Blood, Ring and Fire

Chapter 1

Halle POV

The machine next to my mother's bed beeped every two seconds. I had been counting the beeps for almost an hour, because counting was easier than thinking.

One. Two. Three.

My mother lay still under the thin white sheet. Her face had gone gray, and her lips were dry no matter how often I wet them with a cotton bud. Three weeks ago she had been standing in our small kitchen, singing too loud and burning the rice. Now she could not even open her eyes.

"Mama," I whispered. "I'm still here."

She did not answer. She had not answered for two days.

The door opened, and Nurse Bisi came in with a tablet in her hand. She was the kind one. She was the one who brought me tea at night and pretended not to see me sleeping in the plastic chair. But tonight she did not smile.

"Halle," she said softly. "Can we talk outside?"

My stomach dropped. I already knew. When the kind nurse asked to talk outside, it was never good news.

I followed her into the hallway. The lights were too bright, and the floor smelled like bleach. Somewhere down the hall, a baby was crying.

"Is she worse?" I asked.

"She is stable for now," Bisi said. "But the doctor changed her medicine this evening. She needs a new drug before morning. It's important. It helps her heart while her kidneys fight."

"Okay. So give it to her."

Bisi looked down at her tablet. "Our pharmacy does not have it. We ran out two days ago. You will have to buy it outside."

"How much?"

She told me.

I did the sum in my head. It was almost everything I had left. Not almost. It was everything.

"Okay," I said again, because what else could I say? "I'll get it."

Bisi did not move. She was still looking at the tablet, and I could see her trying to find soft words for something hard.

"There's more," I said. "Just tell me."

She sighed. "The billing office sent another notice. The last payment did not cover the full amount. If the balance is not paid by eight tomorrow morning, they will stop her treatment and move her to the general ward."

"The general ward can't take care of her," I said. My voice cracked. "You told me that yourself. You said she needs this unit."

"I know." Bisi touched my arm. "I'm so sorry, Halle. I begged them. I really did. It's not up to me."

I nodded like a fool. I kept nodding even after she walked away.

Eight in the morning. It was eleven forty at night.

I went back into the room and opened my purse. I already knew what was inside, but I counted it anyway. Folded notes, a few coins, a bus ticket, and a lip balm with no cap.

I had sold my phone last week. I had sold my laptop the week before. I had sold my mother's sewing machine, which had hurt the most, because she had made every dress I wore until I was sixteen on that machine. I had borrowed from my old school friends until they stopped picking up my calls. I had worked double shifts at the supermarket until my manager told me to stop coming in looking like a ghost.

I bent down and kissed my mother's forehead. Her skin was cold.

"I'm getting your medicine," I told her. "I'll be quick. Don't go anywhere."

It was a stupid thing to say. She couldn't go anywhere. But I said it every time I left the room, like a prayer.

Outside, it was pouring rain.

I did not have an umbrella. I did not even have a jacket, just my old gray sweater with the hole at the elbow. I pulled it over my head and ran.

The only pharmacy still open at that hour was across the main road, the wide one with four lanes and no proper crossing. In the day, there was a man who helped people cross for small change. At night, there was only rain and the yellow street lights and cars flying past like they were racing the devil.

I waited at the side of the road with my heart pounding. When the road was clear, I ran across, splashing through puddles until my shoes were soaked through.

The pharmacy was small and bright. An old man sat behind the counter, half asleep, with a radio playing soft music beside him. When I showed him the paper from the doctor, he sighed and went to the back.

He was gone a long time. I stood there dripping water on his clean floor, praying under my breath.

Please have it. Please, please have it.

He came back with a small brown glass bottle in his hand.

"Last one," he said. "You're lucky."

I almost laughed. Lucky. I had not felt lucky in a very long time.

He told me the price. It was a little more than Bisi had said.

I emptied my purse on the counter. Notes, coins, everything. I counted it twice. I was short.

The old man watched me. I could feel my face burning.

"Please," I said. "This is all I have. It's for my mother. She's in the hospital across the road. I promise I'll bring the rest tomorrow. I promise."

He looked at the coins. He looked at my wet hair and my wet sweater and my shaking hands. Then he pushed the bottle across the counter.

"Go," he said. "Go before I change my mind."

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you. God bless you."

I held the bottle against my chest like it was made of gold. In a way, it was. It was my mother's heart. It was the next few days of her life.

I stepped back into the rain. My purse was empty and light. I didn't care. I had the medicine. That was all that mattered.

The road looked clear. Rain was falling so hard that the street lights looked blurry. I checked left. I checked right. There was nothing, only the sound of the rain hitting the ground.

I started to cross.

I was halfway across when I heard it. An engine, loud and angry, coming fast from the left. I turned my head.

There were no lights. Just a big black shape coming straight at me out of the rain.

I didn't think. My body moved on its own. I threw myself forward, and the car flew past so close that I felt the wind of it on my skin. I hit the ground hard. My knee slammed into the road, and I slid into a deep, dirty puddle by the curb.

For a second, everything was quiet except the rain.

Then I heard a small sound. A tiny crack, like ice breaking.

I looked down at my hand. It was empty.

The bottle lay on the road a few feet away, broken into three pieces. The medicine was running out of it, mixing with the rainwater and the mud, washing toward the drain.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."

Chapter 2

HALLE

I crawled to it on my hands and knees. I tried to pick up the biggest piece, the one that still had a little medicine in the bottom, but my hands were shaking too much. The glass cut my finger. The last drops spilled out.

It was gone.

My mother's medicine was gone, and I had no money left to buy more, and there was no more to buy anyway, because the old man said it was the last one.

I heard the car stop.

I looked up. The black car had stopped a little further down the road. Its brake lights finally came on, red in the rain. For one stupid moment, I thought the driver was coming back to help me.

The car reversed slowly until it was beside me. It was a beautiful car, shiny and expensive, the kind of car I had only ever seen in movies or in front of big hotels. The back window rolled down a few inches.

I saw a girl inside. She was wearing a black hoodie pulled low over her head and big dark glasses, even though it was the middle of the night. Her lips were painted a soft pink. She did not look at me. She looked straight ahead, at nothing.

A hand came out of the window. A thin hand with long, neat nails. It was holding a roll of money held together with a rubber band. A thick roll. More money than I had seen in months.

The girl threw it. It hit the ground next to my knee and landed in the puddle.

"For your trouble," she said.

Her voice was cool and bored, like she was tipping a waiter.

Then the window started to roll back up. The car began to move.

I stared at the money in the water. Something inside me broke. It wasn't sadness this time. It was something hot and sharp, something I had been swallowing for weeks.

I grabbed the wet money and got up. My knee screamed in pain, but I didn't stop. I ran after the car. It was still moving slowly, and I caught up with it and slammed my open hand against the back window.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Stop the car!"

The car stopped.

I banged on the glass again. "Open the window!"

Slowly, the window came down. The girl finally turned her head toward me. I could not see her eyes behind the dark glasses, but I could feel her looking at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

I threw the money back into the car. It hit her lap and fell to the floor.

"I don't want your money," I said. My voice was shaking, but I kept going. "You almost killed me. You were driving with no lights. Do you know what you just did? That was my mother's medicine on that road. That was her medicine!"

For a second, something moved on her face. It was so quick I almost missed it. Then it was gone, and her pink lips curled into a cold little smile.

"Then buy another one," she said.

"There isn't another one!"

"Then that's not my problem." She tilted her head. "Isn't that what you people do? Beg twice? Go on, I just gave you enough to beg with."

I couldn't breathe. "You people?"

"Move away from my car."

I don't know what came over me. My hand moved before my brain did. I slapped the glass of the open window, hard, so hard that my palm stung. The girl flinched back.

"You're a monster," I said. "You're a rich, spoiled monster, and I hope one day you lose everything. I hope one day you know what it feels like."

She turned her face away from me. Her hood slipped, falling back off her head. Long dark hair spilled out over her shoulders.

At that exact second, a white light exploded beside us.

I turned, blinking. Two cars had stopped behind the black car. Men were getting out with cameras. One flash. Then another. Then another.

"There she is!" one of the men shouted. "Miss Laurent! Miss Laurent, look this way! Do you have anything to say about your father?"

I didn't know that name. I didn't know what they were talking about. I just stood there in the rain, blinded, with my wet hair stuck to my face and blood dripping from my finger.

Inside the car, the girl swore under her breath. She yanked her hood back up and shouted something at the driver.

The window shot up. The car's engine roared. It took off so fast that the back wheel threw dirty water all over my legs.

The men with the cameras ran back to their cars and raced after it. In ten seconds, they were all gone.

The road was empty again. Just me and the rain and three pieces of broken glass.

I don't remember walking back across the road. I just remember standing in the hospital entrance, shaking, while the security guard stared at me.

"Madam, you're bleeding," he said.

I looked down. My knee was cut open through my jeans. My finger was still bleeding from the glass. I had not even noticed.

"I'm fine," I said.

I was not fine.

I went up in the elevator. I walked down the long bright hallway, leaving muddy footprints behind me. When Bisi saw me, she put both hands over her mouth.

"Halle! What happened to you?"

"A car," I said. "Almost hit me. The medicine broke. It was the last one. He said it was the last one."

My voice was flat, like it belonged to someone else.

Bisi pulled me into the small staff room and sat me down. She cleaned my knee and my finger and put plasters on them while I stared at the wall. She kept talking, soft and kind, but I couldn't hear most of it.

"I'll call other pharmacies," she said. "Maybe someone has it. We'll find a way."

"I have no money," I said. "I gave him everything. Everything."

Bisi stopped. She looked at me with so much pity that I wanted to scream.

"There's something else," she said slowly. "The billing manager came by while you were gone. He wanted to make sure you understood. Eight o'clock. If the payment is not made-"

"I understand," I said.

She squeezed my hand and went back to work. Someone was calling for her.

I walked out into the hallway and sat down on the floor outside my mother's room, my back against the wall. I didn't have the strength to go inside. I didn't want her to see me like this, even if she couldn't open her eyes.

Then I started crying.

It wasn't pretty crying. It was the ugly kind, with my whole body shaking and my hands over my face and sounds coming out of me that I didn't know I could make. I cried for my mother. I cried for her sewing machine. I cried for the medicine washing into the drain. I cried because a girl in a car had thrown money at me like I was a dog and had told me to beg.

The worst part was that I had wanted to take it. For one second, kneeling in that puddle, I had wanted that money so much it hurt. That was what made me throw it back.

I don't know how long I sat there. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour.

Then I heard footsteps. Slow, heavy steps. They stopped right in front of me.

I saw a pair of shiny black shoes. Above them were the neat legs of a dark gray suit.

"Miss Halle Adams?"

I wiped my face with my sleeve and looked up. A tall man stood over me. He was maybe forty, with short gray hair and a face that showed nothing. He was not wet at all, even though the rain was still pouring outside.

"Who are you?" I asked.

Chapter 3

HALLE

"My name is Mr. Cole. I work for Mr. Richard Sterling."

I knew that name. Everyone knew that name. Sterling Holdings was on billboards all over the city. Their buildings were glass towers. Their logo was a silver bird.

"I don't know any Richard Sterling," I said.

"No," Mr. Cole agreed. "But he knows about you."

Without asking, he sat down on the plastic chair next to me. He crossed his legs and looked at me like he was reading a report.

"Your mother has been in this unit for twenty-two days," he said. "Kidney failure, followed by heart problems. Her bill is currently very large. The hospital will stop treatment in the morning if you do not pay. You have no other family. You lost your job eleven days ago. You've sold almost everything you own."

I stared at him. "How do you know all that?"

"It's my job to know things." He paused. "I'm here to offer you a solution."

I laughed. It came out ugly and wet. "A solution. Of course. Let me guess. You want me to sell a kidney?"

He didn't even smile. "Mr. Sterling needs a bride."

I stopped laughing.

"His company is going into a merger with Ashford Group," Mr. Cole said. "Part of the deal is a marriage. Two marriages, actually. Mr. Sterling's daughter was supposed to marry one of the Ashford sons. One week ago, she ran away. She left a letter and took her passport. We don't know where she is."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "What does it have to do with me?"

"The wedding is in two weeks. If there is no bride, there is no merger. Mr. Sterling cannot let that happen." He looked at me. "So he needs someone to take her place."

I blinked at him. Then I laughed again, because surely he was joking.

"Me? You want me to marry some rich man I've never met? Just like that?"

"Yes."

"I'm not his daughter. Everyone will know."

"The Ashford family has never met her. They know her name and a few old photos. Her name doesn't matter. You'll use your own. Mr. Sterling will say you're his goddaughter, raised quietly, away from the press. It's a business marriage, Miss Adams. Nobody is expecting love. They're expecting a signature and a smile at the wedding."

"And what do I get?"

He reached into his jacket and took out a folded paper. He opened it and held it in front of me.

It was my mother's hospital bill. All of it. Every page. At the bottom, someone had written one word in red ink: Paid.

"If you agree tonight," Mr. Cole said, "this will be real by morning. Every bill. The best doctors. Her medicine, flown in if needed. And after your marriage ends, a generous amount of money so that you never have to sit on a hospital floor again."

My heart was beating so loud that I could hear it in my ears.

"After my marriage ends?" I repeated.

"These marriages are contracts. They will last as long as the merger needs them to. A year, maybe two. Then you can walk away."

I looked at that red word. Paid.

Then I looked at the man's face, and something cold went through me. There was no kindness there. Not even a little. He looked at me the same way the girl in the car had looked at me. Like I was something he could buy.

I stood up. My knee hurt, but I stood up straight.

"No," I said.

Mr. Cole raised one eyebrow.

"I'm not for sale," I said. "My mother didn't raise me to be sold like a goat at the market. Tell Mr. Sterling to find another girl."

He studied me for a long moment. Then he stood up too, folded the paper, and put it back in his jacket. He took out a small white card and held it out to me.

I didn't take it.

He placed it on the chair where he had been sitting.

"The offer stands until morning," he said. "After eight o'clock, it no longer matters. Good night, Miss Adams."

He walked away down the long hallway. His shoes made no sound on the floor at all.

I stared at the card. It was plain and white with only a phone number on it.

I turned my back on it and went into my mother's room. I sat down by her bed and took her cold hand.

"I said no, Mama," I whispered. "You would be proud of me. I said no."

The machine beeped. One. Two. Three.

Then it stopped beeping and started screaming.

It was a long, high, terrible sound. A red light flashed above the bed. My mother's body jerked under the sheet.

"Mama? Mama!"

The door flew open. Bisi ran in, then a doctor, then two more nurses. Someone pushed me back. Someone shouted numbers. The doctor was pressing on my mother's chest, hard, over and over.

"Get her out," someone said. "Get the daughter out."

Hands pulled me into the hallway. The door shut in my face.

I pressed my hands against the small glass window. I could see them working on her. I could see her arm hanging off the side of the bed. I could see Bisi's face, and Bisi was scared.

Bisi was never scared.

"Please," I whispered to the glass. "Please, God. Please, don't take her. I'll do anything. Anything."

I heard myself say it. Anything.

Slowly, I turned around.

The white card was still lying on the plastic chair.

My legs walked to it before I decided anything. My hand picked it up. It was shaking so hard I could barely read the numbers.

I had no phone. I went to the nurses' desk, where an old landline phone sat beside a jar of pens. Nobody was there. Everyone was in my mother's room.

I picked up the phone. I dialed the number.

It rang only once.

"Mr. Cole speaking."

I closed my eyes. Behind me, through the door, I could still hear the doctor counting and the machine screaming.

"This is Halle Adams," I said. My voice didn't even sound like mine. "Pay the bill. Pay all of it. Right now."

There was a short silence on the line.

"Then you agree?" he asked.

I looked back at the door. I thought about the medicine running into the drain. I thought about the girl in the car telling me to beg twice.

I wasn't begging. I was selling. And I would never forgive myself for it.

"Yes," I said. "I agree."

"Very good," Mr. Cole said. "I'll make the call now."

I swallowed hard. My throat felt like sand.

"When is the wedding?" I asked.