When She Rose From the Ashes

Chapter 120 The Forgotten Memory

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Her reflection still looked like herself, yet not quite. Most of her features remained, but her contours had been subtly refined. At first glance, she was still Natalic. Look longer, and she had become something else entirely.

Before, Natalie’s beauty had been soft, like a lily–delicate and pure. Now, she was a blazing red rose, sharp–edged, dangerous, breathtaking with a kind of defiant allure.

“Is this really me?”

She raised a trembling hand, fingers brushing her new skin.

Baron’s smile deepened. “It’s you. At sixteen, you were already this dazzling, this untamed.”

Sixteen?

Natalie blinked. She wanted to argue–when had she ever been so bold? But then, unbidden, a memory she had long buried broke the surface.

That year, she had gone abroad for a dance competition. For once, away from home, she dared to try a striking makeup look–fierce, smoldering. The effect was stunning. Too stunning. Strangers stared, whispered, followed. What should have been triumph ended in fear.

She remembered the leers, the mocking laughter, and the accusation that her beauty was an invitation. She had cried, ashamed. In that moment she learned–sometimes, beauty itself was treated as a sin.

After that, she swore off heavy makeup. She wore simplicity like armor, and over time, even the memory blurred.

believed it was hers alone to carry.

Hadn’t he once said

have been then–during that very

of that

pounding after the harassment. She ducked behind a row of trash bins, praying to get back to the

unseen.

1/3

The

And then–she stumbled.

A body.

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ground, blood soaking his chest. His face was smeared, indistinct in the dark, but when she tried to

me,” he rasped–in the local

to death. Her instincts shrieked at her to run, but his grip was iron.

had–her wallet, her phone–and

Here–take this. Call someone. We never saw

at

rolling back against the filthy bricks. Only then did she see the knife, buried deep in

the copper stench, the sight of so much

whispered. “Bandage me, and whether

kidding me!” she hissed,

He was blackmailing her?