They Turned Me Into a Criminal in My First Life—This Time I Fight Back Chapter 09
Detective Burke was the first to pull up the surveillance footage.
The moment he saw it, his eyes widened.
“What the hell?”
Every officer in the room immediately sensed something was wrong and crowded around the monitor.
“Wait… what?”
“That’s not Vivienne Rhodes.”
“That’s Clara Avery!”
“How is this even possible?”
Clara’s face drained of color.
Her breathing turned shallow as panic flashed across her features.
She whipped around toward Ethan.
“I thought you said everything was foolproof!” she cried. “Why did the Glamour Spell fail? Why is it me in the
footage?”
As she spoke, she repeatedly smacked his shoulder in a panic.
“Would you stop freaking out?” Ethan snapped.
Then his own composure shattered.
“If you hadn’t been stupid enough to let her rip out those hair extensions at the scene and break the Taglock,
none of this would’ve happened!”
He shoved Clara hard.
The room fell silent.
Every police officer had heard enough.
Within seconds, both Ethan and Clara were in handcuffs.
Detective Burke turned toward me, disbelief written all over his face.
“How do you know all this supernatural stuff?”
I swallowed before answering.
“Ethan used an outlawed Salem witchcraft ritual called Identity Theft.”
The truth was, in my previous life, I had never been able to understand why the woman in that footage had
been me.
I knew I hadn’t committed the crime.
And yet every piece of evidence showed my face.
For a long time, I even wondered if I’d somehow done it in my sleep.
While I was on death row, I spent everything I had to get a psychiatric evaluation.
The results came back completely normal.
I was sane.
Mentally healthy.
So why had it looked like I committed a crime I couldn’t remember?
Day after day, I protested my innocence.
And every time, the police gave me the same answer.
“Our forensic experts analyzed the footage using the most advanced technology available. There are no
signs of editing, manipulation, or Al-generated face replacement. And the vehicle used to dispose of the body
was covered in your fingerprints and DNA. The steering wheel, the trunk, everything.”
It wasn’t until after my execution, when my soul remained trapped in the mortal world, that I finally learned
the truth.
The entire scheme revolved around the hair extensions Clara wore.
In ancient Western black magic, physical remnants of the body are considered direct conduits to the soul.
Clara and I happened to share what occult practitioners called mirrored birth charts. Our spiritual
frequencies were nearly identical.
In dark magic circles, that made me her Perfect Vessel.
As long as she wore my hair and completed the ritual, every force that recognized identity, from natural law
to surveillance cameras, perceived her as me.
And when the ritual eventually backfired, the reverse became true.
I could restore her true appearance in the physical world.
Everything Ethan knew came from a forbidden grimoire that had been passed down through his family since medieval Europe.
That cursed book had become the perfect weapon.
A tool that allowed monsters like them to evade justice.
But now their game was over.
The truth had finally come out.
The moment Clara realized the spell had failed, she suffered a complete mental breakdown.
She started screaming hysterically before collapsing unconscious on the spot.
Ethan, meanwhile, sat frozen.
His face was ashen.
He never said another word.
When I was officially released and escorted out of the holding area, I glanced at him one last time.
The disgust I felt was no different than looking at a pile of rotting garbage.
“Ethan Caldwell,” I said coldly, “did you really think making deals with darkness came without a price?”
“You don’t have much time left.”
Stealing another person’s fate through forbidden magic came at a cost.
Every ritual consumed the user’s own life force.
And Ethan had crossed the line long ago.
In his obsession with protecting Clara, he had become nothing more than a puppet of the darkness he thought he controlled.
One week later, Detective Burke called me back to the station.
This time, it wasn’t for questioning.
He handed me a medal recognizing me as an Honorary Citizen.
Standing behind him was a well-dressed couple with tears in their eyes.
They were the child’s parents.
“This award was their idea,” Detective Burke explained. “Vivienne, if it weren’t for the information you
provided about those occult rituals, we never would’ve uncovered the international criminal network
connected to this case.”
He smiled.
“You helped save countless families.”
I accepted the medal and posed for photographs alongside the department.
One of those pictures was later displayed prominently in police headquarters.
It earned me the title of Citizen of the Year.
At the same time, Detective Burke shared the final updates.
Clara had been sentenced to death.
And Ethan was already dead.
He had died in prison two days earlier.
Quietly.
Without warning.
The medical examiner couldn’t determine a cause.
A bitter smile tugged at my lips.
“He should’ve died a long time ago.”
After returning home, I resigned from my job.
Before everything fell apart, Ethan had used that forbidden grimoire to win an enormous fortune through
illegal underground gambling operations.
As compensation for what he’d done to me, I pursued civil action and secured a massive settlement.
The trust fund that resulted was large enough to support me for the rest of my life without ever worrying
about money again.
The first thing I did was put our old house on the market.
The second was book a one-way flight.
Alone.
Free.
For the first time in my life, the future belonged entirely to me.
And I intended to see every corner of the country before deciding where I wanted to begin again.