Chapter 4
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the wound on my leg. The blood had already clotted.
Richard came in, carrying a first-aid kit.
He still looked anxious, but his voice was gentler now. "Let me take care of that for you."
I stayed silent, obediently lifting my leg and letting him clean the wound with an alcohol swab.
The sting crept up my nerves, but I didn't blink.
"Sophie was overwhelmed. She's always been frail, so don't take it to heart," Richard explained quietly as he applied the bandage.
I stared at the way he looked down, my stomach churning with nausea.
If it hadn't been for that drug test report Andrew gave me, I might've kept falling for this fake tenderness.
"Okay," I murmured, barely audible.
He finally seemed to relax, grabbed the glass of water from the table, and drank it all in one gulp.
Half an hour later, Richard's breathing slowed.
I rolled over, locking my gaze on his sleeping profile in the moonlight.
I took a deep breath.
My fingers trembled as I reached out and lightly pinched his right palm.
His hand, with its sharp, defined knuckles, had once held mine so many times, promising we'd grow old together.
But now, that same hand was squeezing the life out of me, draining me dry, down to the bone.
I held my breath, pressing the silicone pad firmly onto his right thumb.
A few seconds passed.
Suddenly, Richard's brows furrowed, and he mumbled something in his sleep. "Emily..."
I froze, my heart hanging in midair, and the silicone pad almost slipped from my fingers.
He rolled over, his arm coming down hard across my waist.
I clenched my teeth, toughing it out for a whole minute.
Only after making sure he was still asleep did I slowly, inch by inch, move his hand away.
The moment I removed the silicone fingerprint pad, my back was soaked in cold sweat.
I slipped out of bed, barefoot, and wandered like a ghost as I pushed open the heavy wooden bedroom door.
The hallway's motion-sensor lights stayed off.
In the darkness, the only sound was the steady ticking of the wall clock.
I paused in front of the study door.
The reinforced door needed both a fingerprint and a password to open, its cold metal surface glinting in the dark.
My hands shook as I pressed the silicone fingerprint patch onto the sensor. "Fingerprint verification successful."
The robotic voice blared through the night, so loud it made my skin crawl.
I quickly typed in the birthday password I knew by heart.
The door opened.
I went directly to the safe in the corner.
I pressed the fingerprint patch again, and the heavy cabinet door unlocked with a dull click.
Beneath a pile of corporate documents, I pulled out the blue folder.
The cover was completely blank.
There was only a code: S-001.
I flipped to the first page, my fingers clenching so hard my nails dug into the paper. [S-Class Donor: Long-Term Storage & Live Organ Harvest Plan.]
My photo was right there underneath.
Besides, a dense list of blood markers and the maturity level of every single organ in my body.
At the bottom of the agreement, in the beneficiary section, Sophie's name stood out, glaringly obvious.
Richard's flamboyant signature was the final nail in the coffin, crushing the last bit of hope I had.
He didn't bring me back out of guilt, and definitely not out of love.
He was raising me like livestock, fattening me up so he could keep his precious Sophie alive.
I pulled out my phone, holding my breath so quietly I barely made a sound.
One by one, I took pictures of every piece of evidence.
All of a sudden, a soft noise came from the hallway.
The footsteps of someone in dress shoes thudded against the wooden floor.
Each step was steady and slow, coming closer and closer.
Cold sweat suddenly streamed down my temples.
It was Richard.
He was awake.
I shoved the file back into the safe, locked it tight, and hastily scrubbed any trace off the sensor.
The footsteps halted outside the study door.
The quiet turn of the doorknob seemed to drag on endlessly in the darkness.
Without a second thought, I slipped behind the thick curtains.
The door swung open.
A long, thin shadow fell across the floor. "Emily?"
Richard's voice was rough from sleep, but there was a coldness in it that cut right through me.
He stood in the doorway, scanning the study with sharp eyes.
I curled up in the shadows behind the curtains, trying to make myself invisible.
Both hands pressed tight over my mouth. I didn't dare to breathe.
He lingered at the door for what felt like an eternity.
It dragged on so long that my mind went fuzzy from holding my breath too long.
At last, the door clicked shut.
The footsteps slowly faded away.
I slumped to the floor, gulping air like I'd come up from underwater.