The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 10

Long after Clarissa left, that nauseating scent of gardenia seemed to stick to the air, refusing to fade.

Annelise lay completely still, her bloodshot eyes wide open. Hatred acted like ice, freezing her heart layer by layer, rendering her mind sharper and clearer than it had ever been.

She was waiting. Waiting for the man who had personally shoved her into hell to return.

Minutes bled into hours. The sky outside shifted from pitch black to ink blue, until finally, it was completely swallowed by the hazy sea of city neon. The clock on the wall clicked steadily toward eight o'clock.

Out in the hallway, a heavy, familiar set of footsteps approached, stopping perfectly outside her door. The handle turned with a soft click.

In that split second, Annelise closed her eyes, burying every ounce of her sharpness and hatred deep inside, leaving nothing behind but the hollow shell of a broken woman.

The man who walked in carried the chill of the outside air, mixed with the sterile, sharp scent of hospital disinfectant.

It was Hackett.

He softened his steps as he walked to the bed, pausing to simply stand and watch her for a moment.

Annelise could feel his gaze drifting over her face, as though he were appraising a fragile piece of art he had just shattered and meticulously glued back together.

She knew it was time. She had to "wake up." She had to face this man, stare into his eyes, and lie.

More importantly, she needed to watch how he could look her dead in the eye and spin a flawless, monstrous lie of his own.

Her eyelashes fluttered weakly, like the wings of a dying butterfly, before slowly opening.

The room was lit only by a dim yellow wall lamp. The soft lighting cast half of his face in shadow, making his features hard to read.

"Hackett..." Annelise's lips parted, the voice that slipped out sounding as though it had been dragged across sandpaper—raw and utterly broken.

Hackett instantly leaned in, his voice laced with the absolute perfect amount of concern. "Anne, you're awake. Does anything hurt?"

Annelise's eyes were unfocused, staring blankly at the wall behind him as if she were still trapped in a nightmare she couldn't escape.

She let a few agonizing seconds pass before she mustered what looked like the last bit of strength in her body to ask the question she already knew the answer to.

"Where's the baby?"

Just a few words. They floated softly through the air but crashed down like boulders in the dead silence of the room.

Hackett's body went rigid for a fraction of a second.

She cried harder, the tears falling like broken pearls, quickly soaking the corner of her pillow.

"Did... did the surgery hurt? I didn't know anything..."

She wept like a helpless, terrified child, burying her face into the blankets as if she couldn't bear the crushing weight of the blow.

Hackett sat on the edge of the bed, patiently waiting for her sobs to ease just a fraction before he reached out and gently rubbed her back.

"It didn't hurt. You were under anesthesia. You fell asleep, and when you woke up, it was all over."

His voice was as soft as a feather, brushing over her, comforting her with every syllable.

"Ectopic pregnancies are incredibly hard to catch early on. By the time symptoms show up, it's usually already dangerous. We were lucky we caught it when we did; if it had ruptured and caused severe hemorrhaging, the consequences would have been unthinkable. Anne, you have to remember... your safety is the most important thing to me."

Every medical term was used with clinical precision. Every word of comfort sounded impossibly thoughtful and devoted.

Listening to him, Annelise sneered coldly in the depths of her mind, meticulously lining up every single word he spoke with the ruthless commands in that freezing operating room.

He said the surgery didn't hurt, yet she had been wide awake, feeling the cold steel of his instruments ripping her apart from the inside.