Hayden was still shouting. "This is all your fault! You come back and make Mama Pamela kneel? Why didn't you just die out there!"
My fingers curled into the hem of my shirt until my knuckles went white.
Leon reached down and helped Pamela to her feet, his hands impossibly gentle.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before a single word left my lips, Pamela clutched her chest.
Her face went ashen. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.
"Pamela!" Leon caught her, and the panic in his voice was something I had never once heard directed at me. Not once in all our years together.
He looked up at me, his gaze ice-cold.
"What are you standing there for? Get in the car!"
Leon's men dragged me down the hospital corridor and into the blood-draw room.
Leon stood beside the doctor, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Now. Draw the blood."
The needle was thick. It punctured my arm, and I watched my blood seep through the tube, draining away drop by drop. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh.
Three years ago, he'd stripped me of my dignity. Three years later, he was draining me of my blood.
My hands grew colder. My body began to tremble.
Memories flickered behind my eyes like a dying reel of film.
I was from Harbor City. I had been the youngest chief surgeon in neurosurgery in all of Kensington City. I'd saved countless lives on the operating table.
Then, on my wedding anniversary, a patient's family member broke into our home, doused it in gasoline, and set it ablaze. Then vanished without a trace.
My three-year-old daughter burned alive.
Afterward, Pamela knelt before me, knocking her forehead against the floor over and over.
"Gloria, I'm so sorry. You operated on that patient and it failed, and you... to make it go away, you forced me to sleep with the patient's family. But they still weren't satisfied. It's all my fault. It's all because I couldn't handle it properly—"
Every word out of her mouth was a lie.
But Leon didn't believe me.
No matter how I explained, no matter what I said, Leon refused to believe me.
I was so furious that I grabbed Pamela by the throat. Leon kicked me to the ground and had me committed to the psychiatric facility.
My medical license was revoked. My reputation, destroyed. The entire internet tore me apart.
Inside the facility, I was shocked and beaten, over and over, until I didn't have the strength left to fight back.