Chapter 261: Kill Off

It was all Lily's fault. Every last bit of it.

Mia never thought she'd lose this badly because of her.

Lily's mother had stolen their money and their man. Lily should have been just as worthless as her useless mom — so why hadn't she handed over everything Mia wanted without a fight?

Lily had been lying in the hospital bed when she snapped awake the moment someone walked through the door. Too much had been happening lately. She couldn't sleep soundly anymore.

The footsteps stopped at the edge of her bed. Lily knew almost immediately who it was.

Mia's signature scent — white musk base, bergamot top note — was a perfume Lily had smelled on her countless times.

"Go... die..." Mia's voice was barely above a whisper, but it was thick with venom.

Lily didn't react. She was curious how far Mia would actually go.

A soft rustling sound followed, like someone digging something out of a pocket.

Lily's heart rate ticked up slightly, but her expression didn't change.

Mia closed her fingers around the syringe. The needle was thicker than standard — she'd had someone source it from the black market.

Inside the barrel was a clear liquid: a potassium chloride solution. She'd done her research. A high-concentration IV push would stop the heart within seconds, and even a forensic examiner would likely write it off as hyperkalemia — a common complication in cancer patients.

"Lily, you deserve to die." She growled it under her breath, then raised her hand.

She drew a slow breath and used her left hand to pull back the corner of the blanket.

Lily's right arm came into view. A PICC line was threaded into it, secured with a transparent dressing.

Word was that her father had beaten Lily badly enough to require a central line. That saved Mia the trouble of hunting for a vein.

Mia smiled coldly, popped the cap off the catheter port, and lifted the syringe.

The moment the needle tip was about to enter the port, a hand shot out and seized her wrist.

"You've completely lost it." Lily's grip was iron. Her arm was thin, but the strength behind it was startling.

Mia looked down and met a pair of eyes that were wide awake — more awake than they had any right to be.

No fear in them. No anger. Just a calm so absolute it was almost cruel — the look of a hunter watching prey stumble into a trap.

"Mia." Lily's voice was hoarse but clear. "I've been waiting for you."

Mia's pupils snapped tight. She instinctively yanked her hand back, but Lily's nails had already dug into the skin of her wrist.

The pain made her fingers loosen on reflex. The syringe slipped from her palm, bounced off the sheets, and rolled to the floor with a sharp, clean sound.

"You —" Mia's mind went white.

Lily hadn't been asleep at all. She'd been lying in wait, letting Mia walk straight into it.

The humiliation hit like a match to gasoline. The rage that erupted from Mia's chest burned away the last shred of her reason.

She lunged forward and wrapped both hands around Lily's throat.

Lily's neck was thin as a dry twig. Mia's palms nearly closed around it completely. She could feel the fragile windpipe trembling beneath her hands.

"Why did you have to wake up!" Mia's voice cracked into something shrill and unrecognizable. "Why couldn't you just die quietly!"

Lily's face was going blue. Her lips parted slightly.

But her eyes never closed. And what Mia saw in them made her skin crawl — it was the look of a hunter watching an animal thrash in a snare.

Lily's hand fumbled across the nightstand. Her fingertips touched something cold and metal.

The utility knife she'd placed there that afternoon — the one she used for model making. The blade was only extended a short way, but it was sharp enough to split a hair.

She didn't hesitate. She drew the blade across Mia's arm.

Mia's hands flew off Lily's throat as if she'd been shocked. She staggered backward, her lower back slamming into the armrest of the visitor's chair. The chair toppled. She went down with it.

Lily gasped, pulling air into her lungs in ragged gulps. The rush of oxygen stung like needles.

She pushed herself up against the side of the bed, still gripping the utility knife. A few drops of blood clung to the blade — warm and tacky.

The marks on her throat were already darkening to purple.

"You... how dare you... how dare you cut me..." Mia knelt on the floor, her voice unsteady, like she hadn't landed back in her own body yet.

She looked down at her left arm, then pressed her right hand over it with a trembling touch.

"You were trying to kill me." Lily's voice was barely audible, but every word landed hard. "I cut you once. We're even."

Mia looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot, wild with something that had moved beyond rage into a kind of madness. Then she threw herself at Lily again.

No strategy this time. No calculation. Just raw, animal violence.

She hit the hospital bed like something feral, going for the knife with her uninjured right hand.

Lily twisted away, but the bed was too narrow and her body too weak. She couldn't get clear.

Mia's fingers closed around the blade itself. The edge cut straight into her palm, but she acted like she felt nothing — she just wrenched at it, trying to tear it free.

Lily held on. The two of them struggled across the bed, the utility knife shaking between them. Blood flew off the blade and scattered across the white sheets in wild, red strokes.

"You're insane — let go!" Lily hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected Mia to hate her enough to cut herself open just to finish the job.

In the struggle, the cardiac monitor leads were ripped loose. The green waveform on the screen vanished and was replaced by a flat line and a piercing alarm. The sound tore through the night ward like a death knell. The red warning light strobed, washing the room in hellish color.

The IV stand crashed to the floor. The saline bottle shattered on the tile, sending glass skittering outward. A few shards caught Mia in the shin. She winced, but her grip didn't loosen.

They rolled off the bed and hit the floor. Lily's back caught the corner of the nightstand and she let out a choked grunt, but the hand holding the knife didn't move.

Mia was on top of her. Blood ran steadily from the wound on Mia's left arm, dripping onto Lily's face, her neck, her hospital gown.

The smell of blood was thick enough to choke on, tangled with the white musk of Mia's perfume — a strange, nauseating combination.

"Give me the knife!" Mia's voice had gone completely raw, like something dredged up from somewhere deep and dark.

Lily didn't answer. She just tightened her grip. And as they fought for it, the blade swept between them.