The door closed. My arms gave out beneath me and I collapsed to the floor.
I curled into myself as tightly as I could.
Every inch of my body screamed with pain, but my heart felt nothing at all, dead and still as stagnant water.
I didn't know how long I lay there before I dragged myself up, grabbed the bank card, and stumbled out the door.
I pushed open the hospital room door.
My mother was propped against the headboard, her face ashen, her lips blue.
On the television facing her bed, a video was playing: me, on my knees, slapping myself across the face.
The camera cut to the master bedroom of the villa, where Sean and Bernice were tangled together, lost in each other.
The audio played at full volume, every word razor-clear: “You old hag. Your daughter gets on her knees for me every day, begging like a dog, all because of you. You're nothing but a burden.”
I was shaking from head to toe, about to call out to her.
My mother clutched her chest and crumpled sideways.
The heart monitor shrieked.
I threw myself at the call button, slamming it over and over.
Doctors rushed in. “Get her to the OR. Now.”
As the gurney rolled past me, my mother caught my hand. Her voice came in broken fragments, barely sounds at all. “I'm sorry, sweetheart……”
I couldn't breathe. Tears poured down my face.
A doctor blocked my path before I could follow. “Ms. Thomas, you need to go pay for the surgery right now. Immediately.”
I braced myself against the wall, fighting the blackness closing in at the edges of my vision, one hand pressed to my lower abdomen as I shoved the bank card through the payment window.
One beep.
Payment declined.
The clerk frowned and slid the card back to me. “Ma'am, there are insufficient funds in this account.”
I stood there. My mind went blank.
My phone buzzed with a text.
“Your account ending in 0808 has been charged $500,000. Remaining balance: $0.00.”
A message from Sean came in right after.
“Bernice liked a handbag. Happened to be $500,000. Consider it your way of making it up to her.”
I called him back immediately. My voice shook so badly I could barely form words. “Sean, Mom is in emergency surgery. That was her surgery money!”
“When are you going to get tired of that line? Bernice already called a specialist. Your mother's perfectly fine. She was out sunbathing by herself this morning.”
He let out a long, weary sigh, like a parent scolding an unreasonable child. “Enough. Stop making a scene. Bernice's dog is sick. She's upset, and I need to be with her.”
The line went dead. I called again. The number was no longer reachable.
My phone rang again and I answered, head bowed.
“Ms. Thomas, the payment confirmation never came through. The donor heart has been claimed by another party. I'm very sorry. Your mother was just declared brain dead.”
I stood where I was. The world tipped and spun around me.
Two nurses passed nearby, their conversation drifting over. “Did you hear? There's a dog in the VIP suite on the top floor. Supposedly had a heart problem, and someone insisted on giving it a donor heart that an old woman had been waiting years for. The organ rejected immediately and went necrotic. A human heart in a dog. How could that ever work? And the poor woman missed it by five minutes.”
“Keep your voice down. That's the wife of the Morton Group CEO up there. He treats her like she's made of gold. We can't afford to cross them.”
I stood there for a while. Then I turned and walked upstairs.
Sean had his arm around Bernice. They were playing with a Toy Poodle that was bouncing around, perfectly healthy.
He looked mildly surprised to see me. “Good timing. Beanie has indigestion. You've got experience with this sort of thing. From now on, you'll be Beanie's caretaker.”
My breathing stopped for half a beat. “Just indigestion?”
Bernice smiled, something unreadable in her eyes. “That's right. False alarm, thank goodness. Too bad it wasted a perfectly good donor heart. Who knows which poor unlucky soul took the hit for my little Beanie.”
Sean said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If the other person couldn't afford the surgery, dying is their own fault.”
I lowered my eyes and, without warning, smiled.
The fruit knife I'd hidden behind my back swung out in a vicious arc.
Bernice screamed and scrambled away.
Sean was half a second too slow. The blade caught his arm, and he stared at me in shock. “Have you lost your mind? You'd kill someone over five hundred thousand dollars?”
I laughed, tears streaming down my face. “I did come here to kill someone. But you two aren't worth dirtying my hands.”
Sean went rigid. He met my eyes and saw the finality there, the hatred, and something clicked.
His pupils contracted to pinpoints. He lunged forward with a raw, terrified scream. “No!”
Too late.
I gripped the knife, aimed it at my own chest, and drove it in.
