Chapter 98 Chapter 98
Liana's Pov
The rain tapped against the hospital windows, a soothing lullaby to the storm raging in my chest. Outside, gray streaked the sky, a gray that swallowed light as well as hope. My fingers were freezin' gripping the rim of a scalding paper cup, left untouched since the nurse had brought it to me. Over the café table in the hospital lobby's quiet waiting area, Stanley sat with his fingers clasped together, his knuckles white. He hadn't touched his drink either.
His forehead was creased, etched with worry, and his eyes flicked to the corridor every few seconds, as if he was commanding himself to hear footsteps or bells or something that would inform him Serena was okay.
“We can’t leave her here anymore,” he said finally, voice low and urgent. He leaned forward, speaking just above a whisper so the elderly couple behind us wouldn’t catch wind of our conversation. “She said she saw someone by the window, right?”
I shook my head slowly, the fear tangling in my chest again. "She was trembling. Claimed she didn't recognize the face but that it seemed familiar. Like something out of a nightmare she couldn't escape."
Stanley exhaled harshly, as though the weight of her words was crushing against his spine. "Then that's final. We get her out tonight."
The words lingered in the air between us. Taking Serena out of the hospital against official decision was a risk. Leaving her here, vulnerable and unarmed, was another risk. My eyes wandered over the café, noticing how the subdued overhead lights cast spooky shadows on the floor. Even the humming of the vending machines was more threatening than usual.
"How we do it is the question," I said finally, tracing my nails deliberately around the edge of the table.
"We'll take her in a wheelchair," Stanley replied, his voice calm, as if he'd rehearsed this already. "Pretend to move her for a second opinion. We'll have someone drive the car down by the service entrance. We'll have to move fast."
I bit the inside of my cheek. My thoughts tumbled together, crashing into one another like frustrated commuters at a packed station. "It's risky," I whispered. "But to stay here is riskier. If whoever she met decided to come back."
Stanley's eyes focussed on mine with calculated severity. "Then we can't afford to wait." The words hung between us, highlighting the tension that had been growing within me.
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my overcoat pocket, cutting through the tension like a knife. I pulled it out and saw my lawyer's name displayed on the screen.
"Sorry," I said to Stanley, stepping into the hallway where fluorescent lights give a sterile light. I held the phone to my ear, trying to breathe.
Liana," my lawyer told me brusquely, her voice strained with hurry. "The hearing before the court is actually seven days from now. If we don't get the last set of proof—proof Elia had Dominic in her sights—we'll fall behind. We won't have another chance to present it."
My hands tightened around the phone. "We're on it. Serena's memory is still fragile. But I'll apply pressure.".
"You have to do more than nudge," she said to me, not ungenerously, but firm. "If she has the papers Elia was working on when he disappeared, that could be enough to turn everything around. You said yourself she was closest to him at the end. Think, Liana. She's the only one who can possibly give us that evidence."
"I know," I breathed.
"She has to remember," she went on. "A single piece of information can be the thread we'll use to untangle everything."
I sat down again after the call ended. Stanley looked up at me, question already in his eyes.
"She tells us that we don't have time," I told him, sliding into the chair across from him. My voice was shaking with the effort, the fear, the desperation. "If memory is what's going to unlock Serena, then we have to do that now. Because if we don't. all of this we've done. all that Elia died for. it'll have been useless."
Stanley's eyes never left mine. He was quiet for a moment, letting my words settle. Then he said, "She barely trusts you."
"I know." I turned away, blinking harshly to keep the anger boiling in my throat. "That's why you'll talk to her."
He didn't argue. That alone told me how serious he was. How serious things had become for all of us.
Rain continued to trickle down the windows in slow, lugubrious streaks. The dim café was a cocoon of suspended time, the world holding its breath as we did. I thought about Serena in her room, vulnerable and scared, writing letters she would never mail, piecing together a life she did not remember. I thought about Elia, the file he had been working on before everything went dark. And I remembered Dominic—the quiet before his storm, the predator hiding behind a civilized smile.
"We'll do it tonight," I told him, my own voice low but resolute now. "Rescue Serena. And tomorrow you will talk to her. You'll get her to remember."
Stanley nodded once. Outside, thunder growled in the distance, deep and slow, like the world itself was getting ready to cough before everything changed.
And it would.
It had to.