Revenge on my ex husband

Chapter 3:The Resurrection

Elena’s POV

The first thing I noticed when I at last my eyes was the smell of bleach and high-end floor wax, and I was staring straight up at a ceiling so white it made my head hurt as I tried to remember how I'd ended up here. I was on a bed with sheets that were as cool as silk on my skin, but my body was an atlas of agony, and every time I made an attempt to move my weight, a sharp stab of pain went through my side.

Silas sat in a chair by the window, and Catherine stood beside him, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief; both of them looked up at the instant I emitted a soft, ragged moan.

"She's awake, Silas, see, she's at last opening her eyes," Catherine exclaimed as she hurried to the bed and taking my hand, trembled with mingled terror and thankfulness.

“Relax, Elena, you’ve been out a long time and the doctors had to work a lot just to get your ribs and internal bleeding stabilized,” Silas said as he rose and came to her bed, his face etched with more age and fatigue than it had on the night of the crash.

"Where am I? Is there anyone else here? Did anyone see when they brought you in?" I whispered, my voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well because my throat was so dry.

“You’re in a private wing anyway and I made sure the staff here was hired through my own company so no one knows your real name or where you are originally from,” Silas replied, bent down so his voice would not carry farther than the door.

“We told them you are my niece, Seraphina Thorne, and that you were injured in a hit-and-run while you were coming back from the asylum.”

“We needed to burn up the car, Elena, the way we said we would that night,” Catherine said, voice lowered to a whisper.

“The cops recovered the debris and they think the girl at the wheel was the bookstore owner Elena Ross. To the whole world you are dead.”

“And the mistress? And Sarah?” I asked, coughing, trying to prop myself up even as the motion made me see black spots.

“Don’t move yet, you’re not ready for that,” Silas said as he shoved me down against the pillows again.

“She’s fine, and she is currently celebrating her engagement to your husband Marcus, but that will all change once we get the next phase going. "

"I spent the whole time you were sleeping thinking about what Seraphina said in that ditch." Catherine brushed back my hair from my forehead. “She was right, Elena, the only way to seek justice for what they did to her and what they did to you is to take this game to the end.”

“Silas, you spoke of a surgeon that night, when is that scheduled?” I asked, meeting his gaze directly.

“Tomorrow morning is the first session, but I have to make sure you really understand what that means,” Silas said, his jaw clenched.

“It’s not like he’s just going to fix you up, he’s reshaping your bone structure to match Seraphina’s old pictures, and he’s recreating the scars she had on her back and arms from the years she spent in that hellhole. It’s going to be excruciatingly painful, and when it’s over, you can’t even think about being ‘you’ any more.”

"I don't have a ‘self’ to go back to, Silas, because Marcus took that from me when he pushed me into the river,” I told him, and for a moment I glimpsed a flash of utter, ruthless steel in his eyes that told me he had in that moment deemed me powerful enough.

"Do what you have to do to make me look like her, every scar, every mark she had.”

”That’s the kind of spirit we need if we’re going to pull this off,” Silas muttered, but then the door to my private suite grated open an inch.

I saw two people coming down the hall through the gap, and that sight squeezed my heart as tightly as a cold hand when it was Marcus and my mother-in-law, Beatrice.

They were laughing and carrying a large bouquet of lilies, and I realized they were heading toward the maternity ward to see Sarah.

"Silas, look," I hissed as I gestured at the door with a trembling finger.

Silas saw where I was watching and silently moved across to close the door forcefully, blocking out the sound of my husband’s laughter. "So they think they won Elena, and they’re raising a glass to their new life right next door to where you lie broken."

"Let them have their celebration for the moment," I shot back, voice like ice. “The farther up they go, the more bones they will break when I pull the ladder out from under them.”

"We'll make sure of it," Catherine said, turning me a hand.

Later, that evening – Silas and Catherine having gone out for coffee – the door opened again and a woman stepped in a door without knocking in an expensive fur coat. It was Evelyn, the stepmother, and she swept her head in disgust around the room before her gaze came to rest on me, the sneer on her lips formed as she deemed me nothing more than a brain-damaged girl who wouldn’t be able to fight. She grabbed my chin and pulled my head back slightly, her razor-sharp fingernails pressing into my skin.

“So you really made it through the crash, you little brat,” Evelyn hissed as she bent down and I caught a whiff of her strong perfume.

“I don’t know how you got out of that car, but don’t for a second think that being back in the city means you’re safe, because I can have you sent back to a padded cell whenever I want.”

I didn't scream; I just glared at her and blew out a breathy, ghostly giggle that made her recoil. “The fire was warm, Mother, but the water so cold,“ I whispered in a nasal, sing-song tone.

"The girl in the red dress says she's waiting for you at the bottom of the bridge, and the rocks are really sharp."

Evelyn went white and she took a step back, her eyes filled with an unexpected terror as she held her purse.

“What are you talking about? What girl in a red dress? You've lost your mind completely at last," she snapped, but her hands were trembling.

"She’s waiting, Evelyn, and she knows everything," I added, still smiling that blank, terrifying smile.

Evelyn practically ran out of the room and Silas came back a few seconds later, and he noticed the way I was looking at the door.

"Was someone here? You’re looking different," he said.

“Evelyn came by to threaten me,” I said, my voice normal again.

“I think I gave her something to dream about tonight. "

“The surgeon will be here at dawn, Elena, so try to get some rest while you still can,” Silas said, a new kind of respect in his eyes as he looked at me.

"My name is Seraphina now," I said, glancing up at the flickering lights of the hospital. "And I've never been more ready for anything in my life.”