I watched that light shrink, smaller and smaller, until it vanished into the endless dark.
Damp. Cold. And the waves of sharp pain from the wound in my belly.
I lay facedown in the freezing mud, staring in the direction the taillights had disappeared.
The last remnant of something inside me, the thing I'd once called love, finally went out for good.
I lay curled beneath a massive exposed root, cold sweat soaking through the thin hospital gown.
The wound across my abdomen screamed with every movement, each shift tearing it open all over again.
When I was little, the bullies at the orphanage used to lock me in a pitch-black closet. That fear never left me.
I couldn't breathe. My heart hammered so hard it felt like it would burst out of my throat.
Giles knew. He knew all of it. He used to carry me on his back even on dark roads so I wouldn't be afraid.
I laughed—suddenly, out of nowhere—and the tears came while I was still laughing.
The man who once swore he'd spoil me for the rest of my life, who promised I'd never suffer—that man was dead. The years had killed him.
I couldn't stay here. There was one thing I still had to do.
I clenched my teeth, braced my elbows against the ground, and dragged myself forward inch by inch.
Dirt, gravel, snapped twigs. They carved bloody lines across my body, still raw from surgery.
I didn't know how long I crawled before I finally saw the edge of the woodland.
There was light.
I threw everything I had left into reaching it, but two tall figures stepped into my path.
Giles's bodyguards.
They looked down at me. Nothing but contempt and amusement in their eyes.
"Mrs. Gilbert, CEO Gilbert says if you won't apologize, you're never stepping out of these woods."
"Bathroom, sleep—you do it right here on the ground."
One of them delivered it without inflection.
"Honestly, Mrs. Gilbert, just apologize already. You know what kind of money CEO Gilbert's got? There's women lined up out the door waiting for him to keep them. You're an orphan—latching onto a man like him is more luck than you deserved in ten lifetimes. And you won't even give him a kid because you're scared it'll hurt…"
"You won't do it, plenty of others will. You think CEO Gilbert really wants to hang around waiting on you? He hasn't divorced you yet—that's already more than you deserve. So what are you making a fuss about? Just sit there, be a rich wife, and shut up."