The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 22

Annelise stood frozen at the door for a long time.

The question from the study pierced her eardrums like an ice pick, driving straight into her brain and freezing the blood in her veins.

"They really... can't find him?"

Barnum's exhausted, aged voice echoed endlessly in her mind.

Not dead.

Not sacrificed.

Can't find him.

The phrase was like a rusted key violently prying open the darkest, most absurd possibility she had never dared to imagine.

She didn't know how she managed to walk back to the guest room on the second floor.

The thick hallway carpet swallowed all her footsteps, just as it swallowed the frantic pounding of her heart, which felt like it might leap out of her throat.

She closed the door, kept the lights off, and slowly slid down against the cold wood to sit on the floor.

Her back was already drenched in a cold sweat of pure terror.

The note under her pillow was gone.

The conversation in the study confirmed her most unspeakable suspicions.

This web the Lehman family had woven for her was vastly larger and infinitely more complex than she had ever realized.

She thought she had merely stumbled into a marital trap. Now, it seemed she was free-falling into a generational abyss.

That night, she kept her eyes open until the pitch-black sky faded into a pale gray dawn.

At exactly 6:30 AM, the alarm clock by the bed went off.

When Harriet came in with a glass of warm water, she found Annelise already fully dressed, sitting quietly on the sofa by the window, her face paler than the morning light outside.

"Ms. Sargent, you..." Harriet's heartbreak and worry were written all over her face.

"I'm fine." Annelise shook her head and took the glass.

Her voice was steady, too steady for someone who hadn't slept a wink.

"Lizzie's rules can't be broken."

At exactly 7:00 AM, Annelise appeared in the dining room.

Lizzie sat alone at the long table.

Breakfast today was even quieter than yesterday.

Lizzie couldn't even be bothered to give her standard, detached nod. Instead, she used the corner of her eye to scan Annelise's every movement like a security camera.

The cold, unforgiving floor soon sent numb, stinging pain shooting through her knees, while the surgical wound on her abdomen throbbed in tandem.

But she didn't move an inch, perfectly still like a senseless stone statue.

Time slipped by, minute by minute, lost in the low drone of the prayers.

An hour later, Lizzie finally stopped.

She didn't stand up right away. Still kneeling and staring straight at the altar, she suddenly spoke, uttering a sentence that had absolutely nothing to do with prayer.

"Did you know, Annelise?"

Her voice felt somewhat ethereal in the hollow chapel.

"Elias's favorite flowers were daisies."

Annelise's heart skipped a heavy beat.

She didn't know how to respond to that.

Lizzie seemed caught in some distant memory, continuing on her own.

"Clarissa loves daisies too."

Her voice unconsciously softened as she mentioned Clarissa's name. It was a rare sliver of tenderness from such a harsh, bitter woman.