WANT ME BACK. BREAK ME TWICE

Weapon for a Runaway Servant

By morning, the mansion felt deceptively peaceful. Soft, filtered sunlight poured through the towering windows, leaving long, golden fractures across the marble floors that seemed far too perfect for a home built on buried secrets. Outside, the fountains shimmered beneath the early light, and somewhere downstairs, the staff moved like ghosts, preparing the morning tea. For one dangerous, fleeting moment, Elara almost forgot she was living among wolves.

She adjusted the oversized sleeve of her sweater, her bruised arm almost fully healed, moving slowly before stepping out of the staff quarters. Her body still felt deeply hollow from the constant coughing, and her chest burned slightly each time she drew a deep breath. Good. That part no longer required her to pretend.

As she crossed the lower gallery toward the foyer, soft, intimate voices drifted down from the second-floor balcony overlooking the main hall. It was Treas’s laughter sweet, breathy, and amplified by the high ceilings.

Elara looked up instinctively. Rohan and Treas stood together by the carved mahogany railing. Treas wore a pale pink robe loosely draped around her frame, while Rohan stood in front her in a crisp white shirt, one heavy arm resting possessively around her waist. For once, his posture looked genuinely gentle. His fingers brushed softly against the side of Treas's face while she laughed about something quiet, then he leaned down, murmuring against her dark hair until she smiled wider.

Elara froze, her hand anchoring against the cold stone of the pillar. Something sharp and entirely unexpected tightened deep inside her chest. Because despite the calculated hatred, despite the years of systemic humiliation and pain, there was still a small, buried chamber of her heart that remembered wanting that version of him. The softer version. The man who rarely appeared. It was the cruelest trick of her subconscious that even now, some broken, phantom part of her still loved the thought of who she wanted him to be for her.

Then Treas looked down. And saw her.

Immediately, Treas’s smile shifted, the warmth hardening into a sharp, triumphal edge. Her entire body leaned more dramatically back against Rohan’s chest. "Oh, babe, you made me feel so incredibly good this morning," she laughed louder, wrapping both arms tightly around his neck. "You spoil me far too much."

Rohan smiled, his voice carrying clearly down to the foyer. "And today, I'll be securing a special gift for you and my baby."

Treas burst into a manic excitement, kissing his jaw slowly while looking directly down at Elara. Her gaze was possessive, victorious, and heavy with warning. Elara held her sister's stare for one long, unblinking second. Then, without a word, she lowered her eyes and walked out into the crisp morning air.

The pharmacy bell chimed softly overhead, its familiar ring cutting through the clinical scent of antiseptic. Mr. Zach looked up from behind the high glass counter, and the exact second his eyes landed on Elara’s face, his expression hardened into stone.

"No."

Elara stopped walking, her left hand coming to rest on a wooden shelf. "You don’t even know what I’m going to say, Uncle Zach."

"Yes, I do." He removed his reading glasses tiresomely, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "And my answer is still no, Elara."

Elara approached the counter slowly, her footsteps echoing in the empty pharmacy. The morning sunlight streamed through the display shelves, illuminating the fine dust floating softly through the quiet air.

Mr. Zach leaned forward, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. "That IV compound is experimental. It has never been cleared for clinical use."

"I know."

"It was never designed or tested for a simulated suicide."

"I know."

"And I am not risking a human life just because you are desperate!" The sharpness in his voice echoed briefly through the quiet room, but Elara didn’t flinch. Instead, she stepped closer, pressing her left palm flat against the cold glass of the counter.

"You said it induces a death-like unconscious state," she whispered back, her gaze unwavering.

"It’s purely theoretical."

"You said twelve hours."

"Approximately twelve hours, Elara. A fraction of a milligram off...."

"You said the heart rate becomes completely undetectable to standard tactile examination."

Mr. Zach stared at her silently, his jaw working as he looked away from the raw, terrifying clarity in her eyes. "That research was never meant to be a weapon for a runaway servant."

"But it can save me," Elara said softly. The words landed differently this time, not dramatic, not manipulative, just an honest, bare statement of her reality.

Mr. Zach rubbed his forehead, his shoulders slumping under a sudden weight. "You are asking me to risk my entire life, my career, my freedom."

"And I am risking my life," Elara countered quietly. "If I leave this house normally, Rohan will use his global resources to find me within forty-eight hours. He will bring me back, and I will never see the sky again."

He looked at her again. Really looked at her. He took in the translucent, sickly texture of her skin, the heavy exhaustion bruising the flesh beneath her eyes, and the tremors she could no longer hide. Suddenly, the old pharmacist understood. This woman wasn’t trying to run away from a broken heart; she was running for her life.

"You look genuinely ill, child," he murmured.

Elara gave a faint, humorless smile, her eyes tracking her own trembling fingers. "Maybe that’s a good thing. If my body is already failing... then nobody will question the sudden collapse later."

A heavy, suffocating silence sat between them, so profound that the distant, rhythmic beeping of a digital monitor in the back room sounded like a ticking clock. Mr. Zach stared at her as if she had already transcended into a ghost. "If this goes wrong, I could lose my license. I could go to prison."

"You won’t."

"How can you possibly guarantee that, Elara?"

Elara hesitated briefly, her almond eyes turning cold as winter ice. "Because dead people don’t testify."

A cold dread ran down Zach's spine. He leaned back slowly in his chair, his eyes wide. "You’ve really thought this through."

"I’ve had four years of humiliation to do nothing but think," she said, her voice dropping into the grounded, calculated register of a master strategist.

Mr. Zach let out a long, defeated breath. He turned toward the locked safe behind the counter, his hands trembling as he punched in the code. When he turned back, a small, unlabeled amber vial slid across the glass toward her. Beside it lay a sterile, sealed syringe.

"Twelve hours, Elara. Not a minute more," he whispered, his voice shaking with the gravity of his treason. "If they don't get you out of that box before the clock runs down, you will breathe your last in the dark."

Elara’s fingers closed around the cold glass of the vial, sliding it deep into the hidden slit of her sweater lining. A chilling, absolute serenity settled over her face.

"They won't keep me in the dark for long," she whispered. "I've already drawn the map."