The Mark of Chance••√•• Pure Love

chapitre : 13

The shock of the family door slamming shut behind her hadn't even finished echoing within her when Marina felt the first shivers of panic run down her spine. She walked with a brisk, almost staggering pace, blinded by tears and fury, her only desire to put as much distance as possible between herself and that domestic tribunal. The air she breathed, which she thought was the air of freedom, tasted of ashes and betrayal.

She turned into a quieter alley, a shortcut she'd known since childhood, seeking the anonymity of brick walls and the shadow of overhangs. It was there that the click of high heels on the cobblestones, a rapid, determined sound, froze her blood. A noise she recognized among thousands.

"Marina."

The voice was a whip crack, sharp and final.

She froze in place, her body tensing like a bow. Slowly, she turned around.

Léna stood at the entrance to the alley, a slender, black silhouette outlined against the gray daylight. She hadn't run. She had walked, sure of catching her, sure of her power. Her face was no longer that of the hysterical fury in the living room. It was worse. It was a mask of absolute calm, of terrifying coldness. She advanced with a slow, measured step, each click of her heel resonating like a countdown in the silence of the deserted alley.

Marina felt a primal instinct scream at her to flee, but her legs refused to move. She was like a bird paralyzed by the gaze of a snake. Léna stopped a few inches from her, so close that Marina could smell her heady perfume, a mix of orange blossom and something metallic, acrid.

"You think it's that simple?" Léna whispered, her warm breath brushing Marina's cheek. "You think you can make your little dramatic statement and leave like an offended virgin?"

Her gaze, an abyss of contempt and hatred, scanned Marina's face, then dropped to her stomach, which she touched with the tip of her icy index finger. Marina flinched, curling her body to protect the child, her heart pounding wildly.

"Stop, Léna."

"Why? You need to understand. To see clearly what you're carrying. It's not a child. It's a tumor. A mistake of nature. And I'm going to tell you what will happen if you let this tumor grow."

She plunged her gaze back into Marina's, and Marina felt unworthy, dirty, minuscule before the intensity of that contempt.

"You will have an abortion, Marina. This is not a suggestion. It's the only decent outcome."

"Never," Marina managed to articulate, her voice trembling but clear. "I won't let you dictate my life."

"Your life?" Léna sneered, a short, ugly sound. "You have no life left. You only have two choices. Either you get rid of that thing, and you might, a very long time from now, after begging me sufficiently, regain a tiny, tiny place in this family. Or else…"

She leaned even closer, her lips brushing Marina's ear.

"Or else you disappear."

The word fell into a deathly silence.

"Disappear?" Marina whispered, horrified.

"From this town. From this region. I don't want to run into you one day at the supermarket. I don't want Chris to see you, or that… bastard. I don't want him to have even a doubt about its existence. Do you hear me? He must never know. NEVER."

The threat wasn't shouted. It was uttered with such absolute conviction that it was more frightening than all the rages in the world.

"You want to keep it? Fine. Take responsibility. But take it far away. Very, very far away. Make yourself forgotten. Raise your illegitimate child in the shadows, where he can never threaten my marriage, my reputation, my life."

Marina looked at her, breathless. She saw the madness in her sister's eyes. A cold, calculating madness. She wasn't facing a jealous sister, but an enemy who was prepared to do anything to protect her territory.

"And if… if I refuse? If I stay?"

"Then I will destroy you, Marina. I will tell everyone that you seduced my husband, that you tried to break up our home. You'll be the town w***e. No one will ever look at you without disgust again. You won't find work. You'll have no friends. And Chris…" She gave a cruel smile. "Chris will be so sickened by your manipulation that he'll never want to hear from you again. I will make him hate you. You will be alone, miserable, and your child will bear that shame like a stigma."

Marina felt her knees give way. She leaned against the cold wall of the alley, silent tears streaming down her face. This was the choice. Exile or social annihilation.

"Okay," she breathed, defeated, broken. "Okay. I… I'll leave."

"Promise me."

"I promise I'll leave town. I promise Chris will never know."

"Good."

There was a silence. Léna stared at her, as if to ensure her sincerity. Then, her gaze fell on the phone Marina was clutching in her hand, a last link, a last lifeline.

"Give me that," she ordered.

Marina tried to protest, a faint, barely audible "No."

"Give it. You don't need it anymore. No more contact. No more trace. That's how you disappear."

With a swift, precise movement, she ripped the phone from Marina's trembling hand. She looked at it for a moment, this object that contained Paul's number, her mother's, perhaps Chris's last message, then, with sovereign contempt, she hurled it against the brick wall.

The sound of the impact, sharp and brutal, was followed by the crackle of glass and plastic shattering. The fragments fell onto the cobblestones, a small technological corpse at the foot of the wall.

Marina looked at the debris, her heart in pieces. It was more than a phone. It was her umbilical cord to the world.

Léna contemplated her handiwork, a smile of unhealthy satisfaction on her lips.

"Now, you can go."

She turned and walked away, her heels clicking on the cobblestones again, the sound gradually fading until it disappeared.

Marina stayed there, leaning against the wall, looking at the pieces of her former life scattered at her feet. She was alone. Truly alone. Without family, without a phone, with no future other than the one she would have to build in the shadows, far from everything.

But just as absolute despair threatened to engulf her, she placed both hands on her stomach. A wave of warmth, tenuous but real, seemed to emanate from there, from that life struggling to exist.

She had lost her family. She had lost her town. She had lost Chris before ever having him.

But she had her child. And the promise made to Léna, born of fear and intimidation, suddenly transformed into a fierce resolution. She would leave, yes. But not to disappear. To be reborn. To build a sanctuary where her child would be loved, protected, and where the poison of her family could never reach him.

She let out a long sigh, straightened up, and left the alley, leaving the shards of glass behind her. The path ahead was unknown, obscure. But for the first time, she walked it without illusions, with only the fierce life beating within her as her compass. The war was over. She had lost the family battle, but another, greater one, that of her own destiny, had just begun.