Chapter 6

I don' t remember how I got home from the mansion. My mind was a fog of pain. His words echoed in my head, over and over.

This is what you chose.

I remembered his proposal. "I will cherish you, Ava. I will protect you." All lies. He had watched me be tortured, and he had blamed me for it.

A single tear slid from the corner of my eye. I was so lost in my misery that I didn' t see the figures lurking in the shadows of the street.

A burlap sack was thrown over my head. I was dragged into a van. I lost consciousness.

I woke to the sound of waves and a man shouting into a phone.

"I have them, Chandler! Bring the money, or you' ll never see your precious wife and your whore again!"

My eyes slowly focused. I was on the deck of a boat. Kristyn was tied up next to me, sobbing hysterically. The man on the phone was Jermaine Herrera, Chandler' s illegitimate half-brother.

"Please," Kristyn begged him. "Let me go. It' s her he wants, not me!"

"Jermaine, calm down," I tried, my voice hoarse.

He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You shut up. Tonight, you' re going to see just how much your beloved husband really cares about you."

Chandler arrived soon after, a briefcase full of cash in his hand.

"Let them go, Jermaine," he said, his voice tight.

Jermaine checked the money, then smiled. "I' ve changed my mind. You can only take one. The other one dies."

I closed my eyes. I knew who he would choose. It was always her. I braced myself for the end.

"I' ll take them both," Chandler said, his voice cold. "Name your price."

I stared at him, stunned. Kristyn stopped crying, her face turning an ugly shade of green with jealousy.

"I' d die for you, Chandler!" she shrieked, suddenly launching herself at Jermaine in a theatrical display of devotion.

Jermaine, enraged, grabbed her by the hair and slammed her against the boat' s railing.

In that moment, I saw it. A glint of metal in Jermaine' s hand. A knife. He was going to stab Chandler.

I didn't think. I just moved. I threw myself at Chandler, pushing him out of the way.

Jermaine' s attack missed its target. The knife plunged deep into Kristyn' s stomach.

She let out a piercing scream and collapsed in a pool of blood.

Chandler' s face twisted with rage. He kicked Jermaine aside and then turned to me, his eyes blazing.

"You did this on purpose," he snarled, his voice a low, terrifying growl. "You used him to kill her."

"I... I was trying to save you," I stammered, my whole body trembling.

"Save me?" He laughed, a sound full of hate. "If I had known you were this venomous, I would have let you drown."

He scooped up the bleeding Kristyn and carried her off the boat, leaving me behind with her would-be murderer.

I collapsed onto the deck, my body numb, my heart frozen.

My phone, which had fallen from my pocket, buzzed on the deck. The screen lit up with a stark notification from my health app.

Life expectancy: 24 hours remaining.

A strange sense of calm washed over me. I was finally going to be free.

I don' t know how long I was on that boat. A day, maybe more. Eventually, someone found me. I dragged my exhausted body home and wrote a will. Everything I had-which was nothing more than the money from Chandler that I never touched-I left to the orphanage where we first met.

I called my doctor' s office and arranged to donate my body to medical science. "Just please," I told the nurse, "come and get me when it' s over. I don' t want him to find me."

Then I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes, ready for it to end.

I was just drifting off when the door burst open. Bodyguards. Chandler' s men. They pulled me out of bed and dragged me to a car.

They took me to the hospital. Chandler was there, pacing frantically.

"Kristyn is dying," he said, his voice ragged. "She has a rare blood disorder. She needs a bone marrow transplant. You' re a match."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Chandler, I can' t. The doctor said another procedure will kill me."

"Don' t be so dramatic," he snapped, his patience gone. "You' ve lived a life of luxury for five years. You' re not that fragile."

He grabbed my shoulders, his eyes wild. "Don' t be selfish, Ava. Do this one last thing for me. I' ll make it up to you. I promise."

They forced me into the operating room.

As the door swung shut, I saw Kristyn, who was supposed to be on her deathbed, sit up in her bed in the adjoining room. A wicked, triumphant smile spread across her face.

"I don' t have a blood disorder, you idiot," she mouthed through the glass, her eyes sparkling with malice.

"You' re going to die anyway," her voice, though unheard, was clear in my mind. "Might as well make it quick."

She gave an order to the doctors in my room. Her doctors.

A nurse approached me with a thick needle. I felt a sharp, brutal pain as it plunged into my spine.

They were draining my bone marrow. They were draining my life.

I screamed.

Through the glass, Kristyn blew me a kiss. "I' ll never forget you, Ava."

My vision blurred. My body convulsed in agony. I had always imagined a peaceful death, drifting away in my sleep. Not this. Not this brutal, painful end.

My life flashed before my eyes. The orphanage. The candy bar. The hospital proposal. The loneliness. The pain.

A final tear slid down my cheek.

Goodbye, Chandler, I thought. I hope we never meet again.