Chapter 2

With my healing gone, my body became a canvas of his escalating cruelty. I had days, maybe weeks, left. The abuse intensified. Ethan' s crew, a pack of rough, cruel men, were now allowed to see me. They would taunt me, their laughter echoing in my small room.

One afternoon, they dragged me out to the main hall where Nikki's grotesque art piece was being finished. A few small sections were still empty.

"Nikki needs more," Ethan said, his voice flat and bored. "And you're not healing fast enough for the specialist."

He handed me a small, sharp blade. "Do it yourself."

I refused. One of the crewmen grabbed my arm, forcing the blade into my hand and pressing it against my own skin. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pain was sharp and immediate. I bled. The blood, no longer regenerating quickly, pooled on the polished floor.

Ethan looked at the mess with disgust. "Look at that. You're getting blood all over the place. You'll upset Nikki."

He gestured to his men. "Get her out of here."

They threw me back into my room. Later, a housekeeper came in. She was a stern, older woman who looked at me with pure contempt. She slopped a bucket of water onto the floor, and the chemical-laced liquid splashed onto my open, bleeding wounds. The burning was a fresh, searing agony. I cried out, unable to stop myself.

Ethan appeared in the doorway, drawn by the noise. He saw the new blood weeping from the wounds.

"Still trying to get attention," he sneered, looking at me with disdain. "Trying to disgust Nikki with your filth."

He didn't listen to my choked explanations. He had his men drag me outside, across the manicured lawn to a small, corrugated metal shed at the edge of the property. They threw me inside and locked the door.

Minutes later, I smelled smoke. Acrid, black smoke. I crawled to a crack in the door and peered out. They had surrounded the shed with old tires and set them on fire. A wall of fire and choking smoke. He knew our people, the Silvans, had a deep, instinctual fear of fire. It was the one thing that could destroy our forests, our very essence.

The heat was intense, the air thick and unbreathable. I huddled in the center of the shed, my lungs burning, my mind reeling from the terror.

Then, through the haze of smoke, I saw them drag someone toward the fire. It was Luis Chavez, my childhood friend, a fellow Silvan. His face was bruised and bloodied, but his eyes were defiant. They had captured him during one of their forest clearing sweeps.

Ethan walked up to him, holding the same kind of surgical kit he'd used on me.

"Watch closely, Gabi," Ethan yelled, his voice carrying over the crackle of the flames. "This is what happens to those who hide things from me."

He cut into Luis right there, in front of me. He removed his gland, holding it up like a trophy before throwing Luis' s struggling body into the fire. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the smoke from the tires. I screamed until my throat was raw, a long, wordless sound of absolute horror.

The final blow came a few days later. I was weak, barely conscious, lying on the floor of my room. The door opened and Nikki walked in, carrying a bowl of steaming stew. She knelt beside me, a sickly sweet smile on her face.

"You must be hungry," she said. "Ethan worries you're not eating."

She held a spoonful to my lips. I was too weak to resist. The stew was rich, gamey. I swallowed a few mouthfuls before the taste registered, a horrifying familiarity.

Nikki watched me, her eyes gleaming. "You like it? It's a special recipe. I used your little sister, Maria. She was so tender. Looked a lot like you, you know."

Something inside me snapped. The grief, the rage, the year of unending torture-it all erupted. I launched myself at her, my nails clawing for her face. I was a whirlwind of pure, primal hatred.

But I was weak. Ethan burst into the room and pulled me off her, throwing me against the wall. My head hit the concrete with a sickening crack.

"She tried to kill me, Ethan!" Nikki shrieked, clutching her throat dramatically.

I lay on the floor, blood pouring from the gash on my head. I looked up at him, the man I once loved, the man who had systematically destroyed me and everyone I cared about. All the love, all the hope, all the desperate justifications were gone.

"I hate you," I whispered, the words tasting like blood and ash. "I hate you."

For the first time, a flicker of something other than anger crossed his face. Panic. He saw the amount of blood pooling around my head, saw that the wound wasn't closing, wasn't even trying to heal.

"Your healing..." he started, his voice uncertain.

Just then, Nikki let out a choked gasp and collapsed, clutching her stomach. "The stew... she poisoned me!"

Ethan's face hardened instantly. His brief moment of concern for me vanished. He scooped Nikki into his arms, his face a mask of fury directed at me.

"You will rot in hell for this," he snarled.

He carried Nikki out, leaving me to bleed out on the floor. He locked me in a dark, damp cellar beneath the house. As my life faded, I heard him upstairs, his voice soft and soothing as he tended to Nikki. Then, I heard him ask her to marry him.

My soul began to detach from my body, a strange, floating sensation. The pain was fading. The darkness was welcoming.

Suddenly, the cellar door burst open. It was my brother, Andrew. His face was a mask of grief and fury. He must have felt my life force extinguish, the final severing of my connection to our people.

He stormed past my empty shell and up the stairs. I heard him confront Ethan.

"Where is she?" Andrew roared.

"Get out of my house," Ethan said, his voice dismissive.

"You fool!" Andrew's voice was raw with pain. "That 'betrayal' five years ago? We did it to save you! Nikki's corporation poisoned you. The river was the only way to slow it down until we could make an antidote. Gabi gave up everything for you!"

A heavy silence.

Then, Ethan's footsteps, frantic, running back down to the cellar. He found my body, lifeless and cold.

"What's wrong with her? Why isn't she healing?" he asked, his voice cracking with a dawning horror.

"You took her gland, you monster," Andrew spat. "You took her life force. It was her heart, Ethan. And you gave it to the real villain."

Ethan fell to his knees, his face shattering with disbelief and grief. He tried to revive me, injecting me with experimental corporate drugs, but it was useless. I was gone.

The final truth came out when Ethan caught Nikki trying to drag my body to the incinerator. He confronted her, and she confessed everything. She poisoned him. She staged his "rescue" to make herself the hero. She manipulated him into destroying me, my family, and my people, all so she could have him and the forest's resources.

In a final fit of rage and madness, she doused my body in accelerant and threw a lit match.

"If I can't have you without her ghost, then no one can!" she screamed.

Ethan screamed, a raw, animal sound of pure agony, as he watched the flames consume what was left of me.

Andrew took my ashes to be buried in the Heartwood.

Months later, Andrew received a package. Inside was a small box of ashes, and a vial containing the antidote Gabi died to create. A note was attached, in Ethan's handwriting.

"My only wish is to be buried with her."

The news reported that the reclusive corporate head, Ethan Scott, had lured his fiancée, Nikki Lester, and the entire corporate board to his remote mansion for a celebration. He then set the mansion on fire, burning himself alive along with all of his and Gabi's enemies.