28.

Despite having gone down the stairs that way, I felt like I could move, even with my head hurting and my arms sore. But it wasn't that which was preventing me from moving; a sudden pain in my stomach made it hard to breathe normally. It felt like a red-hot iron was either piercing or twisting my organs.

"...it hurts!" I groaned with my head resting on the cold floor, breathing through my mouth.

The brief silence was interrupted by Elijah's urgent voice.

"Klaus, she's bleeding!" My breathing accelerated at the thought of having broken some part of my body and now having an exposed wound. If I hadn't passed out from the fall, I might faint when I saw the damage I had caused.

"Damn it, Klaus!" He shouted louder when Klaus froze in front of me, snapping him out of his trance.

Clenching his jaw, he leaned over me, slowly turning my body, cradling me against his chest before lifting me. My weight didn't seem to bother him as he started walking out of the house.

"Please," I whispered, catching his gaze. "Not the vet." Despite the vet being seemingly a good person, I didn't want him treating an exposed fracture in me. He had already shown that his studies were focused on animals, not humans. I had practically served as a guinea pig for him the last few times.

Klaus simply held my gaze, which only increased my fear. Putting me in the back seat with Elijah, he started the car abruptly, with Lorde in the front passenger seat.

With my head resting on Elijah's lap, I felt his hand on my head, in addition to the pain that was only worsening inside me. I clenched my lips tightly, as well as my eyes, trying to prevent a scream of pain from escaping my mouth. Although it felt like my organs were being ripped out, I didn't want to make it obvious to Klaus that I couldn't bear the pain, which had been caused by the fall and my position when I fell.

The car suddenly braked some time later without even turning off the engine or closing the door. Klaus removed me from the back seat swiftly, entering what seemed to be a hospital from afar. It was stuffy, and it didn't have the characteristic voices that usually greeted us upon entering, nor did it smell like a hospital.

When Klaus laid me on something cold, I opened my eyes and turned my head to the side, realizing it was a stretcher, but we weren't really in a hospital.

"What's wrong?" I heard a male voice approaching.

Klaus, in my field of vision, ran both hands over his face anxiously, pointing to me.

"She fell down the stairs," he said tensely. "And she's bleeding now."

I felt hands lift the shirt I was wearing; they were cold but soft. Skillful because they pressed on specific areas.

"Could it be a hemorrhage?" At that moment, I didn't understand what he was talking about. I only realized he was referring to the transvaginal instrument when I felt something cold and moist inside me.

I held my breath, continuing to look at the ceiling, hoping the examination would end soon, along with the discomfort and embarrassment of Klaus witnessing everything, as if he did such things frequently.

"The gestational sac is there," the doctor finally said. "But there's no fetus. You were almost a month along."

The pieces continued to fit together in my mind. It had been a little over a month since I was condemned to Klaus, if I was pregnant. The only person I had been with...

"Damn it," I whispered in complete shock, still doubting what I was hearing, even though the likelihood was immense. I wanted to deny that I had been pregnant all that time with Klaus.

"We can do the curettage or wait for your body to expel," the doctor said as gently as possible.

"I want whatever causes her the most pain, besides me," Klaus said through gritted teeth, approaching me quickly, putting all his strength into my neck, leaving me breathless in a matter of seconds, lifting me slowly from the stretcher.

I noticed when the doctor, whom I could now see clearly, held him from behind and pulled him away from me. Enraged, Klaus pushed his back against the wall, managing to free himself and leave him trying to catch his breath. With black hair falling into his eyes, he straightened his posture quickly, glaring at Klaus.

"You're not going to do this here," he said seriously.

"Do you want to die in her place?"

"I'm so sorry for what happened to..."

"If you want to stay alive, you'd better not continue," Klaus interrupted him, his breathing rapid. "Just do what you have to do and hand her over to me." Klaus strode away from there, slamming a door somewhere.