“Absolutely not.”
It is the calm certainty of his voice that guts me. There is no anger or fear. Just the simple truth that I am not worth saving.
“My uncle—” I start, and my voice cracks.
“I know about your family,” he interrupts. “Your father was killed for trying to help victims. For killing Collective members. Even though he was a part of it.”
His tone doesn’t change.
“He went rogue. That got him and your mother killed. And now you’re here.”
Another weight presses into the hollow space in my chest. It's another betrayal, another loss that has never been my choice to carry.
“I’m not putting myself or my family on the line for you. The most I’ll do is stabilize your wrist.”
My eyes burn as my body trembles uncontrollably. I try to steady my breathing, but my gaze drifts toward the tray beside me. A scalpel rests there, its metal catching the overhead lights.
My breath falters.
One motion would be enough. One quick slit of my wrists.
I could stop all of this. I could end the terror, the pain, the endless waiting, and the grief that feels like it's swallowing me whole. There would be no more games, no more screaming, no more desperate hope for someonewho will never come.
My fingers twitch toward the instrument.
Then another memory surfaces. Seth’s hand resting on my stomach. The sound of his voice when I told him. Almost stunned in a way I had never heard from him before.
A shaky breath tears out of me.
I can’t kill myself. I can’t kill us.
Our child is inside me. The last piece of him this world hasn’t stolen from me.
If I die, our baby dies too. If I give up now, everything Seth fought for ends here on a cold metal table under fluorescent lights.
He would have wanted our baby to live.
And he would have wanted me to keep fighting.
My hand slides away from the scalpel, trembling.
The physician’s clinical and detached voice cuts back in.
“If Elliot kills you before the terms are carried out, it will fracture things between him, Grant, and John.”
I blink, forcing myself to focus on him. “Fracture them how?”
The physician adjusts his glasses and finally meets my eyes. “It would cause problems. Things have already been on shaky ground between them for some time. Elliot resents being told what he can and cannot do, and John is increasingly frustrated with how often his instructions are ignored.”
My pulse pounds in my ears.
“If Elliot disregards what John asked for and kills you anyway, it will almost certainly deepen those tensions,” he continues. “Grant tends to sit somewhere in the middle of that conflict, which only complicates the situation further.”
I swallow hard. “So that protects me?”
The physician hesitates before answering.
“Not necessarily,” he says carefully. “I am not convinced John cares enough about the outcome if he sent you here in the first place. What seems to frustrate him more is the pattern of people disregarding his authority.”
