บททั้งหมดของ The Rejected Fool Luna: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 27

Eliza Vane did three shifts a week at the hospital's nursing station reception desk. She came in at nine and left at one and spent most of the time between looking at her phone.Briar arrived at eight fifty-five with a container of coffee and a plan Mabel had described as optimistic.The plan was simple: be present, be helpful, let Eliza get used to her. Eventually ask about the compound.She set the coffee on the desk. Eliza looked at it. Said nothing. Briar took that as a neutral sign.There was a supply cart in the corridor that needed moving to the second floor. Briar volunteered before anyone asked. She got the cart into the elevator fine. She got it out of the elevator fine. She misjudged the turn into the supply room by about six inches and the cart clipped the doorframe and the top tier shifted and went over.Gauze rolls. Tongue depressors. An entire box of latex gloves that opened on impact and scattered across the linoleum in every direction.She crouched down and started co

Briar yanked her hands away from her stomach.Too late. She knew it was too late. She pressed them to her sides and made herself look at Vivienne directly."I'm not pregnant," she said."You just grabbed your stomach like""I have a stomachache! I always do that when my stomach hurts, I hold it, it's just a habit!" Her voice came out too fast and she knew it. "And I've been eating too much lately because everything has been terrible and I stress eat, okay? That's why I look different. That's all it is."Vivienne looked at her hands. Looked at her face. Looked at her hands again."Stress eating," she said."Yes.""That explains the stomach.""Yes! Can you stop looking at me like that?"Vivienne tilted her head slightly. She was still looking at Briar with that focused, private quality, the expression of someone turning something over very carefully.Then the front door opened downstairs.Killian's footsteps in the entry hall. His keys on the table. Then his voice coming up the stairs,

She knew that he was tall and had immense strength, and even using all her strength, she couldn't compete with him. So she bit him.His hand was clamped over her mouth and nose and she could not breathe and she turned her head the half-inch she had and sank her teeth into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger as hard as she could."FUCK!"He yanked back with a sharp curse and she used all of it, both arms coming down to wrap around her midsection, knees pulling up, curling her body into the tightest possible shape with her hands pressed flat against her stomach. She made herself into a ball around the one thing that could not be hit.The next blow caught her shoulder and snapped her sideways. She did not uncurl.Another one across her back, hard enough that her vision went white at the edges. She pressed her hands tighter against herself and tucked her chin and stayed curled.Her face hit the alley floor. Cold stone. The smell of wet concrete and old garbage and her own blood from