Jane sat on the cold floor. The white walls of the hospital room seemed to be physically shrinking, pressing in on her lungs until she couldn't breathe.
Carson's voice played on a loop in her head. You belong to me now.
She knew he meant it. He had the money and the power to make sure she never saw the sun again. Going back to him meant enduring a torture far worse than the concrete walls of Cell Block D.
The sheer weight of her terror finally crushed the last barrier in her mind.
If staying alive meant endless humiliation and pain, then death was the only way to pay her debt and find peace.
Jane slowly pushed herself off the floor. Her eyes were completely hollow. She moved like a ghost.
She walked to the large window. The 17th-floor drop looked down over the busy streets of Manhattan. It was high enough to end everything instantly.
She reached for the latch, but the VIP windows were made of heavy, tempered safety glass. They only opened a few inches-not nearly enough for a person to fit through.
Jane turned her head. Her dead eyes locked onto the heavy metal IV pole standing in the corner of the room.
She wrapped both hands around the thick steel rod. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she forced herself to lift the heavy metal base off the ground.
She swung the pole, driving the heavy metal base directly into the corner of the window frame where the locking mechanism sat. BANG. The heavy impact sent a shockwave up her arms. The tempered glass did not break, but a web of white cracks appeared at the point of impact.
Jane didn't stop. She aimed for the exact same structural weak point, using the pole not with brute force, but with a desperate, calculated precision. She jammed the steel tip into the growing spiderweb of cracks, leveraging her entire body weight against it. Blood seeped through the bandages on her face and back, staining her hospital gown red. She couldn't feel the pain. She was a machine built only for destruction.
With a final, agonizing push, the compromised safety glass let out a loud groan, its structural integrity failing as it shattered outward. A massive hole opened to the sky.
Violent, freezing wind instantly sucked into the room. It whipped Jane's hair around her face and knocked over the medical trays.
The sound of breaking glass triggered the room's emergency sensors. Red lights began flashing wildly above the door.
The two bodyguards stationed outside kicked the door open and rushed in.
They froze. The bed was empty.
They ran to the window and looked out. Jane was standing barefoot on the narrow, six-inch concrete ledge outside the 17th-floor window.
The wind tore at her thin gown. She swayed dangerously, looking like a piece of paper about to be blown away.
One guard grabbed his radio. "Mr. Long! Get back here now!"
Less than a minute later, heavy, frantic footsteps pounded down the hallway. Carson burst into the room, his chest heaving.
When his eyes landed on Jane standing on the edge of the abyss, his heart violently seized.
A primal, soul-crushing panic exploded in his chest. It defied all logic, a sudden, all-consuming terror that threatened to swallow him whole. His mind went entirely blank, leaving only one singular, desperate thought echoing in the void-he could not let her fall.
But Carson's dominant personality violently suppressed the panic. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. He marched to the broken window.
He gripped the jagged edges of the window frame. His knuckles turned white. He glared out at her.
Instead of begging her to come back, Carson let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
"Is this your new trick?" Carson yelled over the howling wind. "You really think this cheap manipulation will work on me?"
He firmly believed she was faking it. He thought she was just a spoiled rich girl trying to force him to back down.
Carson took a step back from the window. He opened his arms wide in a gesture of invitation.
"You want to die?" Carson roared, his voice laced with pure venom. "Then jump! Let's see if you actually have the guts!"
The guards and the nurses who had just arrived gasped in horror.
Jane stood on the ledge. She looked down at the dizzying drop. The cars below looked like tiny ants.
She slowly turned her head. Through the broken glass, she looked at the man she had once loved, the man who was now pushing her into the grave.
