Ryn had always been the girl everyone admired.
She was brilliant, beautiful in a quiet, haunting way, and carried herself with the kind of grace that made others notice her without even trying. A top student. A favorite of the teachers. A natural talent in music and dance. Her life should've been golden.
But it wasn't.
Not with a stepmother who barely looked her in the eyes, and was fake and conniving .Not with a father who seemed to forget she existed unless she made a mistake, and all he cared about was work.
And certainly not with a stepsister like Alina ,who smiled like an angel and lied like the devil, just a little demon in disguise.
Yet, Ryn loved her, and she did too.
Or so she thought.
She truly believed Alina was the only person in the house who cared about her. Alina would brush her hair, give her advice, slip little notes into her locker with silly quotes to cheer her up. She defended Ryn in front of their parents , or at least, pretended to. Took whatever she wanted from Ryn and she let her , even from her deceased mother's vintage bags and dresses. All in all , gave Alina whatever she asked for.
What Ryn didn't know was that Alina had been slowly poisoning the world against her behind her back.
It started small. A rumor about her cheating on a test , completely untrue, but believable because she always scored so high. Then her name got linked to a teacher in a scandalous, fabricated story. Her perfect image began to crack.
Alina's friends , all polished girls with venomous tongues ,took it from there. They twisted every action Ryn made, turning her into a joke, a target. And the worst part? They made it look like they were the victims of her. Even the elite boys Kai , Mori and Noah.
But the mastermind was someone Ryn didn't even realize had her in her sights.
Selene.
Cunning, cold-blooded, and as quiet as a shadow. She wasn't loud or dramatic like the others , she didn't need to be. Selene was the kind of girl who played the long game. Who smiled in your face while cutting your strings behind your back. She wasn't one of Alina's official groupies, but she'd been working behind the scenes from the start.
Why?
Because of Jace.
He'd always been unreachable. Rich, powerful, untouchable. The boy every girl wanted. Selene had known him since childhood, their families often throwing them into the same circles. She believed he was hers. She deserved him.
But Jace didn't want her. His eyes were always following someone else.
Ryn.
Selene saw it in the way his gaze tracked her across the courtyard. How his shoulders tensed when someone got too close to her. How he hovered at a distance, never speaking , just watching. It drove Selene insane. And so she made Ryn a target.
Together , without even realizing the other's full motives , Selene and Alina destroyed her.
It took months. Maybe years. Slowly, they ripped her world apart until she was standing alone in the center of a warzone she didn't understand.
The final blow came after a brutal scandal exploded across the school.
Ryn was accused of sleeping with a teacher to get her grades. There were fake messages, forged pictures, and a recording of a conversation that never happened. The school turned on her. Teachers who once adored her looked at her like filth, with two teachers , making it worse for her . She never understood why. Students mocked her in the halls. Even her old friends abandoned her.
Everyone believed it.
Her classmates. Her teachers. Her father.
Even Jace,whose obsessive gaze had always silently followed her,looked away the day she passed him in the hallway after it spread. And she thought… maybe even he believed it too.
Except for Clara, her very good friend.
She remembered Clara warning her to be careful about Alina when her dad remarried and she came into the family. Clara told her there was something off about Alina, and she hoped she had listened then.
And through it all, Alina was there , holding her while she cried, pretending to comfort her, even while fanning the flames behind the scenes.
When her father found out, he hit her.
Called her a disgrace. Said she was just like her mother , selfish, dirty, manipulative This was new to her cause she didn't expect her father to say that about her mother. Her stepmother said she should be sent away. Alina stayed quiet, eyes glistening with unshed tears, pretending to be heartbroken.
Her father, once warm and protective, seemed distant now,like a stranger.
Ryn left the house two days later and didn't come back.
Everyone assumed she ran away.
What no one knew was that for two entire weeks, she stayed hidden in an abandoned guesthouse behind their old family property , cold, starving, and alone. Her phone was flooded with anonymous messages mocking her. Someone sent pictures of pigs with her name edited over them. She stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Felt depressed and miserable.
She stared at the cracked ceiling every night and wondered what she'd done to deserve it.
The final straw was the message that came with no name attached:
" You should kill yourself,no one wants you here , the only person who did was your mother , and clearly she's not here so why don't you go join her".
The last thing Ryn remembered doing was walking out into the night rain and swallowing everything in the old medicine cabinet she could find.
She didn't expect to wake up.
But someone found her , a stranger , and called an ambulance.
By the time she arrived at the hospital, her heart was already slowing. Her organs were shutting down. Her last moments were filled with bitterness, confusion, and pain.
And she never knew that while her body lay dying, Jace was tearing the city apart trying to find her.
But, he was too late.
By the time he found her…
She was already gone.
When he reached the hospital, her room was empty. Her body had already been taken away. And he screamed , screamed , like the world had ended. No one understood why. No one had ever seen him cry.
But he did that day.
Ryn never saw it. Never heard the truth. Never knew that the boy who never spoke a word to her was the only one who had loved her. The only one who wanted to destroy anyone who hurt her.
She died thinking no one cared.
But before she passed,before her heartbeat finally stopped,Alina visited.
Alina sneered and looked at her on the bed.
With gleam in her eyes and a smile on her face , she whispered, "You always made everything about you. But now, I'll have everything you ever had, your father ,your inheritance,your life, everything?. Even Jace."
What!! ,Jace...
What does this have to do with Jace .
Ryn struggled internally and felt her world crashing,she wanted to speak but felt life slipping away.
Alina told her all the things she did to her, how she was a fool ,how she was stupidly naive and oblivious.
She told her about Selena being the mastermind all along and what they did to her.
And this was all about a boy and social status!!... Really.
All the pain and misery was all due to this nonsense,she thought.
And that was when Ryn truly understood.
Alina was never her sister.
She was the knife in her back all along.
And as her breath stilled, the final thought in her mind was not despair.
It was vengeance.
Vengeance everyone who hurt her would feel if she was given the chance to go back in time.
And as she gave into darkness, there was a hand reaching out to her , hesitant at first but reached to grab the hand, and as she did,everything went dim .
And now... she was reborn, given another chance to life.
Back in that house. Back in that school. Back in the skin of the girl they destroyed.
But this time , they wouldn't win.
Not Alina.
Not Selene.
Not any of them.
Even Jace
Because Ryn wasn't the same girl anymore.
And as for Jace this time around he won't be silent.
He had no intention of letting her go this time.
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So this is a quick backstory on Ryn and her misgivings.
What do y'all think about this chapter.