Chapter 4

Pain was the first thing that greeted me when I swam back to consciousness. It was a symphony of agony, with each part of my body playing its own torturous note. My head throbbed, my skin burned from the allergic reaction, and a thousand tiny cuts screamed with every breath.

My vision was blurry. I could make out a figure standing over me. Ethan. He was holding something. A pair of pliers.

A primal fear shot through me. I tried to scramble away, to put distance between us, but my limbs felt like lead.

"Stay still," he commanded, his voice devoid of any emotion.

Geneva was there too, holding my shoulders down. Leo stood by, watching with a disturbing fascination.

"Don't touch me!" I managed to gasp, my voice hoarse and raw. The movement sent a fresh wave of pain through my battered body. I writhed, twitching like a landed fish.

"I said, stay still!" Ethan repeated, his voice sharper this time.

He used the pliers to begin methodically pulling the larger shards of glass from my skin. Each pull was a fresh burst of fire, a violation that left me shaking and sobbing.

My cries must have been loud, because a few of the household staff gathered nervously in the doorway, their faces pale with shock.

Geneva saw them. She immediately let go of me, her face crumbling into a mask of theatrical despair. She dropped to her knees beside me.

"Oh, Elaine, my dear, what have you done?" she cried, her voice ringing with fake anguish. "Why would you do this to yourself? We are all so worried about you!"

She turned to the staff, her eyes brimming with crocodile tears. "She's not well. She tried to kill herself after attacking me. And now... this. It's all for attention."

She then turned to Leo, who immediately started crying on cue. "Leo, darling, don't look. Mommy is just... having a hard time."

The staff, already primed by the events at the party, looked at me with a mixture of pity and accusation. They believed her. Of course, they believed her.

Leo ran over and kicked my injured leg, the one with the deepest cuts. "You're bad! You made Geneva cry!"

The pain was so intense I nearly blacked out again. Blood gushed from the reopened wounds, staining the white carpet a sickening crimson.

Ethan didn't even flinch. He just continued his gruesome task, his face a stony mask. He gestured for Geneva to come and help him, and she did, her face a picture of maternal concern for the benefit of the onlookers.

"She's a danger to herself and others," Geneva announced to the staff. "For her own safety, Ethan has decided she needs to be confined to her room."

With that, the staff dispersed, their minds filled with the story of the unstable, violent wife. The door closed, plunging the room back into a private hell.

The pain from my leg was unbearable. I couldn't move it. I couldn't even feel my toes.

Ethan finally finished pulling out the last of the glass. He then ordered a doctor from his payroll to come. Not to a hospital. Here. To this room.

The doctor examined me, his face grim. "The allergic reaction is subsiding, but these cuts are deep. And her leg... it looks like the fall did serious damage to the bone. She needs to go to a hospital immediately. Without proper surgery, she could lose the leg."

"No hospital," Ethan said, his voice final. "Treat what you can here. Clean the cuts. Give her something for the pain. But leave the leg."

I stared at him in horror. He was going to let me become a cripple. A prisoner in my own home, in my own body.

"And you'll be coming every day," Ethan continued, his voice dropping to an icy calm. "To take a sample. For Leo."

He wasn't talking about a blood sample. He meant bone marrow. Every. Single. Day.

The doctor paled but nodded silently. He knew better than to argue with Ethan Mcclure.

Ethan then turned to me, a strange, almost regretful look in his eyes. "I'll make it up to you, Elaine. I'll buy you anything you want. We can go anywhere you want, once you're... better."

Then his face hardened again. "But you will do this. For as long as Leo needs you."

I just stared at him, my heart a dead, heavy thing in my chest. There was no escape.

He had me moved to the master bedroom. My prison. He held me down himself while the doctor stitched up the worst of my cuts, my silent tears tracking paths through the grime and blood on my face.

After they left, he sat on the edge of the bed, his body radiating a cold fury.

"Don't ever try to leave me again, Elaine," he said, his voice a low growl. "You belong to me."

He kissed my forehead, a gesture that was meant to be comforting but felt like the brand of a slaver. Then he left, locking the door behind him.

I was alone, in the dark, with nothing but my pain and the horrifying reality of my new life. A life as a human sacrifice on the altar of their monstrous family.