Her eyes never left Claire—not even for a second. There was something familiar in them, a flicker of recognition, a searching uncertainty, and then, finally, a rare moment of clarity.
Tears spilled down her face in an instant, yet she was smiling.
She reached out a trembling hand. “Claire, you’re my Claire. You finally came to see me, didn’t you?”
Claire looked back at her with cold indifference, her gaze utterly unmoved, as if staring at a stranger.
Adah stumbled toward her, words tumbling out in a frantic rush. “Claire, Mom missed you so much. Stay with me, please. Don’t leave me again.”
Just as she neared, a pair of orderlies intercepted her, blocking her path and refusing to let her come any closer.
Adah fought wildly, screaming, “Let go of me! I want to hold my daughter—that’s my daughter!”
She was shockingly strong, flailing her arms and clawing at the air in desperation.
Claire simply stood there, watching it all unfold with icy detachment.
So it’s true, she thought. Once you let go of your obsession, the love you once craved more than anything turns out to be meaningless after all.
A faint, bitter smile crossed Claire’s lips. Her voice was calm and distant. “Mrs. Linwood, from this moment on, we’ll never see each other again.”
She turned to Jeffry. “Let’s go.”
Even in her madness, Adah understood every word.
She shook her head furiously. “No, don’t go! I’ll protect you, I can’t lose you again!”
But no matter how she screamed, how her voice broke with anguish, Claire acted as if she hadn’t heard a thing.
As Claire walked away, her silhouette shrinking in the corridor, something inside Adah finally shattered. Her voice grew hoarse from screaming, the sound now more like the guttural cry of a wounded animal. “Don’t go! Please, don’t go—!”
She was so strong that it took several orderlies all their strength just to restrain her.
At that moment, a doctor stepped forward, pressed a needle into Adah’s arm, and injected her with a sedative.
Adah’s body jerked, her consciousness slipping away, but her eyes never left Claire’s retreating figure. They were filled with an aching, desperate longing.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom