Reborn in Her Scars: The Brother's Vengeance

Gemma dragged me into the freezing river. Graham heard the screams. He sprinted down the muddy bank. He swam right past me. I stayed invisible. He only had eyes for Gemma.

Right before the water filled my lungs, I caught it. Gemma's hands gripped Graham, shoving him under. Shoving him deep.

By the time Mom and Dad arrived, the river swallowed both Graham and me. Only Gemma thrashed at the surface, playing the victim. They dragged our lifeless bodies onto the bank.

The whole family huddled over Graham, frantic. Not a single pair of eyes flicked my way.

Until my dead body bolted upright. "I know you hate me for taking your place!" Gemma wailed, throwing her soaking body over mine. "I know you pushed me in to kill me! But why?

Why did you have to kill Graham? Please! Take my life instead! Just bring him back!" Mom and Dad glared at me.

They treated me like a monster. "You killed your own brother, and now you try to gaslight Gemma?" Dad snarled. "Delaney, you will spend the rest of your miserable life paying for what you did to Graham." But death already claimed me.

My soul hovered right above them. The person sitting up in my skin? Graham. Chapter 1 Back when I was breathing, Gemma only had to shred her own dress and force a few tears.

Mom, Dad, and Graham would instantly swarm her, treating me like the monster who did it.

They'd drag me to the basement and lock me in the dark, just to appease her fabricated trauma.

When she faked a suicide attempt, they held me down and drained my blood until I passed out, all to pump it into her veins. Now she was pinning Graham's murder on me.

If I were still alive in that body, no one would believe a word I said. Thank God I was dead. Thank God Graham was the one trapped in my skin. He had to remember the truth.

He had to remember Gemma gripping his hair, forcing his head under the freezing water until his lungs burst. "Gemma," Graham's voice spilled from my lips, thick with confusion. "When Mom and Dad pulled you out, you swam up just fine.

So why did I—why did Graham… why did you thrash and drag him under when he tried to save you?" Gemma swiped at her eyes, her lower lip trembling. "Are you blaming me, Delaney?" she choked out. "I was drowning!

I panicked! I couldn't control my arms!

If you hadn't shoved me in that river, Graham would still be here!" A single tear from Gemma, and the tension drained straight out of my stolen body.

The suspicion in Graham's eyes melted into adoration. "Gemma is so innocent," he whispered to himself, using my voice. "How could I ever doubt her?

It was a nightmare, but everyone who matters is still alive. The only one we lost was the one who deserved it. Gemma is my only sister now.

I'll never let anyone hurt her again." Spectral bile burned the back of my nonexistent throat. My spirit writhed in the air above them. She murdered you, Graham!

I screamed into the void. She's a psychopath! She never loved you! She's playing you! But my screams were dead air. They never listened to me when I had a pulse.

Why would they hear me now? Mom wrapped her arms around Gemma, stroking her damp hair. "Shh, sweetheart. Graham's death is not on you. It's on Delaney.

That vicious little sociopath killed your brother." Dad stepped closer to my body, a muscle feathering in his jaw. "You took your own brother's life, and you have the nerve to blame Gemma?" "You owe Graham a life!

I'll take yours!" Dad lunged. He fisted his hands in my wet hair and dragged my limp body straight back into the freezing river. He shoved my face beneath the surface.

Dad thought he was drowning me. But Graham was the one choking on the muddy water. And the sickest part? Graham just took it. He swallowed the river rather than confess the truth.

He didn't fight back until the sirens wailed and the cops pulled Dad off him. Graham lay on the riverbank, hacking up water, his lungs seizing. But his eyes?

They were fixed on Gemma. "Gemma is too fragile," Graham muttered under his breath. "If I tell her I'm alive, the shock might break her. Her birthday is in two weeks.

I just have to play the part until then. I'll give her the ultimate surprise. And while I'm stuck in Delaney's body, I'll dig up every piece of dirt on her.

I'll prove how much she tortured Gemma.

That way, when Mom and Dad find out Delaney is the one who actually died, they won't even shed a tear." As I listened to Graham eagerly plot to destroy my reputation, a crushing weight slammed into my chest.

The phantom sensation of a ribcage splintering inward. It turns out, even without a beating heart, a soul can still bleed.

Chapter 2 Years ago, the traffickers had forced me to hustle the brutal streets. If I brought back empty pockets, they shattered my ribs.

Every waking breath tasted like copper and grit. I was a ghost waiting for the final blow. Just as my body surrendered to the beatings, Graham kicked the door in.

He dragged me out of that hell and brought me to paradise. Even after Gemma spun her sick web of lies—manipulating Mom and Dad into despising me—I never held a grudge.

They gave me a sliver of love once. That fleeting warmth became the only light in my pathetic existence. But now. The brother who saved me still hated my guts from beyond the grave.

Trapped in my skin, he paced around my cramped bedroom, hunting for proof of my nonexistent crimes. "A few pennies?" Graham muttered, scrolling through my banking app.

He frowned at the cracked screen. "Gemma swore she stole all her allowance to fund a lavish lifestyle." He wrinkled his nose, inhaling the damp air. "God, what is that stench?

Mildew?" He stared at my rotting mattress. A cruel scoff ripped from his throat. "Playing the victim. Classic Delaney.

She probably hid all the stolen designer goods in this lockbox." He yanked my heavy metal trunk from under the bed. He grabbed a paperweight and smashed the lock.

It shattered across the floorboards. Right on top sat my worn leather diary. He reached for the cover. The bedroom door slammed open.

Mom, Dad, and Gemma swarmed inside. "Delaney!" Dad roared. "You murder your brother and have the nerve to crawl back into this house to relax?" He pointed a trembling finger down the hall. "You don't get a bed anymore.

We bought a plot of dirt right next to Graham's grave. You will be banished to the freezing caretaker's shed at the cemetery.

You will spend every single day on your knees at his grave begging for forgiveness, and you will never set foot in this house again!" Before Graham could process the insane punishment, Gemma's eyes pooled with fresh, strategic tears.

She grabbed Dad's sleeve. "Dad, are you burying her alive? Isn't that too cruel?" Her voice cracked. "She shares your blood. I am just an outsider. Let me go stay at the cemetery.

Let me mourn Graham properly!" Mom rushed forward. She cupped Gemma's face, wiping the fake tears with her thumb. "Oh, Gemma. We already lost your brother.

How could we bear to lose our only daughter?" Ghostly needles pierced my transparent chest.

Our only daughter. "I know you have a golden heart," Mom spat, glaring at my body. "But showing mercy to a parasite like Delaney is a sin." Graham kicked the trunk shut.

He stepped toward them, raising his hands. "Mom, Dad, I can't go to the cemetery.

Delaney… I mean, the things I supposedly did to Gemma… I haven't uncovered the full truth yet—" A deafening crack echoed off the walls. Dad slapped him.

Hard. "Uncover what?" Dad snarled, stepping into his space. "You show zero remorse!

You murdered him, and you still try to pin your sick games on Gemma?" Dad's chest heaved. "You ungrateful bitch!

You slithered into this family, stole Gemma's jewelry, drained her bank accounts, and tortured her endlessly. She swallowed the pain! She never complained!

And you dare call her a liar? We raised Gemma! We know exactly who she is!" Dad's fury hit a boiling point. He drove his expensive leather shoe straight into Graham's stomach.

Graham collapsed, gagging for air, silenced. Hovering near the ceiling, I watched my body curl into a pathetic, trembling ball on the floor. I knew that pain.

I had survived that exact scene a thousand times before the river took me. Chapter 3 After Graham dragged me out of that hellhole, the trafficking ring collapsed overnight.

The cops locked up most of them, but a few ruthless thugs slipped through the cracks. They hunted me down. They swore they would slaughter the entire family if I didn't pay up.

I knew exactly how vicious they were, so I drained my bank accounts to keep Mom, Dad, and Graham breathing. That massive wire transfer became their ultimate proof.

Proof that I was a greedy, spoiled brat torturing Gemma.

When I finally broke down and told them about the blackmail, Gemma dropped to her knees in front of me. "Delaney, I know I stole your perfect life," she sobbed, tears spilling on cue. "I'll leave.

Just please, stop bringing up these horrible lies to make Mom and Dad upset." Mom and Graham instantly swallowed her act.

To them, the traffickers were just a pathetic ghost story I invented for attention. The cash ran out.

The thugs tracked me down, turning my body into a canvas of shattered bones and ruptured skin until I was choking on my own blood.

I dragged my shattered body back to the mansion, practically crawling up the steps. I grabbed the phone to dial 911.

Gemma snatched the receiver out of my bloody hand. "Call the cops, and your precious family dies," she whispered, her voice dead flat. "How do you think wanted fugitives waltzed right past the security gates of this neighborhood, Delaney?" Ice flooded my veins.

The air caught in my throat. She had been working with them all along, using my family's lives as collateral. Before I could even blink, Gemma started slapping her own face.

Hard. "If you wanted me gone, you just had to say it!" she wailed, her voice echoing through the foyer. "Why are you covering yourself in fake blood and makeup just to frame me?" The front door clicked open.

Mom and Dad walked right into her perfect trap. From that day on, every bruise, every broken bone, every drop of real blood was just "fake makeup" I used to bully Gemma.

I swallowed the agony. I bled in silence and poured it all into my diary. Now, sprawled on the floor, the impact of Dad's kick ripped those old wounds wide open.

Graham hissed through my teeth. Fire chewed through his nerves. He yanked up my sleeve. He stared at the forearm.

It was a mangled map of thick, jagged scar tissue. "How…" Graham gasped, his chest heaving. "Weren't Delaney's injuries just a sick stunt to frame Gemma?" It wasn't just old scars.

Fresh scabs, soaked and bloated from the river water, clung desperately to the fabric of my shirt. No one in this house had ever looked at me long enough to notice.

Graham's hands shook as he peeled off my soaked outer jacket. The same brutal marks covered every inch of my skin. He snapped his head up.

His eyes burned bloodred as he looked at Mom and Dad. He opened his mouth to scream the truth.

Gemma's hysterical sobs drowned him out. "Mom, Dad, please!" she begged, dropping to the floor. "Let me go to the cemetery! Let me pray for Graham! She just wants to stay here.

She actually mutilated herself just to drive me out and become your only daughter.

I know Graham would forgive her if he saw this!" That single flicker of shock in Mom and Dad's eyes instantly vanished. "Delaney, we still underestimated how vicious you are," Dad sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. "You'd use your own mutilated flesh, your own dead brother, just to get attention?" Mom glared at my trembling body. "I regret the day we ever pulled you out of that hell.

You're worse than the thugs who took you.

You should have rotted there." Mom wrapped her arm protectively around Gemma, refusing to look at my face again, and guided her out of the room. Dad snapped his fingers.

He barked orders at the house staff. They swarmed Graham, pinning his arms behind his back. They dragged him out the door, straight to the graveyard.

Chapter 4 The second Gemma left the room, Graham desperately cleared his throat. "Dad, I'm not Delaney. It's me.

I'm Graham." It took a few frantic minutes and a barrage of questions only the golden boy could answer, but the tension finally snapped.

Trust washed over Mom and Dad's faces. "Delaney is the one who actually died in that river," Graham rasped, rubbing his temples. "I just… I hid it.

Gemma's mental health is hanging by a thread. The shock of losing me, then finding out I'm alive in Delaney's body?

It would break her." He paused, his brow furrowing deeply. "But Dad… what if we were wrong about Delaney? I tore her room apart. There wasn't a single designer tag.

No massive bank transfers on her phone. And earlier, when Gemma started crying and you guys shut me down? I felt this crushing sense of injustice. A suffocating grievance.

And I realized… I've seen that exact look on Delaney's face a million times." Did he finally get it? My translucent soul shuddered near the ceiling.

I snapped my gaze to Mom and Dad. But their faces held zero remorse. Only a euphoric, terrifying joy. Graham was alive.

And I was dead. "Graham, you're severely overthinking this," Dad scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. "If Delaney is innocent, that makes Gemma a manipulative monster.

Does that sound right to you?" Mom chimed in, practically glowing. "Delaney was a monster. She obviously wiped her phone and scrubbed her room clean to play the victim.

You're just inside her skin, Graham. You're absorbing her negativity." "You're alive, and Delaney is gone.

This is a massive win for our family." Dad squeezed Graham's shoulder. "Stop stressing.

We'll celebrate properly on Gemma's birthday." The doubt evaporated from Graham's eyes. "You're right," Graham muttered, exhaling a long breath. "I'll stick to the plan.

I'll drop the ultimate surprise on her birthday." So. They weren't mourning. They were planning a party. The spectral air vanished from my lungs.

A violent, icy pressure crushed my chest. My vision blurred, fracturing the edges of the room. I shouldn't have come back. I was a ghost long before the river took me.

This house never had a space for me. For the next few days, Graham slept in a warm bed instead of a cold graveyard.

Mom and Dad physically recoiled at the sight of my face, but their parental instincts overrode the disgust. They pampered him endlessly. Gemma couldn't stomach it.

She hit her breaking point.

She contacted those same thugs and lured Graham out to a deserted alley behind the estate. "I severely underestimated you, Delaney," Gemma sneered, her arms crossed tight against her chest. "You actually murdered Graham and still gaslit Mom and Dad into forgiving you?" Graham just stared at her.

He looked at her with nothing but pure, blind devotion. But Gemma only saw my face.

Her lip curled in visceral disgust. "Drop the innocent act!" Gemma spat, her nails digging into her own palms. "It's either you or me in that house.

Since you refuse to rot quietly in the cemetery, I found a better place to dump you." A battered cargo van screeched to a halt inches from the curb.

Chapter 5 A halfdozen thugs swarmed from the open doors like vultures. Rough, calloused hands clamped down on Graham, brutally wrenching my frail arms behind his back.

He thrashed against their grip, staring at Gemma in disbelief. "Gemma, what the hell are you doing?" he screamed, his voice cracking. "Even if I wronged you, you don't hire a hit squad!

You're sweet! You're innocent! If you cross this line, how are you any better than the monsters?" Gemma scoffed.

The fragile mask shattered, revealing a twisted, hollow sneer. "Cut the nauseating act," she spat, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Mom and Dad aren't watching.

Who exactly are you performing for?" A filthy rag was shoved into Graham's mouth, choking off his protests. They violently threw him into the back of the van.

Gemma tossed a heavy duffel bag of cash onto the floorboards. "Don't hold back this time," she ordered, her tone dead and empty. "I don't care if you just end her.

I'll handle the fallout at home. I'll tell them Delaney bolted because she was terrified of the graveyard punishment." The lead thug let out a grating, guttural laugh. "Relax.

For this kind of cash, I've got nine different ways to break her before she dies." The van tires shrieked against the asphalt.

A magnetic pull yanked my soul, trying to drag me along with my physical body. But I couldn't let them leave. If those psychopaths killed my body, Graham would be gone forever.

I fought the cosmic tether. Invisible blades shredded my spirit. Every inch of my soul burned like battery acid as I tore myself away, racing back to the estate.

I had to warn Mom and Dad. I stood in the grand kitchen, screaming until my phantom throat bled. But my voice was just empty air. I could only watch.

My chest caved in as Mom and Dad happily frosted a threetier cake and tied helium balloons.

They were throwing Gemma the perfect birthday party while Graham was being tortured in a filthy basement. The morning of the party finally hit. Reality set in.

Mom and Dad panicked when they realized Graham was nowhere to be found. "Gemma, we can't reach Delaney," Dad said, pacing the marble floor with his phone pressed to his ear. "Try her number?

She was supposed to give you a massive surprise today!" A flash of calculation sparked in Gemma's eyes. It vanished in a microsecond. Her eyes instantly flooded.

She collapsed to her knees on the expensive rug. "I'm so sorry!" she wailed, burying her face in her hands. "You said you were going to bury her alive in the cemetery.

She begged me for help. I gave her the money. She said she refused to pray for Graham.

She said she was going to disappear and live her best life where no one could ever drag her back.

I was terrified you'd force her, so I kept my mouth shut." If I were actually the one in that body, Mom and Dad would have just cursed my name and let me rot.

They would never search for me. But they knew the truth. They knew the person missing was Graham. And Graham would never, ever run away.

For the first time in her life, Mom and Dad looked at Gemma with agonizing doubt. "Are you sure," Dad asked, his voice dangerously low, "that she asked you for money to run away?" Gemma's sobs violently escalated. "Mom!

Dad! Do you think I'm lying? I have the bank transfer records right here—" The heavy front doors groaned open. Graham stepped into the foyer.

Deep, jagged lacerations covered every inch of my body. The clothes clinging to my body were completely saturated, dripping thick, dark blood onto the pristine marble.

He locked his bloodshot eyes onto Gemma.

A terrifying, deadeyed smirk carved its way across his face. "Dearest sister," he rasped, his voice vibrating with pure venom. "I'm afraid I can't afford your blood money." Chapter 6 My soul hovered over my physical form.

Dark blood pulsed steadily from the jagged gashes covering his body. I had no idea how he crawled out of that basement alive, but they had clearly butchered him.

He was standing on adrenaline. Even I could not have kept that frail body upright after that kind of slaughter. The initial rush of relief shattered, replaced by panic.

Did Graham drag his mutilated body all the way back here just to celebrate Gemma's birthday?

Even after she sent a hit squad after him, was he still completely under her spell? "Delaney? You… you came back?" Gemma gasped. "Where did you go?

Why are you covered in blood?" Before Mom and Dad could even process the horror in the doorway, Gemma launched herself across the foyer.

She threw her arms around Graham in a suffocating embrace. Where our parents could not see, her manicured nails dug viciously right into his open lacerations.

She pressed her lips against his ear, her voice dropping to a lethal hiss. "Your brother is dead.

If you don't want your precious parents to end up in body bags too, you will confess to everything and rot in that cemetery.

Don't breathe a single word about those thugs." I had surrendered to that exact same threat to keep my family breathing. But this time, she was not threatening me.

She was threatening the brother who worshiped the ground she walked on. Graham slowly raised his trembling arms. He wrapped them around Gemma.

Then his hands snapped up, locking like a vise around her throat. "So everything those monsters told me in that basement was true?" he snarled, his jaw ticking wildly. "This wasn't the first time you paid them to take Delaney?

To butcher her? All those scars… they weren't fake? You planned all of this?" She thrashed, her manicured nails digging into his wrists.

But Graham poured every ounce of his remaining strength into my fragile hands, squeezing tighter. He refused to let go. The air choked off in her windpipe.

Raw terror flooded her wide eyes. "Have you lost your mind? What are you talking about?" she rasped, her face flushing deep purple. "Let me go! Was killing Graham not enough?

Are you going to murder me right in front of Mom and Dad?" Graham finally ripped his hands away, shoving her brutally to the marble floor. "Oh, I'm not going to kill you," he whispered, a terrifying calmness washing over his bloody face. "Death is way too merciful for what you have done." Mom and Dad rushed forward, shock paralyzing their features.

On one side was their golden child, and on the other was the son they trusted with their lives. They had no idea who to protect.

Mom instinctively dropped to her knees, pulling Gemma's shaking body into her chest. Dad stared at Graham, lost. "What the hell is going on? It is Gemma's birthday.

This is a sick joke." Their blind loyalty instantly fueled Gemma's audacity. She wiped a perfectly timed tear from her cheek. "Mom, Dad, did my sister suffer a psychotic break?

She's talking in the third person. It's terrifying. Forget my birthday.

Please, just call a psychiatric hold for her!" A dark, hollow laugh erupted from Graham's chest. "You are seriously still gaslighting them? I crawled out of that slaughterhouse.

I survived. Do you really think you can bury your psychotic secrets now?" "What secrets? Tell us what actually happened!" Dad roared, the veins bulging in his neck.

Graham locked his jaw against the blinding agony. He grabbed the hem of his soaked jacket and ripped it off.

The fabric peeled away, tearing chunks of coagulated blood and raw flesh right off my ruined body. Chapter 7