Chapter 7 "Face a Mask"

The sterile lights of the hospital corridor seemed to cast a harsh, unforgiving glare on everything around Eva. As her gaze fell upon Blake, the man she'd pledged her life to, a wave of numbness crashed over her, chilling her from the inside out. It wasn't the cold anger of betrayal, nor the hot prick of humiliation. It was a deeper, more profound sense of detachment, a chilling realization that the love she'd once held for him had transmuted into something akin to ash.

The fight had been visceral, a desperate struggle against not just the nurses restraining her, but the crushing weight of Blake's indifference. His words, devoid of empathy and laced with a chilling practicality, had shattered the last vestiges of hope she clung to. This wasn't about a selfless act of saving a life; it was a calculated move, a sacrifice demanded on the altar of a past that refused to stay buried.

Now, as she watched him stand there, his face a mask of conflicting emotions, a profound sense of disillusi