Chapter 4

Bethany cornered me in the ladies' room, her eyes blazing with triumph. "You really thought you could win him, didn't you, Emmy?"

Her words, sharp and laced with disdain, barely registered. My heart was numb, impervious to her venom.

My quiet indifference only fueled her rage. She stepped closer, her face contorted.

"You disgust me," she snarled, then lunged. She shoved me towards the ornate marble staircase, her intention clear.

I grabbed desperately for the banister, my fingers scrabbling against the cold metal. My body, still weak, screamed in protest.

She laughed, a high-pitched, manic sound, and began prying my fingers loose, one by one. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

"Emmy! Bethany!" Hudson's voice echoed through the hall.

Her eyes widened, a sudden shift in her demeanor. Her face instantly crumpled into a mask of terror.

She let go of my hand and deliberately stumbled, tumbling down the stairs, a perfectly orchestrated fall.

"Bethany!" Hudson roared, his face contorted with panic. He rushed past me, not even a glance, his entire focus on her.

The force of his passing sent me spinning, my already precarious balance lost. I crashed to the ground, my head hitting the hard tile with a sickening thud.

"Hudson!" I tried to cry out, but my voice was lost in the ringing in my ears. He didn't hear me. He didn't care.

Darkness enveloped me once more.

I woke in another hospital bed, the sterile white ceiling a familiar enemy. The room was empty. Again.

Days blurred into a week. He finally appeared, his face grim, accusatory.

"You pushed her, Emmy," he stated, his voice cold and flat. "She lost the baby because of you."

My blood ran cold. The sheer injustice of it, the twisted lie. A wave of fury surged through me, but I swallowed it down. Soon. Soon I would be free.

He softened his tone, a practiced performance. "We need to put this behind us, Emmy."

Behind us? The pain, the betrayal, the torture?

"Do I have a choice?," I asked, my voice flat, devoid of emotion.

He didn't leave. He hesitated, then took my hand, his touch sending a shiver of revulsion through me.

"My mother has... a request," he said, his voice hesitant. "She wants Bethany to carry on the family line."

My mind reeled. Carry on... how? She had lost the baby.

A sick dread coiled in my stomach. What horrors would they conjure now?

My face must have been blank, devoid of reaction. He mistook it for acceptance.

"It's just... a formality," he explained, his voice almost gentle. "You don't have to be involved."

Then he spoke the words that would haunt my nightmares. "Bethany suggested... we use your frozen embryos."

A scream tore through me, silent but piercing. My embryos. My unborn children.

Pure, visceral terror gripped me. They wanted to steal my very essence.

"No!" I shrieked, tears blurring my vision. "You can't! She crippled me! She tried to kill me!"

The image of her scalpel, the agony, flashed before my eyes. I wanted to vomit.

I thrashed against the restraints on my bed, a desperate, futile struggle.

He picked up a syringe from the bedside table. "It won't hurt, Emmy. I promise."

I fought, clawing and biting, but he was too strong. The needle plunged into my arm.

The drug should have made me sleep. It should have dulled the pain.

Instead, my mind sharpened. The world became hyper-real, every sensation amplified.

I felt the cold stirrups against my legs, the bright lights above, the chilling instruments. The pain was not dulled; it was magnified a hundredfold. A searing, tearing agony unlike anything I had ever known.

Every cut, every pull, every invasion was a white-hot knife. I screamed until my throat was raw, my body convulsing. I passed out, only to be jolted awake by a splash of icy water.

"Bethany wants you awake for this," a nurse whispered, her eyes devoid of sympathy. "She wants you to feel every second."

Then the door to the operating room burst open. Hudson.

"What's going on here?" he demanded, his voice laced with concern.