“What kind of trick have you played on me?”
“I’m taking you to see someone,” Andrew says.
“Is it Charles again?” Leilani asks.
“Because that trick you pulled with the ultrasound image last time wasn’t funny. It was sick.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,” Andrew says lightly.
“Don’t joke with me—it’s really not funny,” Leilani says.
Andrew shrugs and steps out of the car, and he crosses in front of the car and opens Leilani’s door for her, offering his hand to help her out. She snatches her hand away from him the second she’s out of the car and walks nervously toward the front doors. A doctor with gold-framed glasses and a white lab coat waits under the overhang in front of the doors.
“Is everything ready?” Andrew asks the man.
“Yes,” the doctor says with a brief nod.
Andrew looks at Leilani with concern and asks, “Are you ready?”
Leilani glares at him and climbs the steps to the front doors. The doctor in the white coat walks down a dim hallway. The walls and linoleum floors look colorless and drab in the late night light. The doors to the wards are all closed, and the hospital is silent except for the echoes of their footsteps. The doctor leads them to an inner lobby with an elevator.
Leilani steps into the elevator and immediately notices that it’s big enough to accommodate a surgical bed. She swallows hard as the creaky elevator slowly rises. Andrew is silent, but Leilani can feel his intense eyes on her. The elevator doors finally slide open, revealing a large frosted glass door to a private room.
“Are you ready?” Andrew asks again.
Leilani nods, and Andrew gently pushes the door open.
The room smells like disinfectant and illness. Charles is lying in bed with an oxygen mask over his nose. He’s hooked up to several machines that beep and whir—he almost seems more machine than human. Leilani feels her eyes flooded with tears.
“Charles,” she gasps.
She runs across the room and grabs his thin hand from the top of the quilt. It feels limp and lifeless in her own hands, and he doesn’t seem to notice her at all. His eyes don’t even flicker. She swallows back a sob.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asks.
“Mrs. Bamford, can I please have a word with you outside?” the doctor asks.
Leilani follows him into the corridor, looking over her shoulder at Charles. The doctor clears his throat and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He stuffs his hand in his pocket and looks into Leilani’s eyes.
“Mrs. Bamford, I’m going to be blunt—he doesn’t have long. By the time he arrived here, he was already missing his heart. We’ve hooked him up to an artificial heart to pump his blood, but that’s not a long term solution. Besides, the blood supply to his brain had already been lost, and he was deep in a coma by the time we got him. He probably won’t wake up.”
“Where’s his heart?” Leilani asks, dreading the answer.
“In Mr. Clifford’s body,” the doctor replies.
Leilani’s head spins, and her knees shake. She slumps against the wall and closes her eyes. Slowly she counts to ten. When she opens her eyes again, the room has stopped spinning.
“How did this happen?” Leilani asks.
“What kind of monster would take his heart out?”
“We don’t know the specific details,” the doctor says, nervously glancing through the open doors at Andrew.
“So, you’re saying it’s impossible for Charles to wake up?” Leilani asks.
“It’s unlikely, yes,” the doctor says.
“The artificial heart is a poor substitute for the real thing. We considered a transplant, but the odds of success are dangerously low. There’s only one option for him.”
“What’s that?” Leilani asks.
“He’d have to have his own heart transplanted back into his body,” the doctor says.
“His own heart?” Leilani asks in confusion.
“Why is that such a problem? If Andrew returns his heart to Charles, he can just get a new heart. It shouldn’t be difficult for a man like Andrew to find a donor.”
“It’s a difficult and dangerous surgery, Mrs. Bamford,” the doctor says.
“Mr. Clifford has already survived it once—to do it again, so soon would be almost impossible. Chances are, he wouldn’t survive the operation. Besides, transplants damage the heart, too. There’s no guarantee the heart could survive another transplant.”
“If Charles gets his own heart back, what’s the likelihood of him surviving?” Leilani asks.
“Well, if the heart isn’t damaged, I’d say his chances are at about 50%,” the doctor says.
“And if he keeps the artificial heart?” Leilani asks.
The doctor shakes his head and smiles sadly, “That’s impossible. People can’t live with an artificial heart forever. The longest anyone has ever survived with one was 17 months. To be honest with you, I don’t think Charles has that long.”
“So Charles needs to get his own heart back within the next 17 months, or he’ll die?” Leilani asks, feeling the panic rise in her chest.
The doctor nods slowly. Leilani looks through the door at Charles and Andrew. It’s so unfair, she thinks. Only one of them can survive, and there’s no way that Andrew will ever sacrifice his life for Charles. Charles is the one who deserves to live, though. He’s a good man and a good doctor, and I care about him. But Andrew is just a perverted, self-obsessed playboy. It’s so cruel that he gets to live while Charles has to die.
“Is there no other way?” Leilani asks, feeling a painful lump form in her throat.
The doctor shakes his head again. Leilani swallows her tears and walks back into the ward. Gently, she brushes Charles’ shaggy hair away from his face—he’s clearly been unconscious for a long time—the Charles she knows would never let his hair get so long. His cheekbones jut out of his thin face and lips look almost blue. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was already dead.
Andrew crosses the room and stands on the opposite side of the bed. Leilani looks up and sees that he’s watching her as if he’s trying to solve some sort of difficult problem. She looks back down at Charles and takes his hand in hers. His skin feels waxy and cold, and a sob bursts past her lips — the machines beep and whir, keeping him alive. Leilani gently moves Charles’s hand, and the blanket falls away, revealing gauze on the right side of his chest.
“His heart was on the right side?” Leilani asks, confused.
“Yes,” Andrew replies.
“How did you find him?” Leilani asks.
“Please, don’t tell me you knowingly took the heart from him.”
“I didn’t,” Andrew says, looking deep into her eyes.
“After the transplant, I overheard the surgeon talking about my heart. I had my men investigate—obviously, I’d never want some unknown organ in my body—and they found Charles.”
“Why is he like this?” Leilani asks.
“What happened to him in the first place? Why would someone just cut his heart out?”
Andrew smiles slightly, “You don’t want to know. It would kill you.”
The gloating tone in his voice makes her blood run cold. She knows that Charles went missing right around the time she escaped from the Bamford’s. Andrew seems to be implying that Charles’ accident has something to do with her. And if his accident has to do with her—there’s only one person jealous and violent enough to be responsible.
“No, that’s impossible,” she whispers, “You’re lying to me again! Waylen would never do something like that.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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