Chapter 2
1119words
The first sensation upon regaining consciousness was cold. A bone-chilling cold, as if my soul had just been fished out of an icy sea.
Following that, pain.
A dull, persistent churning deep in my lower abdomen, not sharp, yet carrying a hollowed-out emptiness.
I lifted my eyelids.
A blurry expanse of white. The smell of disinfectant pierced my nostrils. The ceiling light was a harsh white, like a cold, indifferent eye.
This is a hospital.
I rolled my eyes and saw the IV bag beside the bed. The cold liquid flowed through the tube, dripping into the back of my hand.
Fragments of memory suddenly crashed into my brain—
Candlelight dinner. Vincent's resolute back. Two red lines on the pregnancy test. The glass greenhouse under the moonlight. That servant's eerie smile.
Finally, that dagger plunged into my body!
The baby!
My baby!
I tried to sit up abruptly, but the tearing pain in my lower abdomen pressed me back down to the bed. Cold sweat instantly soaked my forehead. I reached out with trembling hands to touch my belly.
It was completely flat.
A hollow feeling, as if flesh had been forcibly carved out, suffocated me.
That life that had quietly sprouted inside me, that tiny hope that had sustained me through countless cold nights... was gone.
Tears burned as they slid down my skin, soaking the pillow. I bit my lip hard, not making a sound.
"Evelyn?"
A hoarse, broken voice.
I stiffly turned my head.
Vincent was sitting at the edge of the bed.
He wore a wrinkled shirt with an open collar and messy hair. Under his eyes were heavy dark circles, and those usually calm gray eyes were now bloodshot.
He looked terrible, like a dying, trapped beast.
Seeing that I was awake, a spark of light flashed in his eyes. He suddenly bent forward and gripped me tightly with his cold, rough hands.
"You're awake? Evelyn, you're finally awake..." His voice trembled severely, choked with the emotion of someone who had survived a disaster. "God, you nearly scared me to death..."
His grip was strong, almost hurting me. I could feel the cold sweat in his palms and the uncontrollable trembling of his body.
In the past, seeing him in this state might have softened my heart.
Now, I only felt numb.
My gaze passed over his haggard face, landing on emptiness. My child left me forever, on that night when he abandoned me for his sister.
His pain came too late.
"Child..." I heard my own voice, as dry as sandpaper.
Vincent's body suddenly stiffened. The pain in his eyes intensified abruptly, as if these words had stabbed him again. He closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, they were filled with overwhelming remorse.
"Um... the doctor told me that you were pregnant."
A pleading expectation flashed in my eyes.
"But, Evelyn..." he began with difficulty, each word seeming to be squeezed through his teeth, "our child... is gone."
The verdict was delivered.
Despite my premonition, my heart was still shattered by these three words. Everything before my eyes darkened repeatedly, the world spinning, collapsing.
Gone.
My child.
That little life with soft hair that I had fantasized about countless times hadn't even had a chance to see this world before turning into a pool of blood.
"And..." Vincent's voice carried a devastating heaviness, he couldn't look me in the eyes, "The doctor said your uterus is too severely damaged... in the future... you will have difficulty getting pregnant again."
Boom.
The world fell silent.
I lay there, motionless, my tears all dried up. I just kept my eyes open, staring at the stark white ceiling. A shell emptied of its soul.
Vincent, seeing my deathly stillness, was overwhelmed by immense panic. He clutched my hand, growling incoherently: "I'm sorry! Evelyn! I'm sorry! It's all my fault! I shouldn't have left you! I shouldn't have... I will find that beast! I'll tear him into a thousand pieces! I swear!"
Hot tears fell onto the back of my hand.
But my heart had already frozen into ice.
A price?
What price could bring back my child? Could repair this broken body of mine?
In the hospital room, only his heavy breathing and my silence remained.
I don't know how much time passed before I used my last bit of strength to turn my head and look at him. There was no hatred in my gaze, no resentment, only deadness.
"Vincent."
He immediately looked up, a glimmer of hope igniting in his bloodshot eyes, as if waiting for redemption.
"Before I lost consciousness..." I paused, my throat burning with pain, "I heard Victoria's laughter."
One sentence, delivered calmly, yet it took all my strength.
The expression on Vincent's face instantly froze.
That spark of hope was extinguished like ice water poured over his head, replaced by extreme shock and an instinctive, triggered denial.
"Impossible!" he blurted out, his voice suddenly rising. "Evelyn, you must have misheard! You were so badly injured, it must have been a hallucination! Vivi was with me the entire evening!"
He answered too quickly, too absolutely, as if reciting a script he had prepared, rather than stating facts.
"But your sister's house is only about a hundred meters away from ours." I wasn't biased like him. "She could easily make an excuse to use the bathroom or take a shower, take advantage of your trust, fake an alibi, and then take a detour to come and commit the crime."
"Impossible!" His reaction was as quick as a switch. "Vivi had a fever that night, how could she possibly be running around? How could she possibly appear there!"
See? As soon as Victoria was involved, his rationality instantly evaporated, leaving only unquestionable defense.
I looked at him, at his furrowed brows caused by my "slander," and the last faint flame in my heart went "puff" and extinguished.
So, even though our child died tragically, even though I was lying in the ICU between life and death, Victoria's "pure innocence" remained his untouchable sanctuary.
Slowly, using all the strength in my body, I pulled my hand away from his palm.
This movement was gentle, yet it created an unbridgeable abyss between us.
I turned my head, gazing again at the pale ceiling, and closed my eyes.
His desperate explanations and painful gasps were all separated by a thick barrier, no longer able to enter my world.
He would never know.
In that moment when he defended Victoria, he killed with his own hands the last remnant of what existed between us.
It wasn't the dagger.
It was him.
It was him who killed our child, and also killed me.
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