Chapter 13: The Price of Pride
Bella de Silva’s world collapsed… one branded handbag at a time.
Gone were the black-tinted SUVs. The designer shoes. The after-school mall detours and salon appointments. Her father, once a key figure in the business district, was now dodging reporters and angry investors. Their family’s name? Ruined.
The final blow came on a Tuesday morning.
“You can’t attend classes until your tuition is cleared, Miss de Silva.”
Bella had never heard her name spoken with such indifference. Her cheeks burned, pride shattered, as students watched her gather her things and walk out of the classroom—not in triumph, but in defeat.
That afternoon, she saw Ysa by the school garden—kneeling, hands trembling over an open book, candles lit discreetly behind a wall of shrubs.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bella asked, arms crossed.
Ysa froze. But she didn’t lie.
“I’m trying to reverse it… the curse.”
Bella blinked. Curse?
“You cursed me?” Her voice cracked. “You—you did this to us?”
Ysa shook her head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t even know I had powers. It slipped… but I’ve been trying to make it right ever since.”
For the first time, Bella didn’t snap. She didn’t scream.
She just… stared. The girl she tormented, humiliated, tried to help her? It didn’t make sense.
So she followed Ysa after school. Watched her stop by an old herbal shop. Watched her speak to a hunched woman with milky eyes and crimson beads. Watched her cry when the woman said:
“Magic that strikes from pain feeds on pain. It must take what it gave.”
Bella returned home and told Margaret, Gweneth, and Tricia everything.
“She cursed us,” she whispered, “but… she’s trying to undo it.”
That night, Bella couldn’t sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, wondering what else was left to lose.
Then—a scream.
Her father had collapsed downstairs. Her mother, shaking, called for an ambulance.
By sunrise, her world turned completely upside down:
Her father was in a coma. Her mother was gone—vanished. No note, no trace. Just an empty chair and a withered bouquet of roses on the table.
Bella fell to her knees.
She didn’t know what was worse—being broken by someone else’s mistake… or realizing you may have deserved it.
But deep in her heart, something darker began to bloom.
If Ysa started all this… then maybe, just maybe—
She had to end her.
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