved, twisting into sick, rotting knots.

Just a few days ago, that elite commander and his wife had visited the orphanage. They said Stella and I were the most wellbehaved, and they wanted to adopt one of us.

Tristan had gone out of his way to make me stand out, practically orchestrating my interactions to win over the commander's wife. They had unofficially chosen me.

Stella was the daughter of an old friend of our late mother. After her mother got locked up in federal prison, Stella was dumped here at the orphanage.

She had tried to latch onto my brother countless times, but Tristan had always treated her like toxic waste.

Just yesterday, when she came over claiming she wanted to celebrate my birthday, Tristan had pointed directly at her face and barked, "Harlow's birthday has nothing to do with you!" Now, barely twentyfour hours later, his entire demeanor had flipped.

I couldn't comprehend it. Just like I couldn't comprehend those bizarre, disembodied voices that kept echoing in the air above me.

The director stood in silence, soaking in Tristan's words. When he finally spoke, his voice was dripping with greedy satisfaction. "You better remember what you just said, boy.

You lost your sister yourself. Stella knows how to play the game.

Once she climbs the social ladder and strikes it rich, she definitely owes me a massive favor…" I stood there like a hollowedout statue, my fingernails digging so deep into my palms that the skin threatened to break.

Time seemed to stop. It wasn't until the director walked away that Tristan turned and marched toward me, his face a thundercloud. His voice was ice. "How did you find your way back?

Did that feral idiot show you the way?" A sharp, burning pain flared behind my eyes. I fought desperately to swallow the lump in my throat, refusing to let the tears fall.

But when my mouth opened, the raw, trembling betrayal bled out. "Why did you throw me away?" "Why?" Tristan let out a dark, scoffing laugh.

The look he shot me was soaked in a venomous, inexplicable hatred. "If it wasn't for me trying to hold onto my pathetic, laughable moral bottom line… the second I laid eyes on you this lifetime, I should have strangled you with my own bare hands!" My breath hitched, panic seizing my chest as I stared at him.

He closed the distance between us.

His murderous glare sliced into me like a serrated blade. "In our past life, Stella made one simple joke about selling my Ivy League fullride scholarship. And what did you do?

You escalated it to the university board and the military brass." "You destroyed her reputation, threw her into prison, and drove her to commit suicide out of pure humiliation…" The words sounded like a foreign language to me.

He abruptly cut himself off, letting out another bitter sneer. "Why the hell am I wasting my breath on you?

Listen to me, Harlow." "I spared your miserable life this time, and that's more mercy than you deserve. But I never want to see your face again.

Whether you live or die in the gutters is up to fate now!" Chapter 4 "Stay the hell away from Stella and me, or I'll make you regret it!" Violent tremors wracked my body.

Instinctively, I reached out, my fingers grasping for his sleeve. Tristan ripped his arm away in disgust, like he was shaking off a pile of rotting garbage. He shoved me hard.

My head slammed heavily against a jagged rock, and warm blood instantly glued my vision shut. Through the thick, crimson haze, I watched his retreating back.

His posture was rigid, utterly indifferent, walking away without a single backward glance. The realization finally calcified in my chest: he really didn't want me anymore.

He had thrown me away for reasons so twisted and chaotic my young mind couldn't even begin to untangle them.

The young officer and his wife ended up taking me with them, driving me deep into the residential sector of the elite military compound.

The moment I stepped through the front door, I spotted the feral boy sitting rigidly on the living room sofa. His eyes were locked onto the entryway, burning with frantic anxiety.

When he saw me, a fierce light ignited in his eyes. He shot up, closing the distance between us in heavy, hurried strides, and clamped his hand around my wrist.

His jaw locked tightly as he shot a furious, defensive glare at the couple. "She's mine.

Don't you dare take her away again!" Then, he tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over me with painstaking care. "Are you hungry? Are you tired? I'll take you to eat.

I'll take you to sleep." It was as if he was genuinely trying to soothe a fragile porcelain doll.

The woman let out a heavy sigh, her voice dropping to a gentle whisper. "He's my son, Pierce. About six months ago, there was… an accident. His little sister, Cora, didn't make it.

Ever since then, his mind just hasn't been the same…" So, he wasn't a homeless stray digging through the trash after all.

The ragdoll he had been frantically searching for outside probably belonged to his sister.

She reached out, her soft fingers enveloping my uninjured hand. "But he would never hurt anyone," she assured me softly. "If you're scared of him, I can have him moved to…" My mind flashed back to the alleyway.

I had chased him away at sunset, yet he had navigated his way back through the pitchblack night just to find me.

I snapped my head up, shaking it with heavy, absolute certainty. "I'm not scared." The woman's eyes rimmed red. She gently smoothed my hair. "Alright.

Since this stubborn boy brought you back, as long as you want to stay, this is your home." She had the housekeeper prep a guest bedroom for me.

Pierce was visibly thrilled, shadowing the housekeeper's every move.

He insisted on carrying the heavy blankets, fetching my toothbrush and cup, and proudly marching in with bowls of hot food just for me.

Late that night, after washing off the blood and grime, I sat curled up by the window.

Silent tears slipped down my cheeks; the unfamiliar room made my chest tight with anxiety, leaving me too terrified to close my eyes. Suddenly, the door creaked open just a crack.

Pierce squeezed through the gap hugging a massive pillow.

He crouched down right in front of me like a giant, fiercely loyal dog, his eyes shining brightly in the dim light. "I'm going to guard your bed.

I promise I won't make a single sound.

Nobody is ever going to throw you away again." I stared down at him, and for a fleeting, agonizing second, his protective gaze overlapped with the brother I used to know.

My bottom lip trembled uncontrollably, and the tears fell faster, burning hot against my skin.

Yet, that night, with Pierce lying solidly on the floor right beside my bed, the suffocating panic finally melted away. I actually slept.

Two months slipped by at the military compound, and I slowly pieced together the household dynamics.

Pierce's father was a highranking battalion commander, and his mother was a toptier cardiothoracic surgeon at the state hospital.

Pierce also had a grandfather up in the capital, a mysterious figure whose exact status was spoken of in hushed, reverent tones no one ever fully explained to me.

I wasn't quite old enough for kindergarten yet, and Pierce had been temporarily pulled out of school due to his cognitive state.

One day, when Pierce's mom took me to the local department store, I picked out a new ragdoll to bring back for him.

He treated it like an absolute treasure, finally stopping his frantic, desperate missions into the alleyway trash heaps.

Instead, he stuck to me like Velcro all day long, demanding we make tiny clothes for the doll together.

Towards the end of summer, a scrawny stray kitten managed to sneak past the compound's perimeter.

We built a little shelter for it out of cardboard and old shirts, and just like that, it became ours.

Chapter 5 Enveloped in the warm, steady rhythm of the Pierce household, the suffocating terror of being discarded by Tristan was finally beginning to thaw.

Until one brisk autumn afternoon. I was crouching in the courtyard, feeding our kitten, when I spotted a familiar figure I hadn't seen in months.

It was Stella, trailing behind the elite commander's housekeeper as they entered the gates. Tristan’s cold words slammed back into my memory: "Stella is smart.

She knows how to navigate things. Let them adopt Stella instead." It looked like he had finally gotten exactly what he wanted.

My hand froze over the cat bowl as my gaze locked onto her. Stella strode into the courtyard, her chin tipped up like a newly rich snob who had just slapped on a fake crown.

The second her eyes landed on me, her smug triumph froze, instantly replaced by a venomous glare, like she was staring at a sewer rat.

I broke eye contact and went back to feeding my kitten, completely ignoring her.

But she marched straight over, her shadow looming over me. "A feral little orphan nobody wanted," she sneered, her voice dripping with pure arrogance. "And you dragged a filthy, unwanted stray into a place like this?

Do you have any idea where you are? Trash like you belongs in a holding cell!" She had always been like this. The second Tristan wasn't around to protect me, her claws came out.

I kept my attention on the kitten, refusing to give her the reaction she craved. My silence only fueled her rage.

Without warning, her foot shot out, her hard shoe violently crushing my kitten's tiny front paw. The kitten let out a bloodcurdling shriek of agony.

In pure panic, it lashed out, its free claws sinking deep into Stella's ankle. Stella unleashed a piercing scream and viciously kicked my kitten away.

Her face twisted into an ugly, furious mask as she shrieked at the housekeeper. "Are you blind?! This disgusting rat scratched me! I am the commander's daughter now!

Throw both of these feral mutts out on the street!" My kitten hit the dirt, curling into a trembling ball and letting out pitiful, broken whimpers.

The blood rushed straight to my head, my vision going red.

Without a second of hesitation, I snatched up the heavy ceramic cat bowl from the dirt and hurled it with every ounce of strength I had right at Stella's fake, smug face.

The heavy ceramic connected with a sickening crack. A shriek tore from her throat as a bright streak of crimson instantly rolled down her forehead