Ch.41: Consequences

The gunshot is deafening in the confined space of the panic room antechamber.

Greta drops. She doesn't scream again. She just crumples to the floor, a single, bloody hole in her chest.

Leo watches. He is too drugged, too sick to understand what just happened. He just stares at his mother's body with wide, glassy eyes.

"Greta!" I scream.

I try to wheel toward her, but the guards grab the chair. They yank me back.

Thorne lunges for Kael, but he is too slow, too injured. Kael pistol-whips him, sending him crashing to the floor.

"Enough," Aris says. He steps over Greta's body as if she were a piece of trash. "Clean this up. Put the boy back in his cell."

Kael nods. He scoops up Leo, who is now crying silently. He drags Thorne out of the room by his collar.

"And her?" Kael asks, jerking his head toward me.

"Prep her," Aris says. "The OR is ready."

The guards drag me out of the wheelchair. They don't bother with the niceties this time. They lift me by my arms and legs, carrying me like a carcass.

I look back at Isabella.

She is still standing by the wall, the gun hanging limply at her side. She is staring at Greta's body.

"Isabella!" I shout. "Run! You still have the keycard! Run!"

She doesn't move. She is broken. The realization that she is nothing more than a vessel has shattered her completely.

Aris walks up to her. He takes the gun from her hand.

"Go to your room, Bella," he says softly. "Put on something nice. The Buyer wants to see you before the transfer."

Isabella nods, zombie-like. She turns and walks away, leaving the keycard on the floor.

I am carried down the hall. Down the service elevator. Back into the basement.

But not to my cell.

To the Operating Room.

It is bright. Blindingly bright. The mirrored ceiling reflects my own terror back at me.

They throw me onto the table. Leather straps are buckled across my chest, my legs, my forehead.

I am paralyzed again. Not by drugs, but by steel and leather.

Aris enters. He is washing his hands in the scrub sink.

"You almost had me," he says, his voice conversational. "The gas. The bomb threat. Very creative, Elena. I'm impressed."

He dries his hands. He snaps on a pair of latex gloves.

"But in the end, you made one fatal mistake."

He walks over to the table. He looks down at me.

"You thought I had limits."

He picks up a marker. He begins to draw lines on my face. Dotted lines along my jaw, across my forehead, around my remaining eye.

"You thought I wouldn't kill a mother in front of her child. You thought I wouldn't sacrifice my own creation."

He traces the line of my cheekbone.

"But I have a deadline to meet. And deadlines make monsters of us all."

The door opens.

Kael enters.

"The Buyer is here, sir. Her convoy just pulled up to the service entrance."

Aris checks the clock on the wall.

"Early," he notes. "Excellent."

He looks at me.

"She's eager. She's been waiting a long time for a face like yours."

He picks up a scalpel.

"Prep the donor," he says to the nurse who has just entered—a new nurse, one I don't recognize. Greta's replacement.

The nurse nods. She begins to set up the IV.

I look at the ceiling. I look at my reflection.

This is it. No more plans. No more allies.

Greta is dead. Thorne is captured. Isabella is broken.

And the Buyer is walking through the door.

Aris leans close to my ear.

"Don't worry, darling," he whispers. "You won't feel a thing. I need the tissue relaxed."

He nods to the nurse.

"Start the anesthesia."

The cold fluid hits my veins. The darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision.

But I fight it. I hold onto one thought. One tiny, sharp sliver of hope.

The diamond.

It's still inside me. Somewhere in my gut.

If I die on this table, they win.

But if I wake up... if I wake up before they take my face...

I will use it.

I look Aris in the eye.

"Go to hell," I whisper.

Aris smiles.

"We're already there, Elena."

He turns to greet the Buyer.

It ends tonight.