Chapter 5

Agony detonated below my right shoulder blade and swept through my entire body in an instant. I felt the cold metal enter me — felt it tear through muscle — and with it came a deep, bone-level chill that felt like the edge of death.

Time stopped.

The fury on Ethan's face locked up. It became shock. Pure, total shock. He let go on instinct, but the knife was still in my shoulder. Blood soaked through my thin shirt fast, a spreading stain that was almost hard to look at.

Lily's crying cut off completely. She stood there with her mouth open, frozen.

"Gr… Grace?"

Ethan's voice came out cracked and barely there. He stared at his own bloodied hand, then back at my face, which was draining of color by the second. Something appeared in his eyes that I'd never seen there before — a vast, near-panicked fracturing.

I looked at him, and I thought about the one thing I hadn't said out loud.

This is to cancel the debt. The one from our last life — when you threw yourself in front of every bullet meant for me.

After this, we're even.

But the cold spreading from the blood loss made it impossible to speak. My body slid downward.

"Grace—!!!"

Ethan let out a sound that didn't seem like it could come from a human throat. He caught me as I went down, his hands scrambling frantically to press against the wound — and then pulling back, afraid to touch the knife.

His arms were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

"Get a doctor! Call an ambulance! NOW!"

He was screaming at the frozen housekeeper and assistant, his eyes red, every trace of the cold, controlled man he'd always been completely gone. Only terror remained.

When I came back to consciousness, I was in a hospital room that smelled heavily of antiseptic.

My shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages. A dull, constant ache pulsed through it. But stronger than that was the familiar, crushing weight inside my body — that deep, systemic exhaustion I recognized.

So it's here. Just like I knew it would be.

The room was quiet. From beyond the door, I could make out muffled arguing.

Ethan and Lily.

"…I'm asking you one more time. That knife — did she use it to cut you? Or did you do it yourself?"

Ethan's voice was low, but it carried the still, heavy pressure of a storm about to break.

"Ethan… you're doubting me? How could you doubt me? It's Grace who hates me — she's always hated me for taking you away from her—"

Lily dissolved into sobs.

"I only believe what I actually saw. Grace acts out, yeah — but she's never gone this far with herself before. Lily. Don't lie to me."

Ethan's voice had taken on a quality I'd never heard from him — a cold, quiet ferocity that was somehow more frightening than shouting.

"If I find out you did… I'll destroy you."

Lily stumbled back a step, the color draining from her face. She couldn't get another word out.

Ethan's footsteps moved away.

He stepped out onto the balcony and smoked a cigarette before he trusted himself to feel anything clearly.

When Grace had gone limp in his arms — barely breathing, barely there — he'd finally understood what it felt like for his heart to stop.

"Look into it," he said, his voice rough.

He turned to his assistant:

"The door to Grace's room was open. The hallway camera should have had a clear angle into the room. Pull the footage."