Chapter 1

I was tricked into working at Hook-Up Club in Thesbia along with my best friend, Tanya Sutton. It was a place where any man who paid three thousand dollars could rent us as his partner for a day. I was already the star of the establishment when the police showed up with the Sutton family. They walked in on me straddling a wealthy businessman while counting cash. Tanya, on the other hand, was lying in the basement, heavily pregnant and in a vegetative state. In the end, the Suttons offered a five-million-dollar bounty in a desperate move to track down the figure responsible for trafficking us into Thesbia. I chose to say nothing, despite holding the key to the entire mystery and being the only one who truly knew the answer. I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep when Jasmine Cole, Tanya's mother, kneeled before me, tears streaming down her face as she implored me to tell her the truth. I even refused to cooperate or make any statements when the police interrogated me numerous times. In a fit of rage, my boyfriend, Timothy Sutton—Tanya's older brother—threw me onto the Memory Judgment Seat and yelled, "How can you allow the trafficker to walk free when Tanya is lying in the hospital bed, suffering a fate worse than death? "I feel utterly disgusted knowing that I once loved someone like you! I'll activate this memory extractor now to send both you and the trafficker straight to hell, Miranda Lund!" Yet the moment the full truth was laid bare, Timothy was struck dumb and fell to his knees. … Timothy set the stage for my public judgment in the stadium of Javelina University. That place had once held sentimental value from our youth—it was where Tanya and I had attended university and where Timothy and I first laid eyes on each other. That massive stadium, built to seat ten thousand people, was filled with every single seat occupied. Timothy had invited every single person I had ever interacted with, ranging from immediate family, friends, and teachers, as well as acquaintances like the delivery driver and the owner of the local fast-food establishment. I put my hands over my face, desperate to escape, but Timothy firmly restrained me to the chair, making it impossible for me to move. He seized my neck, his eyes that once held pure devotion now brimming with pure hatred. "Do you still have a shred of decency, Miranda? I'll only ask this one last time! Who was the one who trafficked Tanya?" I struggled, my face flushing deep red from his grip and nearly passing out a couple of times from the pressure. I still held firm to my resolve, though, and remained completely silent throughout. In the next instant, the Suttons launched themselves at me, assailing me with a flurry of punches and kicks. "You heartless monster! How could you just stand by and watch the human trafficker get away with it when Tanya and Timothy treated you so well?" "Miranda is clearly inherently vile! She must have fallen in love with that kind of place. That must be why she refused to expose the perpetrators!" They then tore my clothes off, captured humiliating photographs of me, and displayed them on the large screen. "You should just let everyone see how shameless you are, you despicable woman!" Timothy towered over me, pressing the thick needle into the back of my head, his eyes gleaming with malice. "You ought to know that the memory extractor will inflict brain damage equivalent to a nuclear blast, Miranda. You'll experience agony beyond imagination—20 times the pain of childbirth. "Your shameful memories will also be laid bare before everyone who knows you. You only have one last chance to save yourself, Miranda." My eyes immediately widened in pure horror as I thought of my vile and degrading past, my body trembling subconsciously. "Y-You can't look at that! You'll definitely regret it, Timothy!" Timothy's gaze wavered for a split second, a hint of doubt surfacing. He caught sight of Jasmine, whose hair had turned white overnight from all the distress. When he turned back to me, only profound loathing remained in his gaze. "You think I'm going to regret it? I only regret saving you from that hellhole! You should have stayed there, peddling your body forever!" In the next instant, the needle punctured my scalp and drove deep into my brain. I felt a blinding, skull-shattering agony ripping through me, instantly driving me into unconsciousness. I couldn't even articulate a plea, releasing only a primal, dreadful scream. In the meantime, the crowd in the stadium erupted into a fierce display of collective outrage after seeing my miserable state. "That woman got what was coming to her! Such a terrible friend should face the most severe punishment!" It was then that the large screen initiated a playback of my memories, and the first sequence of my past was unveiled before all the spectators.