Chapter 7
1130 Words
When consciousness finally returned, Maya realized her hands had been tied behind her back.
She was kneeling on rough concrete, her knees scraped raw with pain.
A livestream setup stood directly across from her, the camera aimed straight at her face.
The man who kidn*pped her was Ronald Lee, the father of the three-year-old child.
His eyes were bloodshot as he screamed into the camera.
"Everyone look closely! This is Maya, the quack doctor who almost killed my son! She ruined my child's life. Today I'm making her pay for it!"
The livestream comments exploded across the screen.
A: [Doctors like her don't deserve to live!]
B: [Support the father getting justice, but this still needs to go through legal channels!]
C: [Dr. Lydia is the real angel. Maya's a monster!]
Maya shivered violently.
The stab wound in her abdomen was still bleeding through the crude bandages wrapped around it.
Looking at the flood of twisted accusations, she suddenly laughed.
"I never harmed your son. I'm the one who saved him. Lydia's been lying from the very beginning.
"Call her right now and ask what three indicators need to be monitored most closely after surgery. If she gets even one answer right, I'll die in front of you immediately."
Ronald froze for a second before rage exploded across his face again.
"You still think you can lie your way out of this? The internet already exposed everything. You were the surgeon!"
"The surgical records were altered by Evan. And that audio clip was edited too." Maya lifted her eyes, staring straight through the camera. "I performed your son's bypass surgery. I wrote the entire postoperative care plan myself.
"Lydia doesn't even qualify to perform high-risk cardiac surgery. Call her. Right now. If she can correctly name a single key postoperative indicator, I'll confess on the spot."
The certainty in her voice made Ronald hesitate.
Even the livestream comments slowed.
D: [Wait... she kind of has a point.]
E: [If Lydia really performed the surgery, how could she not know the monitoring priorities?]
Then suddenly, Lydia's username appeared in the comments section along with a voice message:
Lydia: [Don't listen to her lies! She's just stalling for time!]
Lydia: [I was assisting in the operating room the whole time. Of course I know the postoperative protocols. I'm just too panicked to think clearly right now...]
Lydia: [Maya, please stop forcing me. I'm coming over right now. I'll take responsibility for everything if I have to!]
The voice message ended.
Bang.
The door flew open.
Lydia rushed inside, her face filled with panic as she lunged toward Ronald.
"Sir, please don't hurt Maya! The child's condition isn't her fault. If you want revenge, come after me instead!"
She deliberately crowded closer to Ronald.
On the surface, it looked like she was trying to stop him.
But her elbow slammed hard into the hand holding the knife.
Ronald lost his balance instantly, nearly dropping the blade.
Using the momentum, Lydia staggered sideways toward the staircase beside them.
They were on the second floor of an abandoned building. Broken concrete and construction debris covered the ground below.
"Lydia!"
A familiar scream tore through the room.
Evan burst inside like a madman.
The second he saw Lydia falling toward the stairs, he dove forward without hesitation and wrapped his arms around her.
The two of them tumbled down together.
Ronald froze in shock.
The knife clattered onto the floor.
Police sirens and ambulance alarms roared closer from outside.
Officers rushed in and pinned Ronald down while medical staff immediately surrounded Maya to treat her injuries.
As she was lifted into the ambulance, Maya turned her head slightly toward the floor below.
Evan was holding Lydia tightly, panic written all over his face as he kept asking if she was hurt.
Lydia leaned weakly against his chest, eyes red, trembling like she'd been terrified half to death.
Not one person looked at Maya.
Not one person asked whether her injuries were serious.
For the next half month, Maya remained in the hospital recovering.
The online harassment never stopped.
Death threats, doxxing, endless curses clung to her day and night like rot sinking into bone.
Until the day before the wedding, Evan finally released several legal notices online, sending the people leading the harassment and leaking Maya's personal information into police custody.
Only then did the public outrage finally begin to settle.
It was also the first time he came to see her.
Evan walked into the hospital room in a perfectly tailored suit, carrying white roses and a cake.
"There's been too much going on lately. The media didn't report everything clearly." He paused. "Lydia injured her leg badly trying to save you. She almost lost it."
Maya said nothing. She simply stared out the window.
White roses were the flowers she hated most.
He never remembered.
"I'm taking her back to the grasslands for a while," Evan continued as he set the flowers and cake on the bedside table. "She misses home."
"I know I haven't been here these past two weeks..." His voice lowered slightly. "But I owe Lydia. I have to repay her."
Maya remained silent.
Her fingers slid across the phone screen before she held it out toward him.
A photograph filled the display.
Lydia stood there in a white wedding gown, arm linked intimately through Evan's.
Timestamp: Yesterday afternoon.
Yesterday, Maya's wound had become infected and her fever spiked dangerously high. The doctor asked her to contact family to sign the surgical consent forms.
She'd called Evan.
He told her he was busy.
Turns out he'd been busy taking wedding photos with Lydia.
Evan's eyes flickered away instantly. His throat bobbed once.
"She's leaving soon," he explained stiffly. "Her only wish was to take a few photos as a memory. Don't overthink it."
After a pause, he added quietly, "Don't worry. She wasn't wearing the wedding dress you spent years designing."
His phone rang suddenly.
Lydia was calling, urging him to hurry.
Evan muttered, "I'll make it back for tomorrow's wedding," before turning and leaving in a rush.
The moment he was gone, Maya received a call from the pilot of the Abloure mission flight. "Dr. Moore, please be ready to board tomorrow on schedule."
Maya got out of bed, completed her discharge paperwork, and returned home one final time.
After opening her computer, she forwarded every piece of evidence Dr. Grant had gathered against Lydia, including the falsified thesis records and altered surgical documents, to a trusted reporter and lawyer.
By the time she finished, dawn was beginning to break.
Maya gave one final glance to the wedding gown hanging inside the closet, the gown she'd designed with her own hands.
Then she walked out the door without looking back.
- Writer
