The attacker fled immediately.
Wendy fumbled for her phone, dialing 911 with shaking fingers. Paramedics arrived within minutes, loading both men into the ambulance with practiced efficiency.
At the hospital, even after the doctors dressed his wounds, Ethan lay writhing in the sterile bed. Fresh sweat beaded across his forehead–the acid burns overlapping the barely healed lash marks that still mapped his back like some grotesque topography.
Wendy watched his suffering with mixed emotions. “Thank you, but this wasn’t your fight.”
Her tone was colder than ever.
Then she walked out, heading to Jason’s room next door.
Jason was getting his bandages changed, wincing in pain but pretending otherwise when Wendy entered.
“Does it hurt?” Guilt gnawed at her–she wished she were the injured one.
“What kind of man admits to pain?” Jason thumped his chest proudly–then yelped when it tugged his wound.
Wendy couldn’t help laughing through her tears at his bravado.
Outside the door, Ethan witnessed it all.
Wendy crying for Jason, smiling for him–the tenderness in her eyes that once belonged to him.
Silently, he turned and left the hospital, booking the earliest flight back to Vostoklia.
He knew only one thing could atone for his sins.
On Jason’s discharge day, a light rain fell.
He stood outside the flower shop, letting the drizzle soak his hair, dead leaves clinging to his shoulders.
Steeling himself, he pushed open the door.
Wendy turned, her face lighting up. “You didn’t tell me you were being discharged!”
Jason reached behind his back and produced a bouquet of golden forget–me–nots.
“Wendy, let’s be together–no, marry me.” He knelt on one knee, voice earnest. “I’ll spend my life protecting you, loving you. Say yes.” Wendy froze, her shears clattering to the floor.
A sharp pain stabbed her chest, as if dredging up some buried
memory.
She turned away, picking up the shears. “I… I’m not ready.”
But before she could finish, darkness swallowed her vision, and she collapsed.
“Wendy!”
Exhaustion and emotional turmoil had taken their toll–Wendy was running a high fever.
She slept fitfully, dreaming of a little boy holding her hand, leading her somewhere.
“Mommy,” the boy suddenly called.
Instinctively, she responded, kneeling to his level.
The boy smiled, though his eyes were sad. “Uncle Jason is really nice. I hope Mommy ends up with him.”
For some reason, sorrow welled in Wendy’s chest. “What about you?”
The boy kissed her cheek impishly. “As long as Mommy’s happy, I am happy.”
She tried to reply, but the boy dissolved into light, fading away.
“Son!” Wendy jolted awake, her pillow soaked with tears.
She turned to see Jason by her bedside, washing a cloth for her forehead.
He looked like he hadn’t slept all night, eyes bloodshot.
Chapter 17
When he noticed she was awake, relief flooded his features. “Wendy! How do you feel? Thirsty? Hungry?”
Seeing this man who cared so deeply, Wendy’s heart melted.
She took his hand weakly. “Jason, let’s be together.”
Jason froze.
Then tears spilled over as he pulled her into a crushing embrace, too overwhelmed to speak.
