Lila watched the light fade from Seraphina's eyes, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. The heart monitor flatlined with a long, final drone. She held her victorious pose for a moment longer, savoring the silence, before schooling her features into a mask of terror.
With a calculated shove, she sent a nearby medical tray crashing to the floor, the clatter echoing loudly.
"Help!" she shrieked, stumbling dramatically out of the room, her voice laced with feigned panic. "Somebody help! Sera... she attacked me, and then she just... collapsed!"
Nurses and a doctor rushed past her, their faces grim. CPR on a body already gone.
Lila pressed a hand to her stomach, let out a pained gasp, and slid gracefully to the floor, drawing all eyes. "The baby... I think I'm..."
Instantly, all attention shifted. The dead woman in the room was forgotten, a mere casualty. Lila was the priority, the fragile mother-to-be. A sharp cramp seized her abdomen, and for a terrifying moment, her performance became real, a flicker of genuine fear.
Seraphina watched the farce with a cold, detached awareness, a ghost in her own demise. She saw them wheel Lila away, the center of frantic attention.
In the hallway, Lila pulled out her phone, thumbs moving quickly across the screen. A message to Slade's assistant. It's done. She put up a fight. An 'accidental' death.
They hadn't just wanted to drain her dry. They wanted her erased. The world warped, the hospital corridor twisting into a vortex of that final, hateful realization. Her consciousness was ripped from its anchor and dragged into the abyss, a scream trapped in her non-existent lungs.
She snapped her eyes open.
The light was too bright, streaming through a large window, not the flat, artificial glare of the clinic, but real, vibrant sunlight. She was in a hospital bed, but a different one. An IV was in her arm, dispensing saline, not the sedatives that had dulled her last moments.
Her gaze fell on the digital clock on the bedside table. Beside it, a calendar. The date was ten years ago.
Ten years ago.
The year she had married Slade. The very day she had woken up in NewYork-Presbyterian after the car crash that had left her with a mild concussion, a convenient accident that had brought Slade into her life as her "savior."
She lifted her hand. Smooth, unblemished by the thousands of needle marks that had scarred her skin in another life. The hand of a twenty-two-year-old, vibrant and strong. This wasn't a dream. This was real.
It was a second chance. A cold, exhilarating wave of clarity washed over her.
The door opened and a nurse with a kind, round face came in. Nurse White. Seraphina remembered her. She remembered the gentle smile, the soft voice, the way she had always seemed so sympathetic.
"Good morning, Mrs. Kensington," the nurse said cheerfully, holding up a syringe and a blood bag. "Time for your donation for Miss Vance. Doctor's orders."
This was it. The day it all began. The day she had willingly, naively, become Lila's personal blood bank. The warmth in Seraphina's eyes vanished, replaced by a glacial resolve.
With a swift, sharp movement, fueled by a decade of repressed rage and a burning desire for retribution, she swatted the nurse's hand. The syringe flew through the air, clattering against the tiled floor, its needle glinting menacingly.
Nurse White froze, her mouth agape, her kind face etched with shock. "Mrs. Kensington...?"
"Under federal law," Seraphina said, her voice low and steady, each word precise and cutting, "drawing blood from a patient without their explicit, written consent constitutes assault and battery. Would you like to test that in court, Nurse White?"
The nurse stared, baffled, her eyes wide. The meek, compliant Mrs. Kensington was gone. In her place was a woman with eyes that looked like they had seen the end of the world and returned, hardened and unyielding.
Seraphina knew the hospital's top administrators had been bought. She couldn't fight them here, not alone. Not yet.
"My phone," she said, her voice a command that brooked no argument.
Still stunned, the nurse retrieved the phone from the bedside table and handed it over. Seraphina's fingers flew across the screen, dialing a number she knew by heart, a number from a life she had almost forgotten. It rang twice before a familiar, respectful voice answered.
"Miss Beaumont?"
Hearing her maiden name, Beaumont, sent a tremor through her, a surge of pride and purpose. "Mr. Foster," she said, her voice tight with controlled urgency. "It's Seraphina."
She kept her explanation brief, devoid of emotion. She was being held. They were attempting to force a blood donation.
"Do not," she added, her voice hardening, a steel edge emerging, "inform my father. His heart isn't strong right now. Come here immediately. Bring the Beaumont legal team. And bring our security."
There was a moment of shocked silence on the other end, then a crisp, "I'm on my way, Miss."
Seraphina ended the call. She looked out the window at the New York City skyline, vibrant and alive. Ten years. She had been given ten years back.
It was more than enough.
