Chapter Four

LENA

“Nooooooo!” “Noooooooooo!!”

That was the only word that escaped my mouth. Before I knew it, my knees gave way, and I collapsed to the ground, clutching my chest as if I could somehow stop the pain tearing through it. I didn't care who was watching. I didn't care that I was lying in the middle of the hospital hallway because nothing mattered anymore.

“God, please! No!” I screamed at the ceiling, my voice cracked with exhaustion. “You can punish me any other way, but not like this. Not my mother!”

I felt Aunt Vivian's hands on my shoulders, trying to help me to my feet, but my body refused to move. I just knelt there, drenched in my rain-soaked scrubs, my mind too numb to process what I'd just heard.

Through the blur of tears and the strands of hair stuck to my face, I saw the ICU doors slowly swing open.

Two hospital porters pushed a stretcher into the hallway, It was covered with a white sheet as they moved towards us.

I found a surge of strength I didn't know I had. I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the stretcher. I pushed past the porter, my hands reaching for the edge of that white fabric.

“Mum! Mum, wake up!” I begged with tears, my voice a frantic whisper. “It’s me, Lena. I’m here. Please, just open your eyes. I’ll do anything for you. Killian has left me, you know dad is gone too. Who are you leaving me for?.”

I pulled the sheet back. Her face was calm too. I touched her cheek, expecting the warmth of a mother’s skin, but I noticed her body was already cold. Not just cold like the London rain, but stiff and icy. The kind of cold that only death leaves behind.

I didn’t care. I threw my arms around her, hugging her stiff body as if I could breathe my own life back into her lungs. I wailed into the crook of her neck, my tears wetting the white sheet. The porter tried to gently pull me away, but I clung to her like a drowning person to a piece of driftwood.

“Let her go, miss,” the porter whispered, his voice full of pity.

Vivian eventually managed to pry my fingers loose. I stood there, shaking, watching as they moved the stretcher forward toward the service elevator. I freed myself again, running after them, sobbing so heavily that catarrh began to run from my nose. I didn't care that I looked disgusting. I was a mess of grief and snot and wet clothes.

Before I could reach her one last time, the heavy security guards at the exit blocked my path. They held my arms firmly but gently. I watched the elevator doors close. I watched her disappear towards the mortuary.

She was gone. The last piece of my "Happy Three" was being tucked into a metal drawer.

It was already midnight when I finally left the hospital. I couldn't bear to look at De Rays Specialist Hospital anymore. It had become the place where my family ended. I walked out of the hospital without knowing where I was going. I didn't go back to Aunt Vivian. I didn't stop for my bags. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

I walked helplessly along the road, the rain having stopped but the air remaining damp. I prayed for a car to come run me over. I prayed for a truck to lose its brakes. I wanted to meet my death right then and there. I wanted the "Happy Three" to be a reality again, even if it had to be in heaven. I wished that car that almost hit me earlier had finished the job. What was the point of being the "Last Cooper" if I had nothing to be a Cooper for?

My face was sticky with sweat and grime. My ears felt like they were about to fall off from the cold and my eyes hurt with every blink. I wandered into a darker part of the city, where the streetlights were flickering and the shadows were long.

I noticed a vehicle slowing down beside me. My steps quickened before I even realized what I was doing. I quickened my pace.” I had been praying for death, but the reality of a dark car creeping behind me made my legs tremble. I started to regret leaving Aunt Vivian in the hospital and walking into the dark.

The next second, the car swerved in front of me, cutting off my path. Before I could turn and run, the passenger door flew open. A rough-looking man jumped out, grabbed me by the arm, and hauled me into the car. I screamed and fought with the last bit of strength I had left, but he was far stronger than I was..

“Please... don't,” I begged, my voice breaking. I tried to push him away, but my arms felt too heavy. Grief had already drained every bit of strength from me.

I never imagined that in the middle of the worst day of my life, the world would find a way to hurt me more. I begged him. I told him my mother just died. I told him I had nothing left. But monsters don’t have ears for the broken.

He pinned me down on the car seat with his weight suffocating me.

I felt his strong hand yank my scrub trouser down hard in the front seat. The rough fabric scraped my skin as I cried out loud, tears burning my eyes. My heart pounded so fast I could hear it in my ears. I scratched at his arms, the leather seats, anything, but he was too heavy and cold.

"Please... no..." I begged, my voice breaking. He didn't say a word. He just pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and forced my legs apart with his knees. The car smelled like old leather and his sweat.

He pushed into me roughly, stretching me with a sharp burning pain that made me scream. Every hard thrust shook my body and the seat. I stared at the blurry ceiling lights, feeling the sticky sweat on his skin against mine, his heavy breathing hot on my neck. It hurt so deep inside, like he was tearing me apart. I sobbed and shook, feeling helpless and dirty.

He grunted louder, thrusting faster until his body tensed. Then I felt his hot, thick filth spill inside me, pulsing again and again. When he finished, he shoved me out of the moving car. The cold night air hit me as I tumbled onto the road.

I crashed onto the cold pavement, my shoulder scraping against the rough road.

Before I could even turn to look at the license plate, the car zoomed off.

But I saw him. In the brief flash of a passing streetlight, I saw the rapist's face. A face I would never forget.

I lay there on the cold road, curled into a ball. I cried until no more sound came out. Was my mother’s death not enough? Was losing a five-year relationship and being slapped to the floor not enough? Why did the world need to rape me, too?

“I curse you!” I whispered into the quiet night, my voice a jagged edge. “I curse this day, and I curse every hand that has touched me!”

I don't know how I found the strength to move. I was in agony, both between my legs and inside my heart. I staggered back to Aunt Vivian’s apartment, moving like a ghost. I arrived at the door, and Vivian, who had been frantic, pulled me inside.

I didn’t tell her. How could I? I went straight to the bathroom and scrubbed my skin until it was raw. I washed away the dirt of the road and the filth of that man, but I couldn't wash away the memory. I decided right then to bury it. I would keep it in the same dark drawer where they put my mother.

The next morning was a blur of black clothes and hollow eyes. We went to the morgue. I watched as they put her into a casket. We went to the cemetery.

The air was still, as if the world was holding its breath. I watched the priest's lips move, but the words didn't reach me. I watched the dirt fall onto the lid of the casket. Thud. Thud. Thud.

With my mother's burial, it became painfully real. I was the last Cooper. There was no home left to return to, no parents left to call my own.

I couldn't feel anything anymore.

It was as if my heart had finally given up after everything that had happened. I just sat there, staring into nothing, too exhausted to cry.

My eyes were swollen, my face felt tight from dried tears, and every part of my body ached. I hadn't eaten since yesterday, but I wasn't hungry. The thought of food only made my stomach turn.

"Come on, Lena," Aunt Vivian said quietly. Her voice was rough from all the crying. She rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You need to eat something. Neither of us has the strength to cook. Let's just go to the restaurant down the street.”

I followed Aunt Vivian without a word. I didn't have the strength to argue.

The restaurant was quiet, its warm lights and soft conversations feeling strangely out of place after everything that had happened. It was the kind of place people came to unwind, to laugh over dinner, not to sit with fresh grief.

I lowered myself into a chair in the corner and rested my elbows on the table. My eyes stayed fixed on the polished wooden surface, but I wasn't really looking at it.

My mind kept drifting back over the last forty-eight hours, replaying every moment I wished I could forget.

My head was filled with ghosts. Mum's lifeless face. Killian walking away. The endless rain. Rough hands dragging me into darkness. The funeral. Every memory replayed over and over until hot tears rolled down my cheeks.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, I didn't move at first. I thought it was the waitress with a glass of water. I slowly raised my head, expecting to see Aunt Vivian who went to receive a call or a menu or a plate of food I wouldn't touch.

But it wasn't the waitress.

My heart didn't just skip a beat; my breath caught in my throat as I looked up at the man standing over me.

“You...” I whispered, my voice trembling with a mix of shock and a sudden, inexplicable heat.

I looked at him, and for the first time in two days, the numbness broke.

What... are you doing here?”