Anastasia closed her eyes to get rid of those images from her head. She just wanted to get back at them for what they’d done to her. Make them suffer for making her three months in their hands the kind that will forever give her nightmares. The kind that would make her skin crawl whenever a man touched her. The kind that would make her blood boil if she let everything go.


    Her grip tightened on the remote control, her pulse racing, her heart aching to make them pay.


    "Anastasia..." She suddenly heard someone call her name. Her head turned to the door to find Julian and the doctor staring at her with a perplexed expression.


    She’d been so carried away with her gruesome thoughts she didn’t even hear theme in. Anastasia suddenly felt she’d lost control of her own emotions and needed to get them in check before she did something she might regret.


    "The doctor is here to remove your bandages," said Julian as the doctor settled the tools he would use such as bandage scissors, tweezers, and sterile gauze.


    Anastasia’s mood immediately brightened when she recalled she was getting her facial bandages removed that day. Her heart raced in anticipation.


    She was ready to see scars all over her face—at least they were scars she got after turning Avery’s head into a dog smoothie. It was worth the struggle.


    After making sure Anastasia was rxed and ready, the doctor started.


    About half an hourter, the doctor wiped Anastasia’s face clean with sterile gauze. Then he brought a small mirror in front of her. "We’re done. You can look at your face now."


    Anastasia slowly opened her eyes and saw her reflection in the mirror. Her heart sank to the bottom of her feet. Her stomach churned terribly, goosebumps rising off her skin and making her skin crawl. Despite all these reactions, she didn’t despise what she saw in the mirror.


    "Did I get a facial reconstruction or a cosmetic surgery?" She asked, her eyes darting to look at both Julian and the doctor.


    She took the mirror to admire herself more as the doctor exined.


    "Like we said, your face was disfigured and your skull was damaged as well. Luckily, it didn’t affect your brain. It’s actually a miracle you didn’t experience any memory loss."


    A chill ran down Anastasia’s spine. Another memory loss would be a curse rather than illness if that had been the case.


    "It was almost impossible to reconstruct your face so we did as much as we could do."


    The shape of her head was more rounded than she’d remembered, her jawline looking sharp enough to cut through the grass. Although her face was still in a healing process and she couldn’t make out how it would turn out, she was sure if she wore a contact lens that gave her a different eye color, she would be a different person totally.


    Anastasia nodded in understanding and the doctor arranged his tools and left.


    "I would like to ask when I’vepletely recovered, can I leave this city?" She suddenly asked, catching Julian off guard.


    "You want to leave Xattlewood?" He asked as if he didn’t hear her well, and she nodded. "If that’s the case I’ll get you your new passport, but it will be a different name. You’re going to have to bear a new identity."


    <i>New identity. </i>


    Those words sounded familiar. She looked down at Julian’s phone that was ced on the coffee table.


    "Can you please research my name on Google?" She requested.


    Julian gave her an odd look but still did as she requested of him without asking questions. He fetched his phone and researched her name, then gave the phone to her to look at whatever she wanted to see.


    Anastasia saw some headlines regarding her career before she’d been kidnapped. The awards Elizabeth had been talking about before she’d died.


    Anastasia could see she was happy in those pictures, with the ones she’d taken with her husband, Xavier. Looking at his face made her feel guilty for an unknown reason so she quickly scrolled past those pictures.


    Then more headlines about her changing her identity popped. She frowned, focusing on the headlines as she read through them.


    <i>Selene Jones</i>


    That had been a fake identity she’d used. A small smile spread on her lips, grateful she was starting to recall things more clearly now.


    When she was done, she handed the phone back to Julian.


    "I want to go to Radiantia," she suddenly announced,pletely catching Julian off guard once again.