Chapter 2
I turned away, and at last, the tears broke free. That night, the emotional rollercoaster nearly killed me again.
My breathing turned shallow, my oxygen levels kept dropping, and they almost had to hook me up to a ventilator.
Mia, the head nurse who'd been taking care of me, her eyes swollen from crying, gave me my meds and kept gently patting my back, trying to soothe me.
"Chloe, just hang in there, okay? You have to fight. Hasn't Reid already made it? I just saw it on the news yesterday. His new drug is a miracle," she said.
Her voice started to tremble as she spoke.
She continued, "I still remember when you first got sick, how much Dr. Ashford cared about you. He'd sit by your bed all night, holding your hand, telling you, 'Chloe, don't be scared. I'll save you.'
"And now, he finally did it. You're finally about to be free from all this pain."
I listened to her and couldn't help but give a bitter smile.
Once I finally managed to calm down, Mia went to get me some water, leaving me alone in the hospital room.
Just then, Tessa appeared at the doorway.
She was holding a fancy-looking medicine box, her smile so bright it almost hurt to look at.
"Chloe, look what I brought you? This is the new drug Mr. Ashford developed," she said.
She flaunted the medicine box right in front of my eyes, then snatched it back with a smirk.
"But you know, this stuff costs a fortune. Just one shot is 170 thousand. Chloe, you can't even pay your hospital bills. How could you possibly afford something like this?" she sneered.
I took a deep breath. "The medical fund my parents left behind..."
"3 million?" Tessa let out a sharp laugh. "Seriously, you still don't know?"
She strolled over to my bed, towering over me with that smug look. "That money? Mr. Ashford burned through it ages ago."
"You're lying." I struggled to sit up.
"Lying?" Tessa whipped out her phone, found a photo, and shoved it right in my face.
It was a financial statement, clear as day; every source and every expense spelled out.
"He blew your parents' money on building his lab, snagging a riverside villa, and getting himself a luxury car," Tessa sneered.
"And?" She smirked, tapping one of the lines. "All those transfers for my living expenses over the years? That adds up to more than 300 thousand."
A chill ran through me, my fingers trembling as I stared at the statement.
The part showing what was actually spent on my treatment was next to nothing.
Tessa leaned in, her voice icy and deliberate. "You ever wonder why you never got better all these years, just kept getting worse?
"Because what Mr. Ashford gave you wasn't even real medicine. It was just a sugar pill for the control group. Just regular vitamins, you know."
It was like my brain just short-circuited; suddenly, the whole world went dead silent.
"Chloe, did you really think you were his fiancée?" Tessa's voice sounded like it was coming from miles away.
"You were just his control group, a live test subject for his experiment," she added.
She said, "To prove his new drug worked, he needed someone like you, someone who got no real treatment, just left to get sicker, so he could show how much better his new drug was.
"These ten years, you really thought he was saving you? He was just watching you fade away, little by little, jotting down notes for his research. And all that money your parents left to save you? He spent it all on himself."
My mouth hung open, but I couldn't make a single sound.
The monitor beside my bed suddenly went haywire, its alarms blaring as the numbers jumped all over the place.
Tessa watched my reaction, her smile growing even more smug and satisfied.
She said, "Now that the new drug's a hit, the whole academic world is singing Dr. Ashford's praises, calling him a genius. But do they even know? That drug could've saved you a long time ago."
"But Dr. Ashford chose to let you waste away, because—" She leaned in, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "Keeping you alive was more valuable than letting you die."
"Chloe, do you know why Mr. Ashford has barely bothered to visit you these past six months?" Tessa asked, her lips curled in a taunting smile.
She added, "Because he's already squeezed all the data he could out of you. You're pretty much useless to him now. So now, you can just die."
My chest rose and fell violently, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
The monitor blared its shrill alarm.
Tessa stood up, straightened her clothes, and watched me struggle, not a trace of pity in her eyes.
"Chloe, don't blame me for being ruthless. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being so naive," she sneered.
With that, she strode out, letting the hospital room door slam shut behind her.