The Price of a Pearl: Surviving the Abyss of Carter's Revenge

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Carter Hayes pursued me for seven years. On his 99th proposal, he sank to the bottom of the tank at the city aquarium, dancing with a beluga whale in front of hundreds of cheering tourists.

Deeply moved, I smiled and nodded yes.

That very afternoon, he told me he was taking me to meet his parents. Instead, he drove me to a cemetery.

In front of their headstones, I was pinned to the ground by countless hands, completely paralyzed.

The next day, flyers plastered with naked photos of me covered the city streets.

My phone blew up with thousands of vile, harassing calls.

Driven to despair, I tracked Carter down.

My voice choked with tears. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Carter leaned in, his voice a soft, terrifying whisper against my ear.

"Did you notice the date of death on my parents' headstones?"

"Its the exact same day your father committed that hit-and-run."

He bound my hands and feet and threw me into an enclosed whale tank.

"You love being with the whales so much, right? Enjoy."

Thank God the beluga I had trained slammed her body against the gate until she bled, alerting the staff who pulled me out.

But I had been underwater too long. The oxygen deprivation caused severe brain damage, requiring extensive physical therapy just to function again.

Months later, after discovering the horrific truth behind the accident, Carter held my trembling hand, his own hands shaking violently.

"Chloe, please... will you give me one more chance?"

I've lost count of how many times I've faced this foam therapy ball.

The moment my fingertips brushed the surface, a sharp spike of pain shot up my nerves, hammering right into my temples.

"Try to grip it. That's it, slowly apply pressure."

The physical therapist gently guided my fingers.

I gritted my teeth.

It was the simplest movement in the world, yet it required every ounce of energy in my body.

Finally, my fingertips barely curled around the edge of the ball.

Before I could even exhale, a wave of intense vertigo hit me.

The ball slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a smack, rolling far away.

I slumped back into the therapy chair, letting out a heavy, defeated breath.

But the moment my muscles relaxed, I froze.

Through the glass window of the door, I saw a familiar pair of eyes.

Those eyes radiated a cold, malicious indifferencean expression I had never seen on him before the cemetery.

But this... this was the real Carter Hayes.

Seeing someone enter, the therapist took a step back.

"Mr. Hayes. Unfortunately, we aren't seeing much progress in today's session."

Carter picked up the ball from the floor, a cruel smirk twisting his lips.

"You can leave us. It seems she's just not being obedient."

Seeing the look on his face, goosebumps erupted across my arms.

I looked at the therapist, my eyes begging him to stay.

But he was paid to do a job. He let out a quiet sigh and walked out of the room.

"Chloe, why are you always so stubborn? Let me help you with your therapy."

"Here, grab the ball."

I tried to clench my fist, but I had absolutely no strength left.

My hand didn't move an inch.

"Get out!"

Carter looked at me, his eyes narrowing in displeasure.

"Why are you being so uncooperative?"

"Chloe, remember: if I can throw you into a whale tank, I can throw your hit-and-run murderer of a father in there right next to you!"

My head snapped up.

"Carter, don't you dare touch my dad!"

Carter's eyes turned into dangerous slits. He lifted the ball again, dangling it right in front of my face.

"Then shouldn't you be a good girl and do your therapy?"

"Fine."

I clenched my jaw and painstakingly raised my hand toward the ball.

Just as my fingertips were about to brush the foam, Carter chucked the ball all the way across the room.

He tilted his head, his gaze lazy and sadistic.

"Chloe, go fetch the ball. Good girl."

My face burned hot red as a wave of utter humiliation crashed over me.

But remembering his threat against my father, I slowly, agonizingly started to wheel my chair forward.

Carter smiled with dark satisfaction.

"Such a good dog."

I fought back my tears.

Just a little further. Almost there.

If I just get the ball, it'll be fine.

Struggling to control my damaged motor skills, I kept one hand on the wheelchair rim and reached out with the other to grab the ball from the floor.

Suddenly, the wheelchair was violently yanked backward.

I pitched forward, crashing clumsily onto the hard linoleum.

My face slammed into the therapy ball, sending it bouncing away again.

Carter let go of the wheelchair handles, his voice dripping with ice.

"Chloe, you really need to be more careful."

"Look. The ball got away again."

I stared up at Carter, feeling like I was truly seeing him for the first time.

Perhaps my glare triggered something in him. He stepped forward and planted his expensive leather shoe directly onto the back of my hand.

"Chloe, I said... go fetch the ball."

The crushing pain radiating from my hand made me curl up instinctively.

Carter looked down like he had just made a fascinating scientific discovery.

"Well look at that, Chloe! Your body still reacts to pain!"

With that, he ground his heel down harder.

The skin on the back of my hand tore under the sole of his shoe, and I couldn't stop myself from screaming.

Carter's face went deadpan.

"Chloe, moaning like that... maybe I should just pimp you out. You'd make a fortune on the streets."

My mind violently snapped back to six months ago.

The memory of the vile, filthy things the men he hired had said to me flooded my nervous system.

I clutched my ears, breaking down completely.

"Please... please stop, please don't say that."

Carter scoffed, looking at me with pure contempt.

"You're only getting exactly what you deserve. If you want someone to blame, blame your father for killing my parents!"

"And because he did that, I am going to inflict every ounce of that pain onto his precious daughter."

I lay paralyzed on the floor, muttering uncontrollably.

"That's not what happened... it's not..."

"My dad didn't... he didn't hit them and run. He was framed!"

Just then, Carter's cell phone rang.

"Mia," he answered. The way his lips formed her name sent my heart plummeting straight into the abyss.

"Mhm, I love you too. I'll be home a little late."

Watching him hang up the phone with such a tender expression, memories of our past surged up, bringing a dull, throbbing ache to my chest.

"Carter, please just let me go."

He suddenly grabbed my jaw, his fingers digging into my cheeks.

"Let you go? Do you think becoming a pathetic cripple cancels out the fact that your father murdered my family?"

"Keep dreaming!"

He leaned in to kiss me. I quickly jerked my head away.

"You have a new girlfriend. How can you do this to her?"

He stroked my long hair, almost like he was petting a stray dog.

"She doesn't know you exist. And don't you dare try to get her attention."

"Get better. Then, you can receive your next punishment."

When the therapist returned and saw me lying on the floor, he hurriedly rushed over to help me back into my wheelchair.

Once I was settled, he spoke quietly.

"Chloe, your father called. He said Pearl isn't doing well."

"He asked if you wanted to go back and see her."

My heart dropped.

Pearl was the beluga whale I had trained for years.

She was the one who had bashed herself against the steel grate until she bled, alerting the staff to save me from the tank.

Three years ago, Pearl had started showing signs of severe depression.

She was deeply attached to me, but I could never go back to her.

I couldn't even reach out a hand to pet her without exhausting myself.

After a long silence, I couldn't ignore the knot of anxiety in my stomach.

"I... I want to go see her."

"I'll have to ask Mr. Hayes for permission," the therapist replied.

I let out a cold laugh.

Why do I have to ask Carter for permission just to leave the building?

During the darkest moments of my life, it was Pearl and my father who kept me alive.

Back then, I had just been pulled off life support. I had to relearn how to blink.

I thought my life was completely, utterly over.

I lay in my hospital bed, refusing to eat or drink.

It was my dad who snuck me out, dodging the nurses, and wheeled me into the aquarium after hours.

Pearl swam frantically to the edge of the pool, pushing her large, bulbous head against my legs through the glass.

After a while, she seemed to realize I couldn't move. A thick, heavy tear rolled out of her massive eye.

She just stayed there with me. Because she was partially out of the water for too long, her skin started to dry out and crack.

The caretakers gently pushed her back into the water, but she violently thrashed her way back up to the ledge, refusing to move, just staying right by my side.

After the third time they pushed her back in and she stubbornly forced herself back onto the concrete, I finally broke down and cried.

"Pearl, don't worry. I promise I'll stay alive."

Only then did she seem to relax, sliding back into the deep water.

Just like she used to do a hundred times before, she flipped her tail at me, splashing water against the glass.

That was the day Carter tracked me down and dragged me away again. This time, he hid me somewhere much more secure.

"You are serving a sentence for your father!"

"Why do you always try to escape me?"

I tried to explain, over and over again, but he never believed a word.

Seeing Pearl again.

Her emaciated frame made me almost afraid to recognize her.

I sat hidden in the crowd, watching her perform her routine, over and over, looking utterly exhausted.

It felt like someone was slicing my heart open with a scalpel.

"Chloe, I didn't think you'd actually have the guts to show up here."

The familiar voice sneered from beside me.

I started trembling uncontrollably.

Carter stood there with his arms crossed, looking down at me like a god judging a mortal. Beside him stood a stunningly beautiful woman.

"Chloe, I can't believe you dared to come back to the city."

"What, looking to get back into your old line of work?"

"How much do you charge for a night now? I could have a few of my buddies throw some business your way."

The sheer contempt in her voice triggered a violent flashback.

When Carter had his men strip my clothes off, they had used that exact same tone.

"Look at yourself, Chloe. This is exactly what a murderer looks like."

"All the pretty packaging in the world can't hide how rotten you and your father are on the inside."

"If my parents could see the daughter of their killer looking this pathetic, they'd be thrilled."

Time and time again, Carter's words pierced straight through my heart.

I didn't answer. I just stared anxiously at Pearl in the water.

Carter sneered. "Chloe, don't tell me you're still trying to save this stupid fish?"

"You couldn't even do it when you had a functioning body. Do you think you can do it now as a cripple?"

I clenched my jaw, fighting to control my emotions.

Since the severe brain trauma, extreme emotional distress could trigger seizures.

"I'm going inside."

I don't know how much time passed before the crowd erupted into cheers.

A mermaid performer was being proposed to.

The bright red letters on the waterproof sign were impossible to miss.

[CARTER, I LOVE YOU.]

Carter used his arms to form a massive heart back at her.

"That's my girlfriend, Mia."

The same woman who had just mocked me to my face.

They were together.

"Look how beautifully she swims. Just like a real mermaid, right?"

"Oh, I almost forgot. You used to be the best trainer they had."

Carter's words hammered heavily against my chest.

The heartache was so intense I briefly dissociated.

Time seemed to rewind.

I remembered when Carter secretly spent three months learning to free-dive, and I had no idea.

A coworker eventually told me. They said he was terrified of the water and wouldn't even get in the pool at first.

Once, he even passed out from sheer panic after diving in.

But he gritted his teeth and kept practicing, insisting he had to give me the perfect underwater proposal.

When my coworker told me the story, her eyes were practically glowing with envy.

Who could have ever imagined that the man who looked at me like I hung the moon and the man who shoved me into the abyss were the exact same person?

Looking at the scene playing out before me, a storm raged in my eyes, but in the end, I just offered a quiet:

"That's nice."

"I've seen enough. I want to go back."

I turned to maneuver my wheelchair away, but Carter indignantly blocked my path.

"Chloe, how the hell are you so at peace with yourself?!"

"You deserve to be spat on by thousands! You deserve to be cursed by millions!"

His eyes were bloodshot, looking like a rabid animal.

Suddenly, he laugheda wild, unhinged cackle.

"Chloe, you really care about this whale, don't you?"

"Then I'm going to make you watch her die in absolute despair!"

My heart seized. I panicked.

"Carter, what are you doing?!"

Carter looked down at me with his usual arrogant superiority.

"Oh, now you're panicking, Chloe? Where did all that calm indifference go?"

"Can't bear it? If you get down on your knees, I'll let her go."

After a beat, he scoffed again.

"Oh, I forgot. Your broken body can't even kneel anymore."

"Chloe, what makes you think a cripple can save her?"

He tapped a few buttons on his phone.

The massive jumbotron above the performance pool suddenly switched from the live feed to a video of countless wild belugas swimming and leaping freely in the open ocean.

Pearl was captivated by the screen. She stopped her performance entirely.

I could see the raw, desperate longing for freedom in her eyes.

But then, the video abruptly cut.

Footage of hundreds of whales being electrocuted, hunted, and violently hauled onto slaughter ships flooded the massive screen.

I screamed in absolute terror!

"No! Stop!"

"Carter, I'm begging you, turn it off!"

As a professional trainer, I knew exactly what this would do.

A highly intelligent creature trapped in a tiny, claustrophobic glass box cannot handle that kind of psychological shock and overstimulation.

On the stage, Pearl began to thrash and emit agonizing, high-pitched shrieks.

I stared at Carter, pleading with everything I had.

But he just stared back at me with dead eyes, completely expressionless.

It was as if he was punishing me for my earlier indifference.

Sitting trapped in my wheelchair, there was absolutely nothing I could do.

I could only cover my eyes in sheer despair.

I couldn't bear to look at Pearl. My fingertips were trembling violently.

Finally, breaking down completely in the midst of the silent tremors, I screamed at Carter:

"When are you going to stop this insane revenge crusade?! My father NEVER committed a hit-and-run!"

"You have been completely, fundamentally wrong this entire time!"

Carter froze for a split second, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes.

"Chloe, you are just as disgusting as your father."

"To protect a stupid fish, you'd actually spew a lie like that?"

"Your whole family is nothing but shameless liars! Murderers!"

His eyes were blood-red, looking like a man refusing to hear an unacceptable truth.

But... I was telling the absolute truth.

He just couldn't handle it. He refused to believe it.

I slumped back into my wheelchair, the world spinning sickeningly around me.

That night, I received a call from the aquarium director.

"Chloe... Pearl... she killed herself."

The phone slipped from my hand.

Thinking of Pearl's emaciated body, tears fell silently down my face.

Maybe it's better this way.

She's finally free.

Pearl, in your next life, I hope you get to swim in the endless ocean.

Never cross paths with me again, and never, ever cross paths with another human.

That night, consumed by severe depression, I sat by the open window, letting the freezing wind whip against my face for a long time.

Just then, the door opened.

I turned around in terror, only to lock eyes with my father.

He had disguised himself in a lab coat to sneak into the private care facility.

"Chloe, Dad's here."

He looked at my skeletal frame, holding my face in his hands, his voice breaking. "Dad's taking you home."

I sobbed and nodded.

We dodged the security cameras and managed to slip into his truck undetected.

"I've been looking for you everywhere. I never thought that animal Carter would hide you away again!"

I stayed hidden in our old family home for a long time.

The walls were covered in photos of me and Pearl during our training days.

After Pearl died, I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep.

If I hadn't shown up, if I hadn't gone back...

Pearl wouldn't have been triggered by the video Carter orchestrated.

Carter's revenge had worked perfectly.

I lay awake night after night, drowning in guilt and self-hatred.

My father just watched me, sighing heavily.

There was no longer a Pearl to pull me out of the abyss of despair.

In my childhood bedroom, there were still so many things tied to Carter.

The small white-noise machine on my nightstandhe had scoured the entire city to find it.

Just because I casually mentioned, "I always sleep so well when it rains."

The projector in the living roomhe installed it himself.

Just because a movie I wanted to see was pulled from theaters.

When he finished setting it up, his smile was so bright.

"See? Now my Chloe never has to worry about missing a movie again!"

The drawers full of hand creamhe hoarded them for me whenever he traveled for work, just because I loved this specific brand.

Piece by piece, these memories had turned into toxic thorns buried in my heart. Even breathing hurt.

Until I received a text message. The sender was Mia.

Pearl's new trainer.

The text was a photograph.

I immediately recognized it as Pearl's feeding bucket.

The fresh fish had been replaced with a sludgy, rotting meat paste.

Two lines of text accompanied the photo.

[Your whale was pretty tough, surviving on garbage like this for three years before finally dying.]

[She screamed at your picture every single day. Too bad she never got to see you before she went.]

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

A freezing chill seeped into my bones.

My heart felt like it was going to explode with pure, unadulterated rage.

How dare they!

How could they treat my Pearl like that!

Physical pain ripped through my chest.

Unable to withstand the violent surge of emotion, my vision went completely black.

In my coma, I thought I saw Pearl.

She was swimming aimlessly in the tiny, cramped tank.

Then she breached the surface, wailing mournfully at the photo of us taped to the concrete wall.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in a hospital bed.

In just one day, my father seemed to have aged a decade.

Seeing me wake up, the man who had always been a pillar of strength burst into tears.

"Baby, please... can you please stop torturing yourself like this?"

Looking at my father's graying hair, my nose stung.

"Dad, I'm so sorry."

My father held me, his tears soaking my hospital gown.

"Oh, sweetie... it's all my fault. I failed to protect you."

How could it possibly be his fault?

Just like Pearl, he had never done anything wrong.

"Dad. I want to call the police."

My father gently patted my back.

"Okay. Dad will make the call."

At the precinct, I handed my phone with the text message to the detective.

"Officer, please, you have to investigate this thoroughly."

The young detective sitting across from me nodded solemnly.

My eyes flicked to his nametag: Liam Sterling.

What a nice name.

Mia was quickly summoned to the precinct.

When she saw me, her eyes went wide.

"Chloe, how dare you call the cops?"

"Don't forget, your father is a hit-and-run murderer!"