Ch.51: Isabella's Choice

I pull myself back through the window. The rain soaks my hospital gown, washing away the blood but not the pain.

Kael has Thorne. He’s taking him to the roof. Why? To throw him off? To use him as bait?

I have to follow.

But as I turn toward the door, I freeze.

Someone is standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

Isabella.

She is still wearing the torn evening gown. Her hair is matted with sweat.

But it’s her face that stops me.

She has taken the bandages off. The grey, necrotic skin hangs in strips. The underlying tissue is black. It looks like a death mask melting in the sun.

And she is holding a knife.

A long, serrated carving knife from the kitchen.

I step back, my hand going to the gun in my waistband. But it’s empty. I used the last bullet on the oxygen tank.

"Isabella," I say, my voice steady despite the trembling in my legs. "Let me pass."

She doesn't move. She just stares at me with eyes that are too bright, too wide.

"He lied to me," she whispers. "He said it would be perfect. He said I would be beautiful."

She raises the knife.

I brace myself for the attack. I am weak, exhausted, running on fumes. I don't know if I can fight her.

But she doesn't attack me.

She brings the knife to her own face.

To *my* face.

"I don't want it," she says.

She presses the blade against her cheekbone.

"Don't," I say. It’s an instinctive reaction. Seeing my own face threatened, even on another body.

"Why not?" she laughs, a sobbing, choked sound. "It's dead anyway. Just like me."

She slashes.

She cuts deep into the rotting flesh. Blood wells up, dark and thick.

She doesn't scream. The nerves are dead. She just cuts again. And again.

She is carving it off. She is peeling away the lie.

"Isabella, stop!" I step forward.

"Stay back!" she warns, pointing the knife at me. Blood drips from the blade onto the carpet.

"I'm giving it back," she says. "I'm giving it all back."

She reaches up and tears at a flap of skin. It comes away with a wet, sucking sound.

Underneath, her own face—what’s left of it—is raw, scarred, hideous.

But it’s hers.

She drops the piece of flesh on the floor. It lands with a soft *plap*.

She looks at me. She looks terrifying. A monster made of grief and rage.

"Where is he?" she asks.

"Aris?" I ask. "He's in the lab. Blinded."

"Good," she says. "But not dead."

"No," I say. "Not yet."

"And the big one? Kael?"

"On the roof," I say. "He has Thorne."

Isabella nods. She wipes the blood from her eyes.

"Thorne is the only one who tried to help," she says. "Even after I betrayed him."

She looks at the knife in her hand. Then she looks at me.

She reverses her grip. She holds the handle out to me.

"Take it."

I stare at the knife.

"Why?"

"Because I can't do it," she says. "I tried to shoot him, and I failed. I'm weak, Elena. I've always been weak. That’s why I let him do this to me."

She steps closer. She forces the knife into my hand.

Her fingers are cold. Sticky with blood.

"You're not weak," she says. "You survived. You fought back."

She looks at her reflection in the shattered mirror. At the ruin she has made of herself.

"I don't want it anymore," she repeats. "I don't want his love. I don't want his face. I just want him gone."

She turns back to me. Her eyes are pleading.

"Go to the roof. Save your detective."

She points to the hallway.

"I'll deal with the Buyer. She's still in the house. I saw her hiding in the guest suite."

"You can't fight her," I say. "She has guards."

"I don't need to fight her," Isabella says. A strange, peaceful smile touches her ruined lips. "I just need to show her the merchandise."

She touches her raw, bleeding face.

"She won't want it after she sees this."

She pushes me toward the door.

"Go."

I look at her one last time. She is a tragedy. A victim who became a monster who became a martyr.

I take the knife. It feels heavy. Sharp.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"Don't thank me," she says. "Just finish him."

She handed me the knife. 'Finish him.'