Chapter 3 The Betrayal

Evelyn's eyelids fluttered open like weary curtains at the end of a long, silent performance. The sharp white light above her buzzed faintly, washing the room in a sterile glow. The steady beep of the heart monitor echoed like a clock ticking down to something inevitable.

At first, the world was a blur, vague shapes swimming through the fog. Then, the shapes became men. Two of them. Standing on either side of her bed like twin sentinels guarding different truths.

On her right: Malik. The man who once made her feel seen and in her most fragile moments, safe. His face was warm, framed in worry and relief, his fingers already wrapping gently around her own.

"I'm here, love," he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. "You scared me half to death."

His voice was soothing, velvet-smooth. Too smooth. Like a script he'd rehearsed in the mirror before stepping into the room.

To her left: Zarien. The man who had once confused her heart, complicated it, and unsettled it. But now his eyes held no confusion. Only distance. He stood tall, composed, unreadable.

"Zarien?" she rasped, her throat dry and voice like paper.

He nodded once, a quiet dip of the head that gave her nothing and everything all at once.

"You're awake," he said, his tone low and even. "That's what matters."

Then he stepped back. Just slightly. But it was enough. Enough to let her feel the space he was carving between them. A boundary. A wall. A goodbye.

Beyond the quiet hum of Evelyn's hospital room, the hallway felt colder. Still.

A pair of voices echoed just outside the partially closed door - low, urgent, laced with something sharp beneath the surface.

Malik's voice came first. Calm, clipped.

"She should've been gone by now."

Cathy responded, her tone tighter, coiled like a wire pulled too far.

"We gave her enough. That injection should've shut down her kidneys slowly. Quietly. Like you said."

Malik exhaled - not with relief, but with irritation.

"She woke up. That's not supposed to happen after that much. What did you give her exactly?"

"The same thing we tested. The dosage wasn't off." A pause. "Maybe her system's stronger than we thought."

Silence.

Then Malik's voice, quieter now, venom dressed in silk.

"If she remembers anything... even a fragment... It's over. For both of us."

Cathy's heels clicked once on the linoleum floor.

"She won't. And if she does,"

A pause.

"We finish it."

Another silence.

Then the sound of the door closing, light and deliberate.

Evelyn's eyes were closed, her breath steady.

But a single tear slid down her temple, not from pain...

...but from knowing.

He didn't move.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't even blink.

The moment the voices outside her room faded into the hallway, Evelyn opened her eyes - just a sliver. Just enough.

She stared at the ceiling. Blank, pale, and blinding.

They had tried to kill her.

She didn't know how much of it she'd imagined in her fevered haze, but the words were clear. Injection. Dosage. Finish it.

The betrayal burned hotter than the IV dripping into her veins.

Cathy, her friend.

Malik, her lover.

They weren't saving her.

They were waiting for her to die.

But she wasn't going to give them that.

Not yet.

Three days later, Evelyn was discharged with a fragile smile and a bouquet of pale pink roses Cathy had brought, lilies tucked between them.

Funeral flowers, Evelyn thought bitterly.

Malik wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked to the car.

"You'll feel better out of this place," he said. "Fresh air will do you good."

Evelyn nodded, her body stiff under his touch.

"Maybe."

They drove to the cabin he had rented - secluded, serene, everything a dying woman might dream of.

It started two nights later.

A soft pain bloomed in her lower back. Then came the fatigue. The bruises that darkened too quickly. Her lips grew pale. Her appetite vanished.

By the end of the week, Evelyn could barely stand without the world tilting.

At the local clinic, the doctor examined her with quiet alarm.

Her red blood cell count had crashed.

"You're severely anaemic," he said gently. "We'll need to arrange a transfusion immediately. Do you have a history of kidney issues?"

"No," she whispered.

But now she did.

She was dying.

And she knew why.

The transfusion was done in a dimly lit side room. Evelyn watched the blood drip through the tube like a clock slowly bleeding her time away.

She clutched her journal to her chest. The one they didn't know she had.

Inside it: every detail. Every whisper. Every suspicion. Every name.

She wasn't going to survive. Not like this.

But if she died, she wouldn't die silent.

Malik kissed her cheek that night.

"You look tired," he said.

Evelyn smiled faintly.

"Dying takes a lot out of you."

After Malik left the hospital that morning, Evelyn sat alone on the hospital bed, her back against the pillows, her hands curled tightly around the thin blanket pooled at her lap. The silence around her was oppressive, broken only by the quiet wheeze of the IV pump. Her body ached. Her blood felt heavier in her veins.

She didn't cry.

She just stared ahead, numb, calculating her final movements like a woman watching the clock on her execution.

I want to die on my terms, she thought. In my own space. Not here. Not like this.

She rose slowly, the IV already removed, her gown loose against her frail frame. She checked herself out, declined the wheelchair, and walked out of the hospital wearing her pale-blue gown and a pair of too-big slippers. Her pride was the only thing holding her upright.

Outside, the sky was dim with late afternoon light. She hailed a cab.

The driver, a man in his forties with tired eyes, looked surprised to see her dressed that way.

"You alright, ma'am?" he asked gently, stepping out to help her into the back seat.

She nodded. "Just take me home."

The ride was quiet.

She rested her head against the cool glass, watching the trees blur past. Her chest felt tight, not from illness, but from something heavier. Something growing. Something she couldn't name yet.

When the car pulled up to her apartment, she paid him in cash, murmured a quiet thanks, and stepped onto the walkway.

Her front door came into view.

She froze.

There, beside the doormat, were two shoes.

A large, familiar black shoe.

And beside it, a pair of red stiletto heels, the kind Cathy wore when she wanted attention. The same ones Evelyn had once complimented, not knowing how far they'd walk into her life.

Her heart didn't race. It sank.

She unlocked the door slowly. Her fingers trembled, not with illness, but rage.

The inside smelled of lavender and something more pungent, sweat, perfume, heat. The apartment was dim. Curtains drawn.

She didn't speak. Just walked. Quiet. Dead quiet.

Down the hall.

To the bedroom.

The door was half open.

She pushed it fully - no force, just enough.

And there they were.

Malik and Cathy.

Tangled in sweat-damp sheets. His body on top of hers.

Her arms were around his neck, fingers dragging through his hair.

Their lips crushed together like they didn't even care the door was open.

Time froze.

Evelyn stood still, her body failing, but her heart breaking harder. Her hospital gown shifted in the breeze from the hallway fan. She felt like a ghost watching her own life burn down.

She didn't scream.

She didn't faint.

She simply watched, as if her soul had left her body and was looking in from somewhere else. Every word they'd ever said. Every touch. Every lie. It all replayed in her head, crashing into this one image.

They didn't notice her at first.

But Cathy - Cathy, with her lipstick smeared and her breath heaving - opened her eyes mid-moan and saw Evelyn standing there.

She gasped. "Evelyn...!"

Malik turned.

And in that moment, Evelyn smiled.

A quiet, haunting smile that meant I see you now.

All of you.

She didn't speak. She didn't give them the satisfaction.

She turned. Walked out. Slowly. Proudly.

And behind her, the silence she left was louder than any scream.

Cathy threw on a silk robe, still flushed from betrayal and guilt, her hair tousled, lipstick half-faded. She heard the front door click open again - Evelyn, storming back in.

Panicked, Cathy rushed to meet her in the corridor. "Wait-Evelyn, please don't go like this. Just-just listen-"

But Evelyn spun, her voice rising like a blade through glass.

"How dare you bring me back here into your fornication?!"

Her chest rose and fell in jagged breaths. Her hospital gown clung to her frame, stained with the weight of illness and fury.

"I came home to rest. To breathe. And this-this-this is what you were doing?" she spat, tears clinging to her lashes but never falling. "You knew what I was going through, Cathy."

Cathy stepped forward. But this time, there was no mask.

No apology.

No guilt.

Only fire.

Her lips curled into something between a smirk and a snarl.

"You always get the good stuff," she said quietly.

"Why is it always you, Evelyn? The job. The spotlight. Him. Even dying, you get sympathy for that too."

Evelyn stared, disgusted. "You're sick."

She turned to leave, her foot already stepping toward the door.

But Cathy grabbed her wrist. Hard.

Evelyn spun. "Let me go."

"No," Cathy said, her voice trembling now not with fear, but rage. "You don't get to walk away like you always do. You don't get to be the angel in everyone's story!"

Evelyn's hand raised, fast and open, a slap brewing, years in the making.

But Cathy caught it mid-air, her fingers crushing Evelyn's wrist.

And in that second, everything exploded.

The slap turned into shoving. The hallway turned into a battlefield.

Evelyn shoved her back, and Cathy grabbed at her gown.

They collided into the wall, knocking down a picture frame.

Screaming. Scratching. Desperate tears in Evelyn's eyes.

Pure, poisonous hate in Cathy's.

And then...

A shove. A fall. A sickening crash.

Evelyn's back slammed into the edge of the glass coffee table in the living room.

It shattered beneath her like ice underfoot.

She didn't scream.

Just gasped, one sharp inhale, as blood began pouring from her side.

A large shard protruded from her ribs.

Cathy stepped back, breath hitching, hands shaking.

"Evelyn...?"

No answer.

Only the sound of Evelyn's shallow breaths. The blood was soaking through her hospital gown. The way her hand trembled as it reached, then fell limp.

Cathy didn't move.

She had crossed the line.

And there was no going back.

The pain was sharp, then dull, then everything all at once.

Evelyn lay crumpled in the wreckage of glass and blood-soaked fabric, her body failing, her breath growing shallow. The world around her was starting to fade, not into blackness, but into memory.

Faces flashed behind her eyes.

Laughter once shared.

Hands once held.

A smile in the sunlight.

A kiss in the rain.

And then, the betrayals.

The silences.

The pain.

The lie that wore Malik's face.

The dagger behind Cathy's smile.

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, warm and soundless. Her lips parted, barely able to whisper - yet somehow, the words rose from the deepest part of her.

"Dear God..."

A breath.

"I know I was a fool. I chased people who didn't love me. I trusted the wrong hearts... and ignored the ones that truly cared."

Her fingers moved slightly, reaching, though there was nothing to hold on to.

"I thought I was strong. I thought I had time. But time isn't promised. And love... love shouldn't have to beg to be chosen."

A cough rattled in her throat, blood touching her tongue.

Still, she went on.

"God, I don't want to die like this. Not with hate in the room. Not with pain in my chest and silence in my mouth."

Her voice cracked, but her spirit held firm.

"Give me another chance. Please... just one more morning. One more moment to make it right. One more hug for Mama. One more breath that doesn't hurt. And if not..."

Her hand fell to her chest.

"Then take me home. Hold me. Forgive me. Love me... like they never did."

A pause.

Her lips trembled. Then stilled.

A single tear rolled down her cheek, trailing a final line through the blood on her skin.

And the room went quiet.

It was supposed to be the end.

The world had gone still, the pain, the prayer, the blood.

But then...

A sound.