Odette frowned, her gaze piercing and filled with disapproval. Her voice cut through the tense air, each word a blade aimed at me.
"Verena, you’re the only doctor here with experience treating brain-dead patients. Is your career really worth more than saving your husband’s life?"
"Especially when he ended up like this trying to save you!"
Her tone grew sharper, laced with both judgment and disbelief. "Saving lives is a doctor’s duty, your duty. And this isn’t just any patient. This is your husband!"
"Brain death has a 99% fatality rate. Are you really willing to let Matias die just to protect your job?"
The weight of her words crashed over the room like a tidal wave. Milana and Alastor turned ghostly pale, their faces drained of all color. Without hesitation, they dropped to their knees, their trembling hands reaching toward me as they pleaded, their voices broken with desperation.
I kept my gaze fixed on the screen, ignoring the chaos around me.
“Defeat!”
The game’s failure notification blared from my phone, loud and mocking. I stared at the screen as the crystal shattered into pieces, then flung the phone aside in frustration.
“This is all your fault! You just couldn’t shut up, could you?!”
“That was my promotion match, and you ruined it! Buzzing around like flies, so damn annoying!”
Alastor knelt at my feet, trembling. His once-proud face was now creased with desperation as he looked up, his voice weak and pleading.
“Verena, please… As long as you save Matias, we’ll give you anything—anything you want…”
Around us, the crowd began to stir, their whispers swelling like ripples in still water. Realization dawned on their faces, their expressions shifting—some with pity, others with suspicion.
A few elderly women exchanged disapproving glances, their faces pinched with judgment as they looked me up and down.
Before I could speak, the door to the hospital room burst open.
A young nurse came rushing out, her face drained of color, panic etched in every line of her expression.
“Dr. Hewitt, Dr. Hewitt, his blood pressure just dropped! He might not survive!”
Her voice wavered with a sharp edge of panic.
Odette turned to the nurse, her eyes flashing with irritation before she shifted her dark, penetrating gaze back to me.
“Verena,” she began, her tone hard, “I’ll ask you one last time: are you sure you won’t go in to see him?”
I held her gaze, silent.
The wound on my wrist pulled painfully, fresh blood trickling out, vivid and red.
Under the weight of Odette’s stormy gaze, I slowly nodded, the action deliberate yet filled with resolve.
Seeing this, Alastor grabbed my arm in a desperate, frantic motion. Before he could utter a word, Milana’s wail cut through the air, raw with emotion.
"How can you be so heartless?"
Her voice cracked, trembling with grief.
"Matias dated you for seven years, never once caring that your family was poor!"
"He’s handsome, well-educated, with countless women vying for his attention, yet he chose you, he insisted on marrying you!"
"From the moment you two began dating, wasn’t everything you ate, everything you wore, bought by my son?"
"When you married, you brought nothing, a poor family, no dowry, but we never looked down on you."
"Even your tuition for your master's and doctoral studies came from Matias’s pocket! Now his life hangs by a thread, and you..."
Milana’s words sliced through the air, each one heavier than the last, dripping with sorrow and fury.
By the end, she could no longer hold back, her sobs spilling over in a torrent of despair.
The crowd could no longer hold their tongues. One by one, voices rose in condemnation, their words sharp with disapproval.
"Young lady, is your job really more important than this? You can always find another job, but if your husband dies, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!"
"Exactly! He treated you like gold, loved you with every ounce of his heart, and now you’re just going to turn your back on him? How can you forget where you came from?"
