Chapter 204

Chapter 204
Elora

The darkness swallowed my words whole, leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing echoing through the empty ward.

Then came the laughter.

"Is that so?" Sienna's voice drifted through the blackness, silk over broken glass. "Not peaceful, not quick, not dignified—is that really the best you can threaten me with?" A soft, mocking laugh. "Oh, Elora. I'm heartbroken. Here I thought you'd hate me enough to get creative." Her tone sharpened, turning playful and vicious. "Want to hear what I've actually planned for you? Because compared to my version, your little speech sounds like a fucking lullaby."

Her voice dropped lower, intimate and terrible. "First, I'll inject vecuronium into your veins—just enough so you can't move, can't scream, can't do anything except feel. Your lungs will still work, barely. Your heart will keep beating. But every other muscle? Frozen. Then I'll prop you up at his bedside and make you watch as I inject the rest of this potassium chloride straight into your father's heart. Every. Single. Milliliter."

My blood turned to ice.

How many fucking poisons does this bitch carry?

My left hand moved instinctively to my forearm, fingers pressing over the injection site from earlier—the potassium chloride she'd tried to pump into me before I'd knocked the syringe away. The skin was hot, swollen, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

I checked the surrounding tissue. The pain was localized, sharp where the needle had pierced muscle, but it hadn't spread. No numbness. No irregular heartbeat yet.

Only a partial injection. Intramuscular. Not enough to kill me—not immediately.

But it was still in there, slowly leaching into my bloodstream.

"And when I'm finally bored?" She sighed, almost wistful. "I'll leave you both here to bleed out together. Father and daughter. United in death the way you never were in life. Poetic, don't you think?"

"Fuck you," I spat into the darkness, the words tearing from my throat raw and vicious. "You're a goddamn psychopath. A worthless, pathetic—"

"Oh, please." Her voice drifted through the black, amused, indulgent. "Keep going. Scream all you want. Enjoy that fire while you still have it."

Then—silence.

Her footsteps stopped.

The sudden silence was somehow worse than the threats. My heart hammered against my ribs as I pressed my back against the bed frame, the metal clipboard held up like a shield, my eyes straining uselessly against the darkness. Where was she? Left? Right? Behind me? The void gave me nothing.

My fingers ached from gripping the clipboard too hard. Every muscle in my body coiled tight, waiting for the attack that could come from anywhere, from any direction—

"Idiot."

The voice came from the center of the room, languid and amused, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. She wasn't close anymore. She'd moved away, putting distance between us, and I hadn't heard a single footstep.

"What the hell are you doing over there?" Sienna continued, her tone dripping with mock concern. "Huddling by the bed like a scared little rabbit? I told you this was about settling our score, didn't I? And you think we're going to have our final showdown with you backed into a corner, tripping over IV lines and hospital equipment?"

She laughed again, shorter this time, almost disappointed. "Relax, Elora. I'm not interested in your vegetable father right now. That thing lying there can't feel pain, can't feel fear, can't feel anything. What's the point? I want to hear screaming. I want to hear begging. I want something alive and terrified."

"You're fucking sick," I spat, the words escaping before I could stop them.

"Oh, you'll see soon enough—I'm just describing what's about to happen." Her voice shifted, impatient now. "Stop wasting time. Come here, Elora. Center of the room. There's plenty of space." A pause, then something eager crept into her tone. "I don't want you dying confused, wondering what went wrong. No—I want you fully aware of exactly how pathetic you were when I killed you."

I didn't move. Every instinct screamed trap.

"Not coming?" Sienna's voice turned cold, sharp as a blade. "Fine. Then I'll just go back to Plan A—the one involving your beloved father. But don't blame me when things get... messy. When a needle accidentally slips into his arm. When a scalpel accidentally finds his throat. When your metal clipboard accidentally caves in his skull during our little dance."

"You—"

"Or maybe," she interrupted smoothly, "you think you can protect him and fight me at the same time?"

The words hit like a physical blow because we both knew the answer. I couldn't. In the darkness, with her moving like a ghost, I could barely defend myself—let alone someone else.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I had no choice.

Slowly, reluctantly, I began moving toward the center of the room, the clipboard still clutched in my white-knuckled grip. Each step felt like walking toward my own execution. The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating, and I strained my ears for any hint of movement, any warning of where she might be.

"That's it," Sienna cooed, her voice floating through the void like she was conducting an orchestra. "A little closer. Don't be shy. What's a little darkness between sisters? Just keep coming. Yes, perfect. Right there."

I stopped, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst. I couldn't see her, but I could feel her presence—a wrongness in the air about a meter ahead, the sense of being watched by something predatory.

"Ready, Elora?" Her voice was practically purring now. "Game on."

"Fuck you," I growled.