Chapter 4

No one answered.

Heavy with heartbreak and a crushing despair, I shoved open the rusted iron door and stepped into the dark, damp belly of the underground clinic.

The back-alley doctor manhandled me onto the iron frame, violently strapping my limbs down with heavy leather belts.

"They made it clear—no painkillers. It would skew the clinical data," he muttered, plunging a syringe filled with a cloudy, neon-blue liquid directly into my vein.

I threw my head back, a bloodcurdling scream ripping from the deepest part of my throat. The liquid burned through my bloodstream, feeling as if a million fire ants were frantically tearing away right beneath my skin.

I thrashed wildly. The iron bed clattered and shook against the concrete floor. The tight straps bit into my already festering skin, sending drops of blood pooling beneath the frame. Every time the sheer agony pushed me to the edge of blacking out, a pathetic, desperate plea echoed in my mind: Someone, please come. Dad, Mom... even Declan... someone, just open that door and save me.

Eighteen agonizing days.

In that sunless hellhole, every time a faint noise echoed from the hallway, I would force my blurry eyes open, hoping against hope that they had finally softened—that they had remembered their dying daughter trapped down here. But nobody came. Not a single phone call, not one word of concern. Absolutely nothing.

Late into the eighteenth night. My terminally ill heart, worn down to nothing by despair and torment, went into a violent, spasmodic flutter—and then slammed to a dead stop.

I don't know how much time passed before the iron door squealed open.

The hack walked in holding a massive syringe, ready for the next round of torture.

"Get up. Stop playing dead," he grunted, rudely poking my pale arm with the needle. "Just one last dose and I can collect the rest of my money."

No response. The room was dead silent.

He frowned in annoyance and reached out to check my breathing. A second later, he snatched his hand back as if burned. The color completely drained from his face. He stumbled backward, knocking over a steel medical tray with a loud crash.

"This... this is impossible..." With trembling hands, he yanked out his phone and immediately dialed Richard.

My mother answered.

"Ma'am... something went wrong!" His voice cracked with sheer panic. "Violet... she's dead!"

There was a beat of silence on the other end. Then, Eleanor let out a disdainful scoff.

"Are you trying to use an 'accident' as an excuse to extort more money from us? Save the cheap parlor tricks."

The doctor hopped in sheer frustration, yelling into the receiver, "I'm not lying! Her heart stopped! She's not breathing! She is really dead!"

A rustle of static followed, and Declan snatched the phone away.

His tone was dripping with disgust: "Give the phone to Violet and make her speak to me! Tell her to quit playing these pathetic games. Faking her own death for sympathy? Who does she think she is—Cecily? Tell her to get the hell up and cooperate with the treatment!"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The call abruptly disconnected. The doctor frantically redialed both Richard’s and Eleanor’s numbers. Every single time, they rejected the call after a half-ring.

Anger finally eclipsed his fear. He hurled his phone against the concrete floor and spat hard. "Fucking family of psychos!"

To protect himself, the hack had no intention of making a scene. If her own flesh and blood didn't give a damn whether she lived or died, why should he stick his neck out?

He unbuckled the straps, dragging my lifeless body all the way to the deepest storeroom in the clinic. Grabbing a filthy, blackened rag, he callously threw it over my face.

Slam. The heavy iron door of the storeroom was locked solid.

He bolted it from the outside. But inside the pitch-black room, my eyes suddenly "snapped" open.

I felt weightless, drifting inches below the ceiling.

Looking down at my bruised and broken flesh, a tidal wave of sorrow and bitter irony washed over me. So, even in death, I was nothing more than garbage to be tossed aside. How pathetic.

A few rats, drawn by the stench of blood, scurried from the corners. They climbed onto the concrete slab, brazenly wriggling their way beneath the filthy rag covering my face.

Seven days.

I was bound to this foul-smelling cage, forced to watch my own corpse rot day in and day out.

Then, on the afternoon of the seventh day, the sound of familiar footsteps echoed from the hallway.

My translucent soul shuddered violently. My dead heart felt as though it were clenching in my chest all over again.

"Doctor, was the trial a success?"

It was Richard's voice.

For a fleeting second, an irrepressible, pitiful surge of hope flared in my thoroughly lifeless soul.

Were they here for me? Did they finally realize I was gone? Were they panicking? Would they shed even a single tear of regret?

Right on his heels was Eleanor, her voice laced with extreme care and caution: "Since there were no complications these past few days, that proves the drugs are safe, right? Is there any risk left if Cecily undergoes the treatment now?"

That tiny flicker of hope was instantly sucked dry by those callous, weightless words—crushed into absolute dust.

Hovering in the chill air, listening to them eagerly plot their precious daughter's salvation over my rotting corpse, a silent, agonizing wail tore through the very core of my soul. No one asked questions. No one gave a damn where Violet had died. My hopes, my grievances—from the very beginning, they were nothing but a pathetic, tragic joke.