"You really thought Constance set you up at some quaint little farmhouse?"
He bent down, his face inches from mine.
"The day Chief Grogan got the money, he messaged me asking how I wanted you handled."
He straightened up, smoothing the hem of his suit jacket.
"I told them to do whatever they wanted. Just keep you breathing so they could use you as a blood bag."
Caspian's gaze drifted to the bloodstain spreading across my abdomen.
"All those hundreds of days and nights, having your organs hollowed out bit by bit. Must've been something, huh?"
The sharp click of heels echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Constance appeared around the corner.
Caspian threw himself backward instantly, slamming hard onto the marble floor. He clutched his ankle with both hands, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Jacob, I know you hate me, but why did you have to push me..."
Constance's expression shifted like a switch had been flipped. She stormed toward us in long, furious strides.
She didn't spare me a single glance. Her right foot drove straight into my body.
The pointed toe of her stiletto connected with surgical precision against the wound on my abdomen.
The scraps of cloth holding me together burst apart. Blood and shredded flesh sprayed across the wall.
I lay flat on my back, eyes wide open, lungs frozen mid-breath.
Caspian leaned against the wall, pale-faced and gasping.
"Constance, the shock triggered my anemia again. I'm so dizzy..."
She turned her head immediately, her gaze locking onto me like a blade sheathed in ice.
"If you had the strength to push him, you can repay Caspian with your blood."
She pulled out a two-way radio and called for her private physician outside.
Seconds later, the doctor came running down the corridor, medical kit in hand.
Constance pointed at my arm.
"Draw his blood."
The doctor crouched beside me and pulled my left hand toward him. He cinched a tourniquet around my upper arm, then withdrew a glass collection tube fitted with a thick, long needle from his case.
Inside my skull, the System's alarm blared again, the intervals between pulses collapsing to almost nothing.
Seventy-two-hour countdown interrupted by lethal external force. Program accelerating termination.
Host body vitality severed. Pain suppression protocol disengaged.
Soul detachment successful. Wishing the Host a pleasant journey in the new world.
The needle plunged deep into a collapsed vein.
The extraction pump whirred to life, emitting a faint mechanical hum.
Constance stood over me, glancing at the watch on her wrist. Her expression was one of pure, undisguised impatience.
"Faster. He's not going to die."
Her cold gaze swept over me.
"He starved off every ounce of fat under his skin just to play the victim. This kind of pathetic act only fools the hired help who don't know any better."
I stared up at the chandelier hanging from the corridor ceiling.
The light was dimming in my vision, bleeding away at the edges.
I didn't have the strength left to twitch the corner of my mouth.
My eyes lost focus. My head surrendered to gravity, lolling softly to the right against my shoulder.
Constance's brow knotted tight. Her voice cracked through the air like a whip.
"Stop playing dead. Look at me!"
The words had barely left her lips.
CRASH.
A piercing shatter rang through the corridor.
The doctor let out a shriek, his hands flying open.
The glass collection tube hit the marble floor and exploded into fragments. Dark red liquid splattered in every direction.
Constance strode forward.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
The doctor didn't answer her.
His eyes were blown wide with horror. He scrambled backward on the floor until his spine hit the wall.
His hands trembled violently in the air, one finger pointing at the gaping hole torn open in my abdomen.
Foul, black blood was pouring out of it in a steady, unending stream.
The doctor's voice came out so shrill it barely sounded human.
"Ms. Simmons... what came out of that tube was nothing but septic blood from catastrophic organ failure!"
He grabbed his head with both hands.
He pointed at the rotting flesh.
"And his abdomen has no healing muscle tissue. There's nothing inside but a mass of necrotic, blackened, mangled organs!"
The air in the corridor froze solid.
Everyone stood paralyzed.
The doctor's trembling voice continued to echo off the walls.
"Ms. Simmons, this body was already falling apart days ago. He's been dead. Completely dead!"
