Elna POV:
Garrison's face was a mask of cold fury. He didn't shout. His voice was dangerously low, a tremor of suppressed rage that was far more terrifying than any scream. "Elna, what is this new lie? What did you do to Katia?"
The words tumbled out, desperate and clumsy, a pathetic echo of a girl who still thought the truth mattered. "Garrison, she's lying! She and her friends, they tore my dress. She cut herself, I saw her! She’s manipulating you!"
He scoffed, a harsh, dismissive sound that echoed in the cavernous living room. "Pay her back? With what, Elna? Your empty promises? Katia is delicate, she would never harm herself. And Mrs. Higgins saw you! She has no reason to lie!"
His eyes burned into mine. "You're trying to destroy my family. Is that it, Elna? Are you trying to punish me for not choosing you?"
"I tried to save you!" I cried, my voice raw with a pain he refused to see. "They want my kidney, Garrison! They want to cut me open!"
He laughed. It was a chilling, mirthless sound that finally, irrevocably, shattered the last shard of the girl I used to be. "Delusional," he spat, his disgust a physical thing in the air between us. He turned, his gaze falling on a half-empty bottle of expensive scotch on a nearby side table.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to seize me, but something else rose to meet it: clarity. It was a terrible, crystalline clarity that cut through all the confusion, all the pain. He knew. He knew I was severely allergic to alcohol. A single sip could send me into anaphylactic shock.
This was not a punishment. This was an execution.
"No, Garrison! Please!" The plea was instinct, a final, futile protest from a body that still wanted to live, even if the spirit within it was dying.
He ignored me. As he poured the amber liquid, a memory flashed, sharp and cruel. Garrison, on one of our first dates, holding my hand under a starry sky. “I’ll always protect you,” he’d whispered, his voice thick with sincerity. “You’re mine, and I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
My body reacted violently. My throat swelled instantly, my chest seized, and a burning rash erupted across my skin. I choked, gasping for air that wouldn't come, my vision blurring as he released me. I crumpled to the floor, my body convulsing.
Through the haze of pain, I saw Katia rush to his side, a perfect picture of concern. "Garrison, darling! She's having a fit! I told you she was unstable!"
Garrison didn't even look at me. He looked at Katia, his gaze softening with a tenderness that was now a grotesque mockery. "I'm so sorry you had to see this, sweetheart." He turned to the housekeeper. "Mrs. Higgins, call the car. We're taking Katia to the hospital. She's clearly traumatized."
As he led Katia towards the door, he paused. "Elna," he said, his voice flat and cold, "when we get back, you will apologize to Katia for everything. And you will mean it."
Then he was gone.
Lying on the floor, each breath a battle, my mind was terrifyingly calm. He knows, I thought, not with panic, but with the certainty of a judge passing sentence. He knows and he did it anyway.
When they returned hours later, I had managed to crawl to a sofa, my body a wreck. Mrs. Crawford was with them, her face twisted into a mask of pure hatred.
"You wicked, hateful creature!" she shrieked, lunging at me, her hand cracking across my already bruised face. She grabbed my hair, pulling my head up until my neck strained. "You think you can come into our home, poison our children, and get away with it? You ruined my son! You ruined Corliss! Everything was fine until you came!"
Her words were a torrent of abuse. I didn't flinch. I didn't cry. I simply watched her, my eyes as empty and cold as a winter lake. I was cataloging this. Every word. Every blow. Every injustice. They were no longer wounds. They were evidence.
Garrison stood by, watching. His silence was his consent, his final, damning signature on my death warrant.
Garrison gave a curt nod, his face unreadable. "Clean her up," he ordered the housekeeper, his voice flat. "And make sure she doesn't leave this room. Minimum care. Just enough to keep her alive."
Just enough to keep me alive. For the harvest.
I stared at the framed photo on the bedside table. Garrison and me, smiling. A ghost of a girl with a man who never existed. With methodical calm, I reached out, my hand trembling not from weakness but from nascent strength, and turned the photo face down.
The girl in that picture was dead. She died of poison, tonight. In her place, something new was taking root in the void. Something cold, and hard, and patient.
