Left for dead
1313 Words
Jasmine's POV
Lily left for the store an hour ago. She'd asked if I needed anything else before she went. I'd said no.
I should've said yes.
The house was too quiet. I hated quiet. Quiet meant I had nothing to focus on except my thoughts, and my thoughts were poison.
I pushed myself off the couch, one hand trailing along the wall. The bathroom. I just needed to get to the bathroom. My bladder had been pressing for the past twenty minutes, and I'd been too pathetic to move.
Three steps in, my foot caught on something. A rug? A table leg? It didn't matter.
I went down hard.
My hip slammed into the floor first, then my shoulder. Pain exploded through my side, sharp and immediate, but it was nothing compared to the cramping that started in my stomach seconds later.
No. No, no, no.
I pressed both hands against my belly, gasping. The pain twisted deeper, vicious and wrong. Something warm and wet spread between my legs.
"No." The word came out as a whimper. "Please, no."
I tried to push myself up, but my arms shook too badly. The cramping intensified, wave after wave, and I couldn't breathe through it.
"Lily!" My voice cracked. "Lily, please!"
Nothing. She wasn't here. She wouldn't be back for at least another hour.
I fumbled for my phone in my pocket, my fingers clumsy and trembling. I didn't want to call him. I'd rather bleed out on this floor than hear his voice again. But this was his baby. His heir. Maybe that would be enough.
I managed to unlock the phone by voice command, managed to find his contact. The line rang once. Twice.
"Hello?" Not his voice. Hers.
Isabel.
"I need—" I gasped through another cramp. "I need Christopher. Please. Something's wrong with the baby."
"Oh." Her tone was light. Amused. "He's in the shower right now. Can I take a message?"
The cramping worsened. I curled onto my side, the phone pressed against my ear.
"Please," I whispered. "Please, I'm bleeding. I need help."
"Bleeding?" She paused. "How much?"
"I don't know, I can't see—please, just get him—"
"You know, Jasmine, maybe this is for the best." Her voice turned thoughtful. "A blind omega raising an Alpha's child? That was never going to work. Christopher would've had to deal with you for so many years. This way, it's cleaner."
My vision—what little darkness I had—started to blur at the edges.
"You're so cruel," I breathed.
"I'm a realist. Goodbye, Jasmine."
The line went dead.
I tried to call again, but my fingers wouldn't cooperate. The phone slipped from my hand and clattered against the floor. The cramping had become constant now, a grinding agony that made me want to claw my own skin off.
I don't know how long I lay there. Minutes. Hours. Time stopped meaning anything.
When I woke up, everything smelled like herbs, disinfectant and bleach.
Hospital.
I tried to sit up, but my body felt like it had been hollowed out. My hand moved automatically to my stomach.
Flat.
"No." The word ripped out of me. "No, no, no—"
"You're awake." Christopher's voice. Cold. Detached.
I turned toward the sound, my throat closing up.
"Where's my baby?" I already knew. I knew, but I needed him to say it.
"Gone."
The word hit like a fist to the chest.
"Gone?" I repeated. My voice didn't sound like mine. "What do you mean gone?"
"The fall caused a miscarriage. The doctors couldn't save it." He said 'it' like he was talking about a broken appliance. "You were unconscious when they brought you in. Blood loss was significant."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. My hands pressed against my empty stomach, searching for something that wasn't there anymore.
"You killed our baby," I whispered.
"I wasn't even there."
"You put me in that house!" My voice rose, cracking. "You rejected me, you threw me away, you—"
"You accepted the bond." His words cut through mine like a blade. "Four years ago, when you were very much aware that I didn't want you, you still pushed. You still clung. You made your choice, Jasmine. This is the consequence."
"I loved you."
"I never asked you to."
I wanted to scream. To throw something. To make him feel even a fraction of what I felt. But I had nothing left. Nothing.
"You're a monster," I said. "You used me. You took everything from me, and now you've killed our baby."
"The baby died because you fell. That's on you."
"I accept it." The words came out flat. Empty. "I accept your rejection. I, Jasmine Wade, accept your rejection, Christopher Vance."
The bond, already shredded and damaged from the first part of his rejection ritual, snapped completely. But the pain was distant now. Background noise compared to the gaping hole where my child used to be.
Christopher didn't even flinch.
"Good." He pulled something from his pocket. An envelope. He set it on the table beside my bed. "There's a check of five million dollars. Enough to start over somewhere else. Your hospital bill is paid. Consider it my final obligation to you."
"Obligation."
"Don't contact me again. We're not mates anymore. The baby's gone. We have no connection." He moved toward the door. "Disappear, Jasmine. It's what you should've done four years ago."
The door closed behind him.
I sat there in the hospital bed, blind and empty and utterly alone, and I felt something inside me break beyond repair.
The door opened again. Different footsteps. Lighter.
"I heard about the baby." It was Isabel and she sounded delighted. "Such a shame. Although, between you and me, it's probably better this way. You couldn't even carry an Alpha's heir to term. Pathetic."
"Get out."
"Christopher and I are planning the Luna ceremony for next month. Can you believe it? Finally, the pack will have a real Luna. Someone who can actually see." She laughed. "Someone who isn't you."
"I said get out."
"You should've died in that house." Her voice dropped, losing the false sweetness. "It would've been easier for everyone. Make sure you inject her with everything in that tiny bottle and make her disappear."
" Inject me? What are you talking about?" I heard her leave. Heard the click of her heels fade down the hallway.
" It's just a drug that helps you heal faster. She only wants you out of their life," said the nurse.
I lay back against the pillows, my hands still pressed against my empty stomach.
Dead. My baby was dead. Christopher's cruelty had killed it. His family's torture had broken me.
The thought settled over me like a blanket as I closed my eyes.
Hours later, I heard the door open again. Footsteps I didn't recognize. Someone moving around my room.
"Who's there?" My voice came out hoarse.
No answer.
I felt a sharp pain of something being injected in my body.
"Wait—what are you—"
"Luna Isabel sends her regards," a female voice said softly.
Luna? Then fire erupted in my veins.
Silver. I had heard how it felt like, not knowing I was actually going to feel it one day. I could smell it now, bitter and metallic. It burned through my bloodstream like acid, and I couldn't even scream because my throat had seized up.
I was dying. Actually dying.
And in my last moments, as the poison ate through me, I felt something I hadn't felt in four years.
Rage.
Pure, crystalline rage.
If I had another chance—if the moon goddess gave me one more shot at life—I would make them pay.
I would burn their world to ash.
That was my last thought before everything went black.
- Writer
