Chapter 155: At a Loss
Chapter 155: At a Loss
Penelope clutched her hair with both hands, a guttural whimper escaping her throat—the kind of sound a wounded animal makes when it's pushed past its breaking point. It was the kind of sound that could shatter anyone's heart.
Sam stood nearby, completely at a loss. He'd never seen Penelope—always so decisive, so ruthless—look this utterly destroyed.
All he could do was slam his fist into the wall beside him. His knuckles split instantly, blood seeping through the broken skin.
The exact second Penelope was drowning in that pit of despair, a heavy mechanical sound echoed from the end of the corridor.
The glaring red emergency light above the operating room door flickered twice, then went dark completely. It switched to green—the safe zone.
Penelope's head snapped up. She scrambled to her feet, half-crawling, half-stumbling toward the operating room.
The heavy metal doors swung open from the inside. Two nurses in sterile gowns wheeled out a mobile gurney.
"You absolutely cannot move right now. The wound hasn't stabilized. We need to get you to the ICU immediately."
An older nurse gripped the gurney rail tightly, trying to stop Dominic from his insane attempt to sit up.
Dominic lay on the gurney, his torso wrapped in thick white bandages. Fresh blood was already seeping through the gauze.
His face was ghostly pale, but those deep-set eyes burned with a savage, chilling ferocity.
He ripped off the oxygen mask. The IV line in the back of his hand jerked violently, blood dripping down his rough skin onto the white sheets.
Penelope rushed to the gurney. Dominic looked like a lone wolf that had just clawed its way out of hell. Forcing that broken body upright, he reached out with those scalding hands and cupped Penelope's tear-streaked, deathly pale face.
The aggressive heat from his palms shot straight through her, jolting her dead heart back to life with a single violent beat.
"He lied to you. You're not going to die."
His voice was hoarse and rough as sandpaper, every word carrying an absolute, domineering certainty.
"I swear on my life—even if I have to drain every last drop of blood from my body, I will not let you die."
Dominic's burning hands held Penelope's face in a vise grip. The thick scent of blood mixed with disinfectant flooded her nostrils, scorching her eyes until tears spilled over again.
Penelope stared at the expanding bloodstain on his abdominal bandages. Her heart felt like someone was squeezing it in a fist. She grabbed his wrist hard.
"Dominic, are you insane? You just got off the operating table and you're out here playing hero? You think you're made of steel or something?"
She yelled at him through red-rimmed eyes, then whipped around to the stunned nurses and Sam, ordering them to get this reckless lunatic back inside.
But Dominic grabbed her slender fingers in return. His bloodshot eyes held a near-pathological stubbornness. He wasn't letting go.
"I'm not going back. Not unless you promise me you won't go begging that bastard Jonathan. Your life is mine to protect." Dominic's voice was raw, every word dripping with that non-negotiable dominance. His invasive gaze locked onto Penelope's pale face like a vice.
Penelope trembled under the heat of his blatant obsession. She bit down hard on her lower lip, forcing the vulnerability in her eyes back down, replacing it with a cold, hard mask.
"Since when do I need anyone's pity? Get your ass back in there and let them stitch you up. Stop getting in my way."
Her words were merciless, but the hands steadying his arm were impossibly gentle, terrified of touching any of those horrific wounds.
Several male nurses finally snapped into action. They wrestled the gurney around and forced Dominic back toward the operating room.
Dominic lay on the gurney, those deep eyes still locked on Penelope until the operating room doors closed and cut off his line of sight.
As the doors shut again, all the strength drained from Penelope's body. She leaned against the cold wall, gasping for air.
Sam approached anxiously, staring at the dried blood at her feet. He wrung his hands, desperate to convince her to treat her wounds but too scared to open his mouth.
Penelope didn't even glance at her injured feet. She walked straight to a nearby medical cart and picked up an absurdly thick sterile blood-draw needle.
"Sam, grab some vacuum tubes. Draw my blood. Now."
She held out her slender arm, her eyes burning with a chilling, reckless madness that left no room for negotiation.
Sam stumbled backward, shaking his head frantically. His voice cracked, nearly breaking into sobs as he refused to take the needle.
"Penelope, your body is already critically weak. If we draw more blood, you'll go into shock. I can't do this!"
Penelope's eyes went cold. Without hesitation, she jammed the needle into her own vein, the motion so rough it made anyone watching wince.
Dark red blood surged through the transparent tube immediately. She efficiently attached a vacuum tube, draining three full vials before finally stopping.
She yanked out the needle, pressed a cotton swab against the puncture site, and shoved the three still-warm vials into Sam's hands.
"Get these samples back to Quantum Nexus Labs' underground core facility immediately. Run the deepest genetic sequencing and antibody degradation analysis using the supercomputer."
Penelope's face was deathly pale, but her eyes blazed with an intensity that could cut through steel—a vicious determination to tear apart every conspiracy.
"Jonathan hasn't told me a single word of truth. I need to know what's really happening in my body. I need to know what the hell his bone marrow actually is."
Sam clutched those three vials like they were ticking time bombs. He gritted his teeth, then bolted toward the hospital exit.
Four hours later, in the temporary command center on the hospital's top floor, the core monitoring system from Quantum Nexus Labs was remotely linked in. The air was so thick with tension it was suffocating.
Penelope sat in the high-backed leather chair at the main console, her feet wrapped in thick bandages. She held a cup of stone-cold black coffee, her gaze riveted to the massive screen in front of her.
Dominic leaned against the mobile gurney in an oversized hospital gown, dragging that body—stitched up with over a hundred sutures—to stay by her side. The smell of blood still clung to him, heavy and metallic.