Kandy's voice, sharp and piercing, drew the eyes of everyone nearby, including Mrs. Pemberton and a curious Tansy Kelley.
She sauntered over to Alyssa, theatrically pinching her nose. "Are you actually sleeping on the street? Get away from me. I don't want to catch your poverty."
Alyssa's gaze remained flat, her expression unchanged. She simply looked through Kandy, as if she were a pane of dirty glass. This infuriated Kandy more than any insult could have.
"What is wrong with your hotel?" Kandy screeched at the security guards. "You just let anyone in? She used to steal things from our house! You should arrest her!"
The guards, already convinced Alyssa was trouble, nodded grimly.
Suddenly, a pained gasp came from nearby.
Tansy Kelley's body went limp. Her face turned a frightening shade of blue, her breathing ragged. Her limbs began to twitch in a violent, uncontrolled seizure.
"Miss Tansy!" Mrs. Pemberton shrieked, her composure shattering. "What's wrong? Someone call an ambulance!"
The entrance dissolved into chaos. The doorman and guards panicked, frozen in place. Kandy's eyes widened, a sick flicker of excitement on her face as she prepared to watch the drama unfold.
But Elisa heard Mrs. Pemberton mutter a sentence to herself: "Genetic shock."
Her eyes sharpened.
In a flash, she shoved past a guard and was at Tansy's side.
"What are you doing?" Mrs. Pemberton cried, trying to shield Tansy. "Get away from her!"
Alyssa ignored her completely. She knelt, her fingers pressing against Tansy's carotid artery, then against several nerve clusters on her neck. Her movements were precise, economical, and utterly professional. From a small pouch on her belt, hidden beneath her hoodie, she produced a thin, sterile case containing several long, silver needles. It was a toolset no ordinary student would carry.
"Alyssa, are you insane?" Kandy screamed. "You're going to kill her! If anything happens to her, you'll be in jail for the rest of your life!"
Kandy lunged forward, trying to pull Alyssa away.
"Get back!" Alyssa snapped, without even looking up. "Touch me again, and she dies."
The raw authority in her voice was absolute. It stopped Kandy cold.
Alyssa barked an order at Mrs. Pemberton. "Lay her flat. Elevate her head. Loosen her collar. Keep her airway clear. Now!"
Stunned, Mrs. Pemberton found herself obeying without thinking.
With a speed that blurred her hands, Alyssa inserted three of the silver needles into specific acupressure points on Tansy's neck and wrist. It was a high-risk, ancient technique designed to manually regulate a failing nervous system.
Seeing the needles, Kandy started screaming again, this time with triumph. "Look! Everyone, look! She's stabbing her with some unknown drug! This is illegal! It's murder!"
She fumbled for her phone and started recording, a vicious smile on her face. The headline was already forming in her mind: Homeless Woman Attacks Heiress with Street Drugs at Grand Hyatt.
The crowd of onlookers murmured, pointing at Alyssa with a mixture of fear and disgust.
The security guards surged forward, determined to stop her.
Alyssa blocked it all out. She twisted one of the needles a precise quarter-turn. The world narrowed to a single point: the faint, faltering pulse beneath her fingertips.
Upstairs, Dalton Kelley's patience finally broke. He stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. "Has 'The Surgeon' arrived or not?" he growled at his assistant. "I'm not waiting any longer. Let's go check on Tansy."
He strode toward the elevator, completely unaware that downstairs, his sister's life was hanging by a thread, and the doctor he was desperately waiting for was being treated like a killer.
