---- Chapter 7 "Celesta!" Blake cried out, rushing to her side. He knelt and helped her up with a tenderness he hadn't shown me in years. "Are you alright? Did she hurt you?" He fussed over her, checking for imaginary injuries, his voice laced with panic and concern. Celesta immediately burst into tears, a masterful performance of victimhood. "Blake, it was horrible!" she sobbed, burying her face in his chest. "| just came to see how she was, to offer her comfort, and she... she attacked me! She's a monster!" Blake's head snapped up. His eyes, when they met mine, were filled with a furious, glacial rage. "What is wrong with you?" he snarled, advancing on my bed. "She comes in here out of the goodness of her heart, and you assault her? After everything she's been through?" My heart, which | thought could not break any further, simply went numb. | started to laugh. It was the same broken, hysterical sound from the day he'd threatened my father's grave. "The goodness of her heart?" | repeated, my voice shaking ---- with a mixture of laughter and tears. "Blake, are you insane? She stole my kidney! Your wife is lying in a hospital bed with a surgical wound because you allowed this... this parasite to harvest her organs, and you're accusing me of hurting her?" "It's just a kidney, Ellen," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "You have another one. It's a small price to pay for Celesta' s future health and peace of mind. But your jealousy, your bitterness-that is truly ugly." Celesta, still weeping in his arms, looked up at him. "She needs to be punished, Blake. Severely. She needs to understand that her actions have consequences." Blake nodded grimly, his focus entirely on soothing her. "Of course, my love. Anything you want. What should her punishment be?" "The ice," she whispered, a cruel smile playing on her lips through her fake tears. "The ancient texts say that purification by ice is the only way to cool a hot, angry soul. Take her to the lake on the north end of the estate. Let her contemplate her sins in the freezing water." The blood drained from my face. The lake was fed by a mountain stream; its water was icy even in the summer. In the late autumn, it would be lethally cold. "Blake, no," | pleaded, the last vestiges of my fight turning to raw fear. "I can't. | have stitches. The wound will get infected. | could die." ---- He looked at me, and his face was a mask of pure, chilling indifference. "Perhaps," he said quietly. "But you will learn your lesson. You will learn that you do not touch Celesta. You do not upset her. You exist to serve her. Maybe a little cold water will help you remember that." He motioned to the bodyguards who had followed him into the room. They moved toward me without hesitation this time. They grabbed me, their hands rough on my bruised arms, and pulled me from the bed. The pain in my side was excruciating. | screamed, a raw, animal sound of agony. They ignored me. They dragged me out of the hospital, through the lobby, past the shocked faces of nurses and visitors. They forced me into the back of a car and drove me to the estate. The lake was a sheet of dark, forbidding glass under the gray sky. The air was frigid, and a sharp wind cut through my thin hospital gown. They didn't pause at the water's edge. They dragged me into the shallows and then pushed me. The shock of the cold was like a physical blow. It stole the air from my lungs in a single, violent gasp. The icy water enveloped me, a thousand needles of pain stabbing at my skin. ---- The wound in my side exploded in agony, a searing, tearing sensation that made me see stars. | looked down. A dark cloud was spreading in the water around my hip. Blood. My stitches had torn open. The bodyguards stood on the shore, watching. One of them, a younger man, looked horrified. He pulled out his phone and made a call. "Sir," he said, his voice strained. "She's bleeding. Heavily. The water is freezing. She won't survive this." There was a pause. Even from where | was, treading water and shivering uncontrollably, | could hear the faint, tinny sound of Blake's voice on the other end. "Leave her," he said. The words were carried across the water by the wind, clear and final. "She needs to learn her place. She needs to understand that there is a hierarchy in this house, and she is at the very bottom." The young bodyguard lowered his phone, his face pale. He wouldn't meet my eyes. | stopped struggling. What was the point? | floated on my back, the icy water a numbing embrace. My body was shaking so violently | felt like | would come apart. The pain in my side was a dull, constant throb. My life was bleeding out into the cold, dark water. ---- | closed my eyes. Scenes from my life flashed through my mind. My father teaching me to ride a bike. My mother singing me to sleep. And Blake. Blake, after his crash, looking at me with so much love it hurt. Blake on our wedding day, promising to cherish and protect me for all of his days. The man who made that promise was the same man who. was now leaving me to die in a frozen lake. Love and cruelty, tenderness and monstrosity, all wrapped up in one person. How could that be? How could someone change so completely? The shivering stopped. A strange warmth spread through my limbs. | knew what that meant. My body was shutting down. This was it. This was the end. And in that final moment, all | felt was a profound, heartbreaking sadness for the love we had lost, and the man he had once been.