Chapter 3
Right then, the clinic door was pushed open.
Rachel barged in, leading in a bunch of reporters with cameras.
"Look, everyone! That's her! She's demented, she even bit James!" Rachel screeched.
Blinding camera flashes flickered constantly on my face.
Click, click, click.
The sharp sounds and blinding flashes made me feel I was back in that pitch-black basement.
The traffickers, cameras in hand, leered as they snapshot every wound and scar on my body, sending the photos to those sick, perverted buyers.
"Get a good photograph. This one's worth top dollar," one of them snickered.
"Ah"
I clutched my head and screamed in terror, cowering at Alex's feet.
"Bang!"
A camera was slammed violently to the ground by James, its pieces scattering everywhere.
With bloodshot eyes like a ferocious beast, he stood protectively in front of me.
"Get out! All of you, get out!" James roared.
He pulled off his coat to wrap it over my head, blocking out all the light and everyone's gaze.
The reporters, deterred by his fierce maneuver, fled outside of the room in fear.
Rachel's face turned deathly pale—she never expected that James would actually protect me.
"James, I was only worried about you..." Rachel whispered.
"Was it you who told her to leave?" James interrogated, not a hint of warmth in his voice.
He'd checked out the hospital's security footage and heard what Rachel had ordered me to do.
Rachel's whole body became stiffened.
Smack!
A sharp slap struck her cheek.
"Do you really think I can't see through your petty schemes?" James' chest heaved violently as he spoke to her, "Rachel, I really regret ever meeting you."
"Your kidney failure report," Alex said, throwing the file down. "I had it independently reviewed—turns out it's forged."
"You've been lying from the very beginning," Alex added.
James lowered his head, staring at the report, then began to laugh.
He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks.
He felt like an absolute joke.
He had been fooled into nearly destroying his own wife.
He slowly turned around and saw me huddled in the corner.
Then his knees buckled, and he knelt before me.
"Emily, I'm so sorry..." He implored.
"I was wrong. Please, forgive me..."
He was on his knees.
That action instantly triggered a deep-rooted terror inside me.
The master was upset. I had to kneel down and beg for mercy, or I would get beaten,
I scrambled up from the floor, knelt heavily just like he did, and started bowing my head over and over to him.
"Please, master, have mercy! I'm sorry!" I cried out.
*****
I stayed at Alex's clinic and began my therapy.
Alex called it Desensitization Therapy.
James refused to leave. Every day, he waited outside the clinic for me.
He brought me my favorite flowers and made all the meals I enjoyed.
I just sat by the window, quietly watching him.
To me, James was just another NPC who could drop scary commands at any moment, a walking threat I needed to keep distance with.
No matter how hard he tried to be nice, my heart remained totally untouched.
The first word Alex taught me to say was "No."
He handed me an apple and said, "Eat it."
Instinctively, I reached out to take it.
He gently placed his hand over mine. "Look at me. Say 'no.'"
I opened my mouth, but failed to utter any sound.
"Say it. 'No,'" he ordered, his tone carried unbreakable authority.
"No..." I managed to force the word out.
"Good," he said, putting the apple in my hand. "Now, if you don't want it, just throw it away."
I looked at the apple, then at him, and finally threw it away into the trash.
That was the first time I ever rejected a command.
James tried to get close to me using the same approach.
He showed me old photos and started talking about the sweet moments we shared together in the past.
"Emily, look—this is us at the beach. You said you loved sunrise, so we waited all night just to see it," he said.
"And this one—your birthday. I lit up the whole city with fireworks just for you."
I looked at the girl in the photo who smiled like a blooming flower, but I felt no resonance.
That wasn't me.
I was a person with no past and didn't deserve a future.
Rachel wasn't going to let herself lose that easily.
She got in touch with James' business competitors—a bunch of desperate criminals.
"I don't want money," she told them. "I just want her destroyed!"
They snatched me from the clinic's back door and locked me up in an abandoned warehouse.
The familiar surroundings—chains, dust, and that suffocating stench of despair instantly rekindled every traumatic memory I had.
The kidnappers grabbed some ropes, but before they could even touch me, I picked up the rope from the floor and tied up my own hands and feet deftly, then curled up in the corner, completely still.
"Damn..." the gang leader just froze, staring at me.
"Shit, we don't even have to do anything?" another wondered.
And again one of the kidnappers whistled. "Damn, what a poor creature. What terrible lessons has she been put through?"
Suddenly, the warehouse door was kicked open.
James and Alex burst in together.
When James saw me tied up and curled in the corner, his eyes went red.
"Let her go!"
He charged at the kidnappers like a madman.
In the chaos, a knife stabbed straight toward me.
"Emily! Watch out!"
James spontaneously swooped in front of me, taking the blade with his back.
The sound of metal piercing flesh was clear.
Warm blood splattered out.
He fell before me, blood pouring from the wound in his back and dyed the floor red.
I stared at the red puddle—no fear, no sadness.
I looked at him calmly and asked, "Do you want me to suture your wound?"