ie

y felt heavy, alien. My face was a map of raw skin and bruising, every inch of me scream

ver me. His words were a muffled drone, but one

save the baby

Gone. The life that had been forced upon me, then ripped away with such brutal f

usually so light, were now black pits of utter despair and burnin

voice raw, choked with unshed tears.

could stop him. A b

rporate car. It wasn't a direct hit, no. At the last second, my brother, still inherently good, stil

everely injured, critical condition. Armand, the devil's own, wal

, crumbled. My mother's hair, once streaked with silver, seemed to turn fully white overnight. They

of icy indifference. Their pleas, their te

ng in protest. I found him in the sterile corridor, my parents a crumpled heap at his feet

Please. Don't do this. Don't hurt my brother.

growing hoarser, my throat raw. I didn't know how many times I repeated it, how many times I scraped

suffocating blanket. I looked up, my eyes meeting his.

cal instruments glinting under the fluorescent lights. A scalpel. A

only currency he re

trembling hand closing around a pair of long, sterile scissors

ugh the silent corridor. "Take my life! It's yours! Ju

a guttural sound of pure horror. But I h

are began, flickered. A crack in the ice. A sh

id, his voice sharp, authori

e!" he bit out, his voice laced with venom. "A cl

per. Cassandra's signature, large and flowing, at the bottom. A statement

hand. He left me, but he didn't divorce me. The legal entanglement, the symbol of

me, the very core of my being, died that day. My world, onc

arp, was a chaotic mess, a jumble of fractured memories and agonizing voids. The doctors call

ide, her hand always searching for mine, a silent plea for me to stay. I must have said things, desperate, dark words about

om the brink. My father, old beyond his years, went back to menial labor, his body aching, his spirit broken, just to keep our heads ab

sis to another. "She's lost her will to live," one doctor sighed. "F

e to speak. I would force myself to respond, to eat, to pretend, for their sakes. I heard their muffled sobs through the thin wall

kness was too profound. The weight of it, the endless, suffocatin

, her wrist still loosely tied to mine. I slipped the knot, my fingers surprisingly deft. I crept out of

My body, a vessel of pain, throbbed with a thousand aches. Just one step, a voice

tal biting into my bare skin. The city lights twinkled below, a distant,