Eliza McCall POV
The private wing of the hospital rivaled the Pentagon in security.
Guards armed with assault rifles stood sentinel at every elevator bank, their expressions unreadable behind dark glasses.
I sat in a hard plastic chair in the corridor, a ghost haunting the periphery of their grief.
They had only summoned me because Dionne insisted the "whole family" be present for the press release in the event of Derek's death. Appearance was everything.
Inside the VIP suite, the heart monitors beeped a rhythmic, terrifying countdown.
The door opened, and Don Hadley emerged. His complexion was ashen.
"He's losing blood too fast," he told Dionne, his voice tight. "The hospital bank is out of O-negative. The shipment from the city has been delayed by the storm."
O-negative. The universal donor. Liquid gold.
"He'll bleed out before it gets here," Hadley murmured, his grip on his cane tightening until his knuckles turned the color of bone.
In the corner, Kylie was sobbing with practiced elegance, while Eleanora sat sedated and still in her armchair.
I stood up.
My injured leg throbbed in time with my racing heart, a dull ache that grounded me.
"I'm O-negative," I said.
The silence that fell over the hallway was absolute.
Hadley turned slowly, fixing his predatory gaze on me.
"Are you sure?"
"Burt had type A," I stated, my voice trembling slightly but my logic sound. "My mother is type B. I remember the charts from when I was born... before everything changed."
If Burt was my father, and my mother was B, the genetics were complicated, unlikely. But I knew my own blood.
Unless my father wasn't Burt. Unless he was Derek.
"Take her," Hadley ordered the nurse, his eyes devoid of empathy. "Drain her if you have to."
"No!" Kylie shot up from her chair, her face twisting in disgust. "You can't put her blood in him! It's... from her! It's wrong!"
"Shut up, you stupid girl," Hadley snapped, not looking away from me. "He needs blood, and he needs it now."
The nurse grabbed my arm and dragged me into an adjoining triage room.
She wasn't gentle.
She jabbed the needle into the crook of my arm, finding the vein with a brutal efficiency on the first try.
I watched the plastic bag begin to fill.
The liquid was dark red. Rich. Vital.
It was the same color as the blood that had stained the lawn.
"That's enough," the nurse said after the first pint was full.
"Take another," I whispered, fighting the wave of dizziness crashing over me. "Take as much as he needs."
I wanted to save him.
Not because I loved him. But because if I saved him, maybe—just maybe—he would finally truly see me.
They took two pints.
The world tilted on its axis, and I slipped into darkness.
When I woke, the room was empty.
A solitary juice box sat on the metal side table—a pitiful consolation prize.
Through the thin walls, I could hear cheering erupt in the hallway.
"The helicopter landed!" someone shouted. "The shipment is here!"
My stomach dropped.
They hadn't used my blood.
The shipment had arrived just in time. My sacrifice was meaningless.
I stumbled out into the hallway, using the wall to keep upright.
Derek was stable. The crisis had passed.
The family was already gathering their coats, preparing to depart. They flowed past me like a river around a stone, treating me as if I were invisible.
"Wait," I said, my voice weak.
Dionne stopped. She turned to look at me with cold, mathematical calculation.
"You caused a scene," she said, her lip curling. "Making a spectacle of yourself. Trying to force your way in."
"I just wanted to help."
"You are a liability," she cut in. "Derek almost died because of the stress your presence brings to this family."
She pulled a sleek phone from her designer purse.
"I've made arrangements. Child Services will pick you up in an hour. You're going into the system."
My knees buckled, hitting the linoleum with a painful thud.
"No, please. This is my home."
"This is not your home," she said, her voice a cold whisper. "You are a complication we can no longer afford. We are removing you."
They left.
Eleanora didn't even look back.
I sat alone in the sterile hospital corridor, the cotton ball taped to my arm the only proof that I had tried to give them everything I had.
An hour later, a social worker arrived.
She looked exhausted, her eyes kind but weary. She took my hand.
I went with her. I didn't fight.
I was done fighting.
As we walked out through the automatic sliding doors, a nurse came sprinting up to the reception desk, waving a manila folder.
"Mr. McCall left this!" she called out.
But the McCall convoy was already gone.
Only Don Hadley's black Bentley remained, idling at the curb like a waiting hearse.
The rear window rolled down.
Hadley looked at the nurse with impatient eyes.
"Give it to me," he commanded.
The nurse handed him the folder through the window.
"It's the cross-match results for the girl," she explained, breathless. "You asked for a full genetic panel before the transfusion."
Hadley took the folder.
He watched the social worker's sedan pull away, carrying me into oblivion.
He flipped the file open.
His eyes scanned the page casually at first.
Then he stopped.
He read it again.
His hand began to shake.
Burt McKenzie was sterile. A childhood case of mumps had ensured he could never father children.
The DNA markers were undeniable.
A 99.9% match.
I wasn't Burt's daughter.
I was a McCall.
A pure-blood.
The rightful heir.
And they had just thrown me into the garbage.
