“She's fine. Just surface wounds.”
Abner's voice was certain, dismissive.
My knuckles went white around my chopsticks.
I set them down.
“I'm done eating.”
I stood and walked upstairs without looking back.
Abner didn't follow.
He was murmuring to Wendy, coaxing her to drink her soup.
Back in the bedroom.
I pulled the suitcase out from under the bed.
Then I opened the jewelry box in the drawer.
The engagement ring Abner had slipped onto my finger himself — I twisted it off.
Set it beside the empty case that had once held the jade token.
The truth was, I'd already transferred full control of the overseas trust fund linked to that token. Every cent had been donated to the orphanage my grandfather supported while he was alive.
Abner could tear that bank apart brick by brick. He'd never see a dollar of Simmons money.
I'd booked a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Tomorrow, noon.
The bank trip was nothing but a ruse to get him out the door.
That night,
I slept better than I had in months.
The next day, rain came down in sheets.
Abner stood by the car with an umbrella, waiting for me.
Wendy sat in the back seat, window rolled down.
“Maud, I want to see Grandpa's heirloom too. It's so boring sitting at home all day.”
Abner backed her up without missing a beat：“Then she'll come along. I'd worry leaving her here by herself.”
I didn't argue.
I opened the passenger door and got in.
Rain blurred the windshield into nothing.
“Maud, once you've got the jade token, we'll sign the transfer agreement right there at the bank. I've already arranged for the lawyer to wait in the VIP room.”
“Fine.”
Eyes closed. One word. That was all I gave him.
We were passing through an intersection beneath an overpass when it happened.
From the side, a heavy truck loaded with steel rebar lost control completely.
Brakes screamed through the rain.
The massive cab came hurtling straight at our right side.
“Watch out!”
My seat — the passenger side — would take the first hit.
Abner didn't hesitate.
He wrenched the steering wheel hard, swinging my side of the car directly into the truck's path.
At the same time, he unbuckled his seatbelt and threw his body to the right, shoving Wendy's head down in the back seat, pinning her beneath him.
“Wendy! Get down!”
He was screaming, raw and wild.
“CRASH——!!”
A deafening explosion of metal.
The car broke in half.
The impact ripped the passenger door clean off.
I was thrown from the vehicle.
My body rolled across the wet asphalt a dozen times before slamming into a concrete barrier.
The savage, splintering pain of bones breaking apart.
I lay facedown in the cold, filthy rainwater pooling on the road.
Blood ran from my forehead, sealing my eyes shut.
A few meters away, inside the gutted wreck,
Abner kicked the crumpled door open.
He climbed out with Wendy in his arms.
“Wendy! Wendy, don't scare me!”
He'd shielded her so completely she didn't have a scratch. Only her face was white with shock.
“Abner, I'm so scared……”
I lay in my own blood and raised my hand with everything I had left.
Reaching toward him.
“Ab……”
My voice was so faint I couldn't even hear it myself.
Blood covered my face, filled my eyes. I couldn't see anything.
But I could hear him. The crunch of broken glass under his shoes as he took one step toward me.
Then Wendy let out a small, thin whimper of pain, and his footsteps reversed instantly, carrying him back to her without a second's pause.
In the distance, an ambulance siren cut through the rain.
Abner snapped his gaze away.
He clutched Wendy tight and screamed at the first ambulance as it rolled to a stop.
“Doctor! Her first! She can't take the shock, and she's got an old injury on her leg!”
The paramedic jumped out, took one look at me bleeding in the distance, and shouted back.
“That woman over there is hemorrhaging! She needs treatment now!”
Abner planted himself in front of the ambulance doors.
He shoved Wendy inside.
“Maud Simmons is tough as nails! She's not going to die!”
“Wendy's already disabled. If you keep stalling and something happens to her, can you afford to take responsibility?”
The doors slammed shut with a “bang.”
The ambulance screamed away.
My arm dropped to my side.
The blood-slicked key slipped from my palm.
A faint “clink” against the pavement.
I closed my eyes for good.
