جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 60

Lily’s pov I'd lost count of the injections somewhere around the third or fourth day.Time had stopped meaning much of anything in that house, light and dark bleeding together into a single, endless stretch of pain and the brief, merciful gaps between doses when my mind was clear enough to understand exactly how much danger I was still in. I'd started seeing things that weren't there. Shapes moving at the edges of the room that dissolved the moment I turned to look at them directly. Voices, sometimes, layered beneath Lara's real one, whispering things I couldn't quite make out. Once, in the worst of it, I could have sworn I heard Alexander's voice calling my name from somewhere just beyond the front door, and I'd screamed his name back so loudly my throat had ached for hours afterward, only to realise, once the fog cleared slightly, that no one had come at all.I understood, in the small, lucid moments between the worst of it, that whatever they kept putting into my blood was beginni

Alexander’s pov I hadn't left the chair beside her bed in over sixteen hours.The doctors had moved quickly the moment we arrived, running bloodwork, hooking her to monitors that beeped in a steady, mechanical rhythm I'd started listening to with the particular desperate attention of a man who understood, with total clarity, exactly how precious that sound had become. Every small fluctuation in the rhythm sent my heart into my throat until a nurse would pass through, glance at the readouts, and offer some small reassurance that nothing had changed for the worse.She hadn't woken."There's significant toxin buildup in her system," the doctor had explained, hours ago now, his voice carrying the careful, measured tone doctors used when they didn't yet know how a story would end. "Multiple substances, repeated exposure over what appears to be several days. Her body needs time to process it out of her system. The coma isn't unusual, given the circumstances. But I won't pretend the road ah

Alexander’s pov They took her for the procedure just after eight that morning.The doctor had explained it carefully the evening before, a necessary step, he'd said, to clear what remained after the loss, to prevent infection and give her body the best possible chance to heal properly from everything it had endured. I'd nodded through the explanation, understanding each word while the whole of it landed somewhere too heavy to properly absorb. I hadn't managed to say much of anything in response, simply signed whatever consent forms required my signature and watched him leave with a professional's careful, practiced sympathy.I wasn't allowed in the room for it. I sat instead in the small waiting area outside, my leg bouncing with a restless energy I couldn't quiet, counting the minutes in a way that made each one feel considerably longer than sixty seconds actually warranted. Margaret had come to sit with me for part of it, saying little, simply present in the particular way she'd al

Lily’s pov My heart still hurt in a way I hadn't fully learned to carry, a grief for something I'd barely had the chance to know before it was taken.I'd been pregnant for less than two weeks when I found out. Five weeks along, the doctor had said, at the hospital where all of this began, a small collection of cells, barely more than a possibility. Yet, the loss of her sat in my chest like a hole cut clean through something essential, aching in a way that made no logical sense given how briefly I'd actually known she existed. I kept trying to reason myself out of the depth of it, telling myself I hadn't even had time to properly want her before she was gone, and the reasoning never once actually helped. Grief, I was learning, didn't care much for logic.*She.* I didn't know that for certain. I'd simply decided, somewhere in the fog of that first terrible night after learning the truth, that she'd been a girl, and the certainty had stuck regardless of whether it was ever accurate.I t

"We're taking this to court," Alexander told me, the morning before my discharge, his voice carrying a particular quiet determination I'd come to recognise as entirely characteristic of him. "Whatever it takes, however long the process, I'm going to get you real justice for what she did. Not just a plea deal buried quietly to avoid embarrassing headlines. A proper trial. A proper reckoning.""That could take months," I said, watching him from my hospital bed, some part of me already exhausted at the thought of reliving everything again in front of strangers."I know." He sat on the edge of the bed, taking my hand. "And I'll be beside you through every single day of it, however long it takes. I don't want you carrying this alone, not for one more moment than you already have."I squeezed his hand, grateful beyond what words could properly capture, and let the weight of his promise settle into something I could actually hold onto.---The doctor discharged me two days later, running thr