Chapter 120

‘I always wondered why my parents hated me so much. It wouldn’t have stung so badly if they were awful to everyone, but no, Franklin doted on Preston, his brother’s kid. Caroline smothered Catherine, and after Catherine left, she started lavishing all her affection on Serenna. Her niece. Not me.’ I smiled bitterly. ‘For a while in middle school, I actually wondered if I wasn’t their child. Maybe I was adopted. Like in those old telly dramas.’ Ashton nodded silently. ‘But Jace told me something that finally made it make sense. I wasn’t the swapped baby; Catherine was. Caroline didn’t know she’d given birth to a stillborn. She didn’t know Catherine wasn’t hers. But… maybe on some level, she sensed it. A few years later, she started having nightmares—babies crying, babies turning into monsters. Coincidentally, the dreams started after I was born.’ I stood up and started pacing, unable to keep still. ‘And I think she looked at me and felt it. Knew it, somehow. That I wasn’t hers. She must’