Several hours later, my mother was wheeled into the ICU.
"Ma'am, the surgery was a success, but your mother hasn't regained consciousness yet. She'll need to stay in the ICU for observation for a week."
The doctor's words nearly buckled my knees. I stood on the other side of the glass, staring at my mother's body threaded with tubes, my palm pressed flat against the cold surface. Only then did I let myself breathe.
She was all I had left. And thank God, luck hadn't abandoned her entirely. She was still here.
I was about to go into the ICU to see her when Mabel's syrupy voice slithered into my ears.
"Oh, Amber, we saw Auntie collapse at the funeral, so we came to check on her."
She stood in front of me, eyes glittering with provocation, every syllable dripping contempt.
Behind her stood my brother, Max Fox, and Guy.
"Mainly here to check on her condition. After all, Mabel is my most cherished little sister." Max's gaze swept over me with undisguised disgust. "Unlike a certain piece of trash."
I stood rooted to the spot. Every ounce of grief inside me curdled into a single bitter smile.
Max and I were the products of our father's drunken indiscretions.
Our mother had fought tooth and nail to keep us alive. It was only years later that the Fox family finally took us in.
The first year after we returned to the family, Max and I were kidnapped on the way home from school by people with a grudge against the Foxes. They locked us in a pitch-black shack in the mountains.
The kidnappers pressed guns to our foreheads and told the family to pay the ransom and pick one child to take home.
The family chose Max.
I was shaking so hard I couldn't stand. Max pulled me into his arms and held on like his life depended on it.
"I'll stay. Let my sister go."
His voice trembled, but he said every word with absolute certainty.
He defied the family's decision without a second's hesitation. He chose me.
I believed that kind of bond, forged in the shadow of death, was unbreakable.
Then Mabel and her mother walked through our door, and everything changed.
On Max's birthday, I baked him a cake with my own hands.
We blew out the candles together. I cut the first slice, and we shared it.
Then a searing pain ripped through my stomach. Max collapsed right in front of me.
We were both rushed to the hospital. Poison.
My dose had been smaller. After a day unconscious, I regained enough strength to rip out my IV and go find him.
Outside the emergency room, I saw his eyes flutter open. Relief hit me so hard my legs gave out and I crumpled to the floor.
But the very next moment, Mabel appeared with a group of people carrying several half-used packets of poison and sedatives, along with a recording.
"These were all found in Amber's bedroom and her mother's room. Their fingerprints are on the packages, and this recording proves Amber is the one who poisoned him."
My voice came through the recording, clear as day: "How come he didn't die in that kidnapping? Mom told the kidnappers to kill him. This time, I'll make sure he's dead for good!"
Max lay on the gurney, his face whiter than the sheets beneath him.
He looked at me, and something behind his eyes shattered completely.
"Amber Fox..." His voice was raw, scraped hollow. "I traded my life for yours. And you wanted me dead this whole time?"
"So during that kidnapping, your mother already wanted me gone." A cold, broken laugh left his lips.
"Max, it wasn't me! The recording is fake!"
"Get out."
He closed his eyes and refused to look at me again.
"From now on, you and your mother are nothing to me."
From that day forward, I went from being the sister he'd risked his life to protect to the person he despised most in the world.
The shards of that memory were still lodged in my throat when Max's voice cut through, cold as a slab of ice.
"Amber, Mabel's health still hasn't recovered. And since your mother doesn't have long to live anyway, we might as well use her heart to continue Mabel's treatment."
