I've Been There Before

His slender fingers touched the scar.

He could feel the unevenness.

It felt like his fingers were burned as he touched it.

“When it comes to a broken body like this, how could you torture her?” Humbert was still on the phone with his half-taunting tone.

But Caden ignored his teasing as his thumb caressed the scar. Suddenly, he did something so strange to her that he covered it with his palm.

Staring at his palm, he didn’t know what he was doing.

Hearing no voice, Humbert thought Caden had hung up on him.

But he didn’t end the call as he picked up a cigarette and lit it to savor the taste of Nicotine, while Caden said unassumingly, “It’s longer than my palm.”

“What?” Humbert paused a beat before figuring it out. “You mean Grace’s scar on her waist?” Humbert understood him as they had been best friends for so long.

“Even longer than your hand?” Humbert sucked up hard on his cigarette before bubbling a smokey circle.

“Which implies her surgeon was really inexperienced, so terrible that…

Well, when I was in the medical college, our teacher let us remove the human specimen’s kidneys for the first time, but we made the scar much smaller than Grace’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means, perhaps…No, it’s certain that her surgeon doesn’t have a medical certificate. You know, people like street surgeons.”

surgeon, surgeons without medical

her scar to me,” Humbert

can tell me information you didn’t discover. Don’t

“Send me the

he’d persuade Caden, who was too cold and arrogant to understand others, except

for Wallis as he, actually, captured her in the

blame as it’s hard for people like them to care for a woman. They were apt to

picture as he was

arm on

hurts. “Wait up, what

a message as he asked. “Well…”

a “true” scar—a nasty

he think it implied Caden was unwilling to

confirm it as he studied

enough?” Caden asked annoyingly, and

“What?”

sure it’s a street surgeon’s work as the bitch didn’t needle the scar properly, not to mention triple mistakes. I

picture Humbert’s words in his mind where a twisting woman was

heck was

answer in your mind.” Humbert cut him off. “You can’t blame them as it’s your bad attitude and indifference that made her life a living hell

not reminding you that what Grace had suffered was more

know about her when she was the daughter of family James, and you couldn’t know her

Humbert was shocked by his own words. It occurred to him the reason why Grace, a confident and lively girl, would turn