Rain pounded the roof of the old Harper family house like angry fists, much like the storm inside. Little Bella was only eight; she sat scrunched up in her corner with her skinny arms round her knees. Her dark eyes wide with terror dashed between the screaming adults. Uncle Hank pounded his fist on the table, crimson as fire.
“She’s no burden! You thought you could pawn her off like some old toy?” Here, Aunt Mary laughed, her voice sounding as sharp as a knife. “We need the money! That girl is a trouble-maker—always ill, always crying. And with what her mother laid on us…” The words were weighted, and Bella’s heart broke in two. She wasn’t any of their blood, just a fragment left in the wake of an even more hated woman.
Bella’s mom had passed away years before, or so they claimed. There were whispers of a car crash, but Bella recalled the bruises and the shrieks. She had been taken in by the Harpers, but it was no kindness. They starved her and made her scrub floors until her hands bled, and now… this.
A scheme to deliver her to strangers in exchange for money. “She’s different,” Uncle Hank snarled, but even he turned his back. Bella gnawed on her lip, a strange sweat breaking out on her palms. Sometimes it was so—a glow, a touch that softened pains. Once, she’d set a bird’s broken wing in the yard. But now it was a curse, inviting their greedy eyes.
The next day, the world blew up. The invitations arrived for the grand Pierce family feast—old money and silk gowns and secrets buried deeper than the grave. Bella’s mother had been a Pierce, disowned for loving “below her station.” The Harpers pulled along Bella, who, half-stripped, served as a token, to do what begging they could.
The ballroom sparkled like stars dropped to earth, chandeliers dripping light on faces stiffened by pride. The first one to see her was Mr. Pierce, the silver-haired patriarch of the group. “That girl… the girl with eyes like my daughter’s. Whispers spread like wildfire.
Cousins hovered, some kind, some cruel. “Hey, street rat,” one boy taunted and shoved Bella into a table. She fell, scraping her knee bloody. Agony flared, but so did the warmth. Her hand began to glow dimly, and the cut closed miraculously. Gasps rippled. “What is she?” a girl whispered.
Chaos erupted. Aunt Mary dragged Bella back, hissing, “Hush! Stupid!” But Mr. Pierce thundered forward. “Who is she? Speak!” Greg Foster, Bella’s so-called father, coughed—the lying dog who’d stolen her mother for selfish purposes leaned forward, nervously sweating. “Just a distant kin, sir.
Nothing special.” Lies cracked like thunder. Uncle Hank exploded in, his face contorted. “Liar! You murdered her mother—forgot, while you didn’t kill me! And now selling the child for coin?” Charges were hurled—Greg’s deception and the conspiracy to sell Bella to creatures of darkness in the first whispered breaths of night.
The Pierces bellowed outrage, with guards taking the Harpers. Bella shivered, though Mr. Pierce’s hand on her shoulder was soft. “Child, you’re one of us. Healer blood runs true.”
For the next several days, tensions boiled over. Some bullies from the Harper side slipped in and backed Bella into a part of the gardens. “Fake! Go back to the gutter!” They pinned her to the ground, rocks tearing at her skin. But the glow surged—her touch repaired a boy’s twisted ankle in the midst of battle.
Suspicion turned to awe. “She’s the missing Pierce heir,” rumors rumbled. Greg confessed in snarls, cornered in a raging hall. “I used her mom—robbed her dowry, let her wither. The girl? Worth more sold than kept.” The Pierces’ fury was a tsunami—lawsuits, arrests, and the Harper empire disintegrating like ancient dry soil.
But darkness lingered. Susan Yates, a ghost from the past, pierces me with poison eyes. Envious of the Pierces’ privilege, she had engineered the crash that ended Bella’s mom—vengeance for a looted love. Now, as the ringleader of a gang of traffickers, she pounced.
Bella is one of a few dozen child survivors in the United Kingdom from across the 44-year insurrection. For an article by William Booth and Karla Adam, civil wars have led to fears of civil unrest: if it had been alive on both sides, civilians would look forward to a future whose foundations go back generations. Three masked men snatched Bella one foggy night, along with just five other terrified children huddled near the edge of the estate’s area, bundling them into a plain old van that smelled of kidnappers’ fear.
“Shut up, QQ,” Susan hissed, hate written on her face. The children clustered—two boys and a girl in braids—like caged birds. Bella’s heart raced, the van bouncing over dark roads to a secret warehouse, chains clinking like death’s bells.
Surveying them, with a glint off the knife, Susan stood throughout that chill room with a vengeful smile on her lips. “The Pierces took everything. Now I take their treasure.” She snatched a boy with the blade against his throat. It was Bella’s fear that lit the glow—stronger than she’d ever felt it.
“Stop!” she cried, lunging. Her tiny hands lay upon Susan’s arm; warmth poured on, and the old scar did not give pain. Susan recoiled, stunned. “What are you?” Chaos swirled—kids screaming, guards rushing. Bella put a finger to her lips and hissed at the others, “Follow me.
Clever as a fox, she found a way out through a vent that was not nailed down, pressing her hand to numb a guard’s hand, allowing him to drop keys. They crawled to freedom, hearts racing, into the night.
Sirens blared as Pierces and cops converged. But the biggest storm landed at the estate itself. Grandpa Pierce, his heart aswoon in the melee, fell gasping. Bella flung the doors open, shining like a torch. “Grandpa!” Her hands on his chest, there had been light—the beating back of the shadows of death.
He gasped awake, eyes clear. “My little healer… my blood.” Tears flowed. Bella’s long-lost father, Ethan Chase, missing since the plane went down and drowning in his own guilt, knelt next to her. “I failed you both. But no more.” Reconciliation spread like morning, his arms crushing her. Susan’s gang was dismantled—arrests, confessions, and her revenge turned to dust.
Months later, and under a sky painted with fireworks, Bella’s birthday glittered. The Pierce gardens overflowed with lanterns, tables creaking beneath cakes and candy. The cousins laughed, no longer bullies but friends. Uncle Hank, saved in bonds of truth, looked on from a distance and nodded.
Ethan picked her up and held her aloft. “Heiress of two families—Pierce, Chase.” Mr. Pierce beamed, “Our light.” Bella spun silk into a soft-glowing dress. Gutter’s edge to the family’s heart, she’d battled shadows with a hint of grace.
After the cheers went silent, Bella murmured to the stars, “I found my home.” The legend murmured forth: in the treachery gale, fortitude gleams brightest. Wealth’s towers might fall, but the spirit of a healer? It repaired worlds, with one courageous heart at a time. And for Bella, life stretched out in front of her, endless and free, wild and forever loved.
