Chapter 154: Complete Audio

Chapter 154: Complete Audio

Sebastian's voice crackled through the phone, his words tumbling out at a breakneck pace, laced with an unmistakable tremor of panic.

Penelope's gaze turned ice-cold in an instant. She gripped her phone so hard her nails nearly broke the skin of her palm.

"Play the full audio. Let's hear what filthy secrets that bastard's spilling on his deathbed."

She ground out the order through clenched teeth, her tone carrying a viciousness that made one's scalp crawl.

Sebastian didn't hesitate. After a brief crackle of static, a crystal-clear recording began to play in the empty corridor.

The first sound was Jonathan's bone-chilling, hysterical laughter—utterly unhinged.

Then came his frenzied roar as he threw himself against the bars, each word like a rusty, dull blade.

The sounds blasted from the phone's speaker, slicing into Penelope's already fragile nerves.

"You think that test subject can survive much longer? Her blood's been completely corrupted by the X-3 toxin—there's a fatal genetic defect!"

"Without my bone marrow for regular hematopoietic suppression, the antibodies in her body will turn on her completely. She won't live past twenty-five!"

"Preston needs her blood to stay alive, but I'm the only antidote that can keep her breathing. You idiots are all going down with me!"

The recording cut off abruptly. The corridor plunged back into deathly silence, broken only by the harsh glare of the red light above the emergency room door.

Penelope felt as though every drop of blood had been drained from her body in that instant. Her entire being plummeted into an icy abyss, trembling from head to toe.

Her face, already pale from blood loss, turned deathly white—devoid of any trace of life.

A suffocating wave of despair crashed over her, obliterating the fragile line of sanity she'd been clinging to.

She finally understood why Jonathan could still laugh after his funding dried up. That bastard had been holding her death in his hands all along.

Penelope's body swayed uncontrollably. Her back slammed against the cold wall, and she slid down helplessly until she sat on the floor.

Her bare feet, covered in glass cuts, pressed against the icy tiles. The blood had congealed into a dark crimson, but she felt no pain whatsoever.

The bizarre symptoms she'd been experiencing over the past six months began piecing themselves together in her mind, forming a brutal truth.

The increasingly frequent neuralgic stomach pains—each episode feeling like her organs were being scorched by flames, leaving her drenched in cold sweat through endless nights.

The severe numbness in her fingertips every morning, so bad she'd shake uncontrollably just trying to hold a glass of water.

The dangerously low hemoglobin levels on every blood test, hovering at critical thresholds. Even walking a bit faster would trigger severe dizziness.

She'd always thought these were just ordinary aftereffects of the human experiments—manageable as long as she took those special medications on schedule.

Now she realized: this was a countdown to death. A fatal warning that her genes were collapsing entirely.

Penelope wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, burying her face in the crook of her elbow. Her shoulders shook violently.

She remembered those pitch-black nights as a child, when Liam would take her to that abandoned pawn shop for injections.

The shop always reeked of moldy decay. Even the windows were nailed shut with thick black cloth, blocking out every sliver of sunlight.

Every month, Liam would inject her with a murky yellow serum. Each time, the pain would leave her writhing on the floor.

The icy sensation of the needle piercing her skin still clung to her nerves like a nightmare.

Liam would watch coldly, telling her it was to keep her alive—that she should be grateful.

Turns out that serum had been extracted from Jonathan's bone marrow stem cells—the only thing forcibly suppressing the toxin's backlash in her body.

The Hartwell family had treated her like a walking blood bag, ready to be drained at will, while using bone marrow to keep her on a leash. They'd raised her like livestock.

"Penelope, don't listen to that bastard's bullshit. Medical technology's so advanced now—we'll find another way."

Sam watched Penelope on the verge of breaking down, his eyes reddening with urgency. He crouched down, trying to grab her arm.

"Worst case, we'll drag Jonathan out and drain every drop of his bone marrow. We won't let him control you like this!"

His voice trembled with barely concealed panic, fumbling to offer whatever meager comfort he could.

Penelope jerked her head up. Her bloodshot eyes blazed with unprecedented devastation and madness as she shoved Sam's hand away.

"Find another way? Didn't you hear what he said? I'm a complete freak—a defective product who won't live past twenty-five!"

Her voice came out hoarse and ragged, thick with tears and despair, echoing through the quiet corridor.

Twenty-five wasn't far off anymore. It was a cruel, dark joke.

She wasn't afraid of dying. She'd been clawing through this swamp since she was old enough to understand—she'd long since stopped caring about life and death.

But she was terrified of dying before she could drag Preston into hell with her own hands, before she could tear the Hartwell family vampires to shreds.

Even more terrifying: all those agonizing sacrifices Dominic had made to save her would become meaningless because of her short life.

Dominic had thrown himself in front of flames and wheels to push her out of harm's way, and now he lay in the emergency room, life hanging by a thread.

If she was destined to die at twenty-five, what was the point of him taking that hit? It was all one giant, cosmic joke.

Penelope pressed her palm hard against her chest. It ached as though someone had gouged out a chunk of flesh—even breathing tasted like blood.

Suddenly, the absurdity of it all hit her. She'd meticulously laid out an elaborate trap, thinking she could control everything.

In the end, she was nothing but a broken toy in their hands, ready to be discarded. Even her right to live had been handed to her as charity.

Penelope's tears finally broke free, streaming down her face in fat drops that splattered onto the hospital's cold tiles, spreading into dark, blurred stains.