Chapter 1_A dying prayer

Elira's POV

"What about my baby?" I looked up at the doctor in the white coat, my heart hammering against my ribs. My hands shook so hard I had to grip the bedsheets.

The doctor hesitated. He looked at his clipboard, then at the floor, as if thinking of a lie. "Miss," he began, his voice soft and hollow, "we need to focus on you first. We need to make sure you are stable."

A cold chill ran down my spine. I already knew something was wrong. I tried to sit up, but a sharp, burning pain in my stomach forced me back down. "Stop lying!" I screamed. "If my baby was okay, you would have told me the moment I woke up."

"Your baby is fine," he said quickly, but his eyes shifted away.

"You're lying!" I shrieked. My voice broke, and I began to cry loudly, the sound of a woman going mad with grief. I couldn't breathe. I reached down and ripped the IV tubes from the back of my hand, blood splattering onto the white linen.

The nurses rushed in, trying to pin me down, but I fought them off with a strength I didn't know I had. I forced myself out of the bed, my bare feet hitting the cold floor. I was halfway to the door when the doctor finally spoke the words that ended my world.

"You lost the baby. I'm so sorry."

My knees hit the ground. I didn't feel the impact. I only felt the giant hole in my chest. I cried until my throat was raw, shouting for the child I would never hold. Through the fog of pain, one thought kept repeating: Damien, my fiance.

I had to see him. I had to ask him why he did this to me. He knew I was deathly allergic to nutmeg. He knew a single grain could stop my heart. We had just celebrated our engagement two days ago—I was supposed to be the happiest woman alive. And then, he had cooked that dinner.

I stood up, ignoring everyone to leave the room.

"Miss! You can't leave!" a nurse cried out, reaching for my arm.

I spun around, my eyes wild. "Don't touch me!" I shrieked leaving the room.

My feet slapped against the cold pavement outside the hospital, the asphalt biting into my skin, but I welcomed the pain. It was the only thing that felt real. I was a walking wound, a ghost in a gown, driven by a desperate, dying hope that if I could just find Damien, if he could just tell me this was all a terrible mistake.

The taxi ride home was a blur of tears and silence. When I reached our house, I pushed the front door open, and the first thing I heard wasn't silence. It was a moan.

“No,” I breathed, pressing my palm against my lips to choke back a sob. Every step up the stairs was a battle against the agony in my body. I reached the bedroom and saw the door standing slightly open. My world didn't just fall apart; it turned to ash.

Damien was there. My fiancé. But he wasn't alone. His head was buried between my sister’s thighs—my married sister, Victoria. His hands were on her bare skin, grabbing her breast, her hair hanging off the edge of the mattress. They were drowning in pleasure, completely unaware that I had just lost our child.

It was disgusting. It was a betrayal so deep it felt like a physical weight. Victoria’s eyes snapped open and met mine. She jerked upward, her face turning pale with horror.

"Fuck!" Damien hissed, pulling away from her.

Victoria gasped, scrambling to pull the silk sheets over her body. Her face was flushed, her hair a wild mess across the pillows. “It’s… it’s not what it looks like.”

“Not what it looks like?” My voice came out as a broken whisper. I looked at Damien. He didn't look like the man who had promised to cherish me two days ago. He looked at me with cold, annoyed eyes as he reached for his silk robe.

“Why are you even here, Lira?” Damien asked, his voice steady and cruel. He tied the belt of his robe and walked toward me. He didn't offer a hug. He didn't say he was sorry. He stopped just inches away, looking down at me as if I were a mess he had to clean up.

“I didn't mean for you to find out this way. But since it's already done, our engagement is cancelled.”

The words hit me hard. Cancelled. Like a dinner reservation. Like a subscription he no longer needed.

I looked at the bed—our bed. The sheets I had picked out, the pillows where we had whispered about our future. Now, they were tangled around my sister’s limbs. Victoria wouldn't even look at me; she just huddled there, her eyes darting toward the door as if she were the victim.

"Is that all it is to you?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "A cancellation? Damien, I was carrying your child. I was dying in that hospital while you were... you were doing this."

Damien didn't flinch. He adjusted the collar of his robe, his expression bored, almost disgusted by my presence. "You were always too much, Lira. Too emotional, too sickly. I needed someone who could actually keep up with me. Someone like Victoria."

"She’s my sister!" I screamed, the sound tearing my throat.

"And she's twice the woman you'll ever be," he countered, his voice cold and flat. "Now, leave. You’re bleeding on the carpet."

I looked down. He was right. A small pool of red was forming where I stood, a mixture of the IV site and the miscarriage my body had endured. The cruelty in his voice snapped the last string of my heart. There was no love here. There was only a predator and his prey.

I looked past him at Victoria. My sister. My own flesh and blood. “Victoria, you’re married,” I rasped. “How could you do this to me? To your husband?”

“Lira," she called out but I just turned and dashed out of the house, the sound of my own heartbeat drumming in my ears. Was that why he poisoned me? Was the nutmeg a way to get me out of the picture so he could have her?

"Lira! Wait!" I heard Victoria shouting from the porch, but I didn't stop. I ran toward the main road, the wind biting at my skin. I didn't see the headlights. I didn't hear the screeching tires.

In a split second, a truck hit me with a force that shattered everything. I felt my body lift into the air, a painful, weightless moment before I crashed onto the hard asphalt.

Crowds began to gather. I could feel the heat of the pavement and the blurry shapes of people hovering over me, but their voices sounded like they were underwater. The pain was fading into a heavy, dark sleep.

“God,” I prayed as the world turned to black, “Please let me die.