Ch.34: The Offer

I didn't move. I couldn't. I stayed pinned to the floorboards, staring at the polished tips of Isabella’s heels while my heart tried to kick its way out of my ribs. The heavy silk bedspread remained lifted, exposing me like a nerve.

Julian’s wet, whistling breath hitching in the silence was the only sound in the room.

"Get up, Elena," Isabella said. It wasn't a request.

I crawled out, my limbs trembling so violently I had to use the bedframe to haul myself to my feet. I stood there, covered in dust and shame, facing the ageless woman and her rotting husband. Julian let out a low, guttural snarl, his ruined hands twitching toward the surgical tray on the nightstand.

"Kill her," Julian rasped, spit bubbling at the corner of his exposed jaw. "She’s seen too much. She’s a contagion."

Isabella didn't even look at him. She kept her eyes locked on mine, as if searching for a specific quality in my pupils. She held up a hand, and Julian slumped back into his chair, silenced by a gesture.

"Julian is a visionary, but he is a sloppy one," she said, her voice smooth and conversational. "He treats the Chronos serum like a narcotic. He overestimates his own cellular resilience. He is currently 40% necrotic tissue held together by sheer arrogance and my rationing."

She took a step toward me. I backed away until I hit the wall.

"He needs a keeper, Elena. Someone who understands titration. Someone with the discipline of a NICU specialist who won't let her emotions override the data. My housekeepers are too stupid, and my security team is too violent."

"I'll never help you," I spat, though my voice cracked.

Isabella tilted her head, a lock of perfect hair falling over her shoulder. "Oh, you will. Because Julian wants to increase the extraction frequency to 100%. He wants to drain your daughter until her heart stops just to stop the itching in his own skin. I am the only thing standing between him and that nursery."

She reached out, her cool fingers grazing my chin, forcing me to look at the injector lying on the bed.

"Here is the deal, little nurse. You manage his dosage. You keep him functional, stable, and—most importantly—under my thumb. You ensure he doesn't go insane and burn this legacy to the ground."

"And in exchange?" I whispered, the acid in my stomach turning to ice.

Isabella’s smile widened, beautiful and predatory.

"In exchange, I let the baby live. I’ll even let you keep her here, in the nursery, under your own care. No more 'clumsy' extractions from Higgins. You draw the blood. You set the limits. You become the gatekeeper of your daughter's life."

She leaned in, her breath smelling of expensive mints and something metallic.

"He's useful, but unstable. Help me control him, and you can keep the baby."

I looked at Julian, a monster of grey flesh and black veins, then back at the woman who owned him. If I said no, they’d kill me and harvest Daisy until she was a husk. If I said yes, I was the one holding the needle to my own child's vein to satisfy a god.

A deal with the devil's master. Do I take it?