Chapter 2

Ericka POV

The doctor held the X-ray up to the fluorescent light, his expression grim, but Caleb was already checking his Rolex, his patience thinning with every second.

"Broken ribs," Dr. Evans murmured, clipping the film into place. "Two of them. Fractures consistent with... blunt force trauma."

I sat on the edge of the examination table, cradling my side. Every breath felt like a jagged shard of glass twisting between my bones.

"She fell," Caleb said flatly.

He stood by the window, refusing to look at me. His thumbs flew across his phone screen. Texting her. Always her.

"I didn't fall," I whispered, my voice thin and brittle. "You pushed me."

Caleb looked up then. His eyes were cold, void of even a flicker of empathy. "You threw yourself against the car to make a scene. Don't rewrite history, Ericka. It's pathetic."

Dr. Evans cleared his throat. He looked terrified. In our circle, physicians who asked too many questions tended to vanish.

"There is... something else," Dr. Evans stammered.

He swapped the film for another scan. It looked like a storm of grey static blooming in the center of a clear sky.

"The systemic stress from the marrow transplant, followed by the coma, and the... severe malnutrition from her weeks in isolation," the doctor said, his voice dropping. "Her immune defenses have completely collapsed. These shadows... they are masses in the pulmonary tissue."

The room went dead silent.

The air conditioner hummed, a dull roar in my ears.

I stared at the grey blobs on the film.

Cancer.

"It's aggressive," Dr. Evans said softly. "Stage four."

I felt a strange, cold numbness wash over me. Not fear. Just a hollow confirmation that the universe was finally done with me.

"Bullshit," a voice cracked through the silence like a whip.

Fitzgerald walked in. My brother. The Heir.

He looked radiant. Strong. His skin was flushed with the very life my blood had bought him.

"Fitz," I breathed.

He didn't look at me. He glared at the doctor.

"Hailie warned us about this," Fitzgerald sneered, stepping further into the room. "She said Ericka would feign a terminal illness to get out of the safe house. To crawl back into the Estate."

"This isn't feigned, Mr. Reid," Dr. Evans said, his hands trembling as he gestured to the light board. "These are medical scans. You can see the tumors."

"Faked," Caleb said, slipping his phone into his pocket. "She has access to your systems, Evans? Did she bribe you? Or threaten you?"

"No! Sir, please, look at her! She is wasting away!"

They looked.

But they didn't see a dying woman. They saw a manipulator. A rat.

"Hailie just called," Caleb said, turning to Fitzgerald. "She's locked in the master bathroom at the Estate. She says she heard glass breaking. She thinks it's Ericka's old loyalists trying to get in."

Fitzgerald's face went pale. "We need to go. Now."

"What about the diagnosis?" Dr. Evans asked, frantically holding out a prescription pad. "She needs immediate oncology support-"

"Give her some Tylenol," Caleb cut in, his voice icy. "And get her back to the Marsh. If she wants to play sick, she can do it alone."

He strode over to me.

I flinched, shrinking back against the paper-covered table.

He seized my chin, forcing me to look up at him. His fingers dug into my jaw, bruising the delicate skin.

"If you think dying will make me forgive you for what you did to this family," he whispered, his breath hot against my face, "you don't know me at all."

He released me with a shove.

They left.

I watched my brother and my fiancé walk out the door, rushing to save a woman who was in no danger, leaving me to face a death sentence in silence.

*

I was discharged an hour later.

The guards drove me back to the Marsh-the isolated safe house that had become my prison.

When I walked inside, the maid, a woman fiercely loyal to Hailie, was waiting in the foyer.

"Mr. Skinner gave orders," she said, her face a mask of stone.

"What orders?" I asked, clutching my aching side.

"He said you're contaminated. Said you need to be cleaned before you're allowed in the main quarters."

She pointed a bony finger toward the downstairs bathroom.

The tub was already filled. The water was steaming, fogging the mirrors. The air was thick with the acrid sting of bleach and industrial cleaner.

"Get in," she commanded.

"It's too hot," I whispered, looking at the rising steam. "And the chemicals... my skin is too sensitive..."

"Get. In."

I stripped, my hands shaking. My body was a grotesque map of scars and protruding bones, a testament to everything they had taken from me.

I stepped into the water.

It scalded.

I screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the tiled walls.

I sat there, the bleach stinging my eyes and burning my throat, scrubbing my skin raw until the water turned pink. I tried to scour away the sins they said I committed.

But as the skin peeled away, I realized the only thing I was washing down the drain was the last, foolish hope that they would ever see me as human again.