The fluorescent lights in Dr. Chen's office hummed overhead as I sat on the examination table, my legs dangling like a child's. Three days had passed since the cemetery, and I hadn't been able to keep food down since. Warren had been hovering, all concerned husband again, insisting I see a doctor when I collapsed in the kitchen that morning.
'When was your last menstrual cycle?' Dr. Chen asked, her pen poised over my chart.
I tried to remember. Everything felt foggy lately, like I was living underwater. 'I... it's been irregular. Maybe three months?'
Her eyebrows lifted slightly. 'And you mentioned feeling dizzy, weak, shortness of breath?'
'Yes.' The word came out as barely a whisper.
She pressed the stethoscope to my chest, her face growing more concerned with each heartbeat. 'Catherine, I'm going to run some blood work. Your heart rate is elevated, and you're quite pale.'
Twenty minutes later, she returned with results that made her frown deepen. 'Your hemoglobin is dangerously low. Severely anemic. Have you been bleeding heavily? Any injuries?'
'No, nothing like that.' I touched my mother's locket, the familiar gesture now feeling like a lifeline.
Dr. Chen sat down across from me, her expression shifting from clinical to concerned. 'Catherine, I need to ask you something, and I want you to be completely honest with me. Has anyone been... taking your blood? For any reason?'
The question hit me like a physical blow. My mouth opened, then closed. How could she possibly know?
'I can see from your arms,' she said gently, pointing to the small puncture marks I'd been hiding under long sleeves. 'These are needle marks, multiple sites, recent and repeated. This level of anemia doesn't happen overnight.'
Tears I'd been holding back for days finally spilled over. 'Jade's mother,' I whispered. 'She needed blood transfusions. Jade said... she said I was the only compatible donor they could find quickly.'
Dr. Chen's face darkened. 'How often?'
'Twice a week. For the past six months.' Each admission felt like confessing to a crime.
'Catherine.' Her voice was sharp now. 'I need you to listen to me very carefully. I've been practicing medicine for twenty years. No patient requires that frequency of transfusions unless they're actively hemorrhaging. And if they were, they'd be in a hospital, not receiving blood from an unmonitored donor.'
The room seemed to tilt. 'What are you saying?'
'I'm saying someone has been systematically draining your blood for no legitimate medical purpose.' She pulled up something on her computer. 'I ran a check with local hospitals and blood banks. There's no record of any Mrs. Burke receiving transfusions anywhere in the state.'
The words hit me like ice water. No record. No sick mother. Just Jade, taking my blood for... what? Sport?
'You could have died,' Dr. Chen continued. 'Your iron levels are so depleted that your body is essentially cannibalizing itself to function.'
I stared at my hands, at the small scars dotting my inner arms like a constellation of cruelty. How many times had I sat in that sterile room while Jade watched the crimson flow from my veins into those bags? How many times had she smiled and thanked me for 'saving her mother's life'?
'I need to report this,' Dr. Chen said.
'No!' The word exploded from me with surprising force. 'Please, you don't understand. It's complicated.'
She studied my face with the practiced eye of someone who'd seen too much. 'Catherine, this is abuse. Medical abuse. What they've done to you is criminal.'
I slid off the examination table, my legs unsteady. 'I need to go home.'
'I'm prescribing iron supplements and a high-protein diet. But Catherine...' She caught my arm gently. 'Whatever situation you're in, there are people who can help.'
I nodded without meaning it and took the prescription with hands that shook like autumn leaves.
That evening, I sat in my car outside our house—Warren's house—staring at the manila envelope hidden beneath my passenger seat. Inside were the documents Marcus Thompson had sent from the State Department: housing arrangements in Seattle, start date, travel authorization. My escape route, if I had the courage to take it.
Through the living room window, I could see Warren and Jade on the couch, her head on his shoulder as they watched television. The picture of domestic bliss. Legal marriage. Everything I'd thought I had but never did.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled to Marcus's number, my thumb hovering over the call button. One phone call. One word—yes—and I could disappear into a new life across the country.
But first, I had preparations to make. Quietly. Carefully. Because if Jade could steal my blood for six months without Warren questioning it, what else might she be capable of when she realized I was planning to leave?
I slipped the envelope back under the seat and walked toward the house, my footsteps silent on the concrete. Inside, I would smile and nod and play the broken woman they expected me to be.
But in my mind, I was already packing.
