~Lilith
"Mum, please stay with me!" My voice was no longer my own. Ragged, hoarse with horror. My clothes were still wet with blood... her blood. The metallic stench tangling with the antiseptic burn of the hospital.
The stretcher wheeled down the white, sterile hallway like a bloodied coffin on wheels. I pushed along with the paramedics, my heart thudding like a war drum in my chest.
"Please--please, keep your eyes open," My lips trembled as I touched her face. "I am begging you," I cried, tears flowing down my bloodied, swollen face. But I could not register the pain.
We reached the urgent care, the door flying open. They ripped her out of my hands, I caught sight of her crushed leg and I could hear the horrible screeching of the wheels of the car as it tried and failed to come to a stop, but it was too late.
I grabbed chunks of my hair, screaming where I sat in the hallway. I had just stood there, too stunned to move out of its path, too stupid to run, too filled with pain to save my own worthless life.
But my mum...
I squeezed my eyes shut, and I could still feel her hand on my back as she pushed me. It all happened in a flash, too fast for me to comprehend.
The sickening thud of the impact, crunch of breaking bones.
My sobs came in waves as grief and guilt gripped me hard enough for my spine to crack. It was choking, violent, and body-wracking.
I wrapped my arms around myself, having to physically hold myself together. The whole world spun along while mine had fractured. I was now left in the rubble.
It should have been me...
Especially after what I found this night right after I blew out the candles on my eighteenth birthday cake. The first cake they ever gave me. I should have known...
There was a catch...
It came with a price.
It was the truth about why they all seemed to despise my existence. The reason I was the stain that refused to fade no matter how much they wanted me to. A shadow beside their golden children. The one they looked upon like filth. I understood now and the... truth was more monstrous than anything I could have conjured up in my mind.
Searing pain exploded on my cheek, my head snapping so far to the side that I could have sworn I heard something crack.
The overpowering scent of perfume welcomed me to the reality that I had anticipated.
"You won!" Aunt Agnes screeched as her face came into focus despite the tears that blurred my vision. Her face distorted with loathing so visceral I could smell it tangle with her overpowering perfume. "You finally achieved your evil mission, you fucking parasite! You took her from us!"
I looked up at her, eyes flared wide in a glare that pierced my soul.
"You failed the first time, but you had to try again. I was right about you from the beginning. You are a curse, the bane of this family, a fucking disease."
My eyes were too swollen, tongue too heavy to argue as she rained the insults like she always did when she got the chance, but this time with more venom.
My family had filled the hallway. Some crying, others pale from worry, some pacing—but all having the same expression as they looked at me.
Disgust.
Like I was the rot in the room, the virus that had infected this night, this blood, this pain. No one asked if I was okay. No one checked the swelling in my face or the bruises blooming like violets on my arms.
Their grief wasn't shared with me—it was weaponized against me.
"Yet, you dare to wonder..." Charlotte's voice whipped like a lash to my bare back. "Why we fucking wish you would die!" Her olive skin flushed with a fury that I should have been used to.
I blinked at her, not saying a word. Mum was fighting for life, and I was not about to pretend that their words were not justified.
Charlotte grabbed the collar of my dress, yanking my face to hers. "Can't you fucking talk?" she growled. "We finally throw a whining bitch like you a party even after everything." She shook me, hard enough to make my bones rattle. Yet, I stared back blankly into hard amber eyes.
She was pulled back, probably because the nurse started giving us looks. Our beautifully dysfunctional mess of a family as they tore into the black sheep.
Charlotte tried to lunge for me but my elder brother was able to pull her back. But I knew better than to think I was saved.
Ajax's towering frame loomed above me as soon as Aunt Agnes had Charlotte in her arms.
I could feel the pulsing of anger as his eyes bore into me, hot enough to pierce.
I didn't say anything for a moment.
He did not need to.
I could read him. In the way his nose flared, veins pulsing in his neck, brows so low they might as well have kissed his lashes. I did not need to glance down to know his hands would be clenched into fists.
His body vibrated with barely reined anger, knowing he was seconds away from making me a punching bag.
Again.
And I knew no one would be able to stop him. No one would. It was not like they ever did so in the past.
But this was a public place, so when the spit hit me in the eye, I still was not surprised.
I didn't even flinch.
Didn't wipe it off.
Didn't speak.
How dare I?
Mum was in this place because of me.
I just sat there, blinking through the sting as spit and tears mixed on my face. The metallic scent of blood still clinging to me like a second skin, the silence inside me louder than the chaos around me.
Then I laughed...
The foreign, wrong sound bubbled up my throat, spilling out like some cruel melody. I could not stop it, too wrung out, too shattered to be rational in my response to the situation. It wasn't even hysteria, it was something far more ugly, more twisted.
Everyone went still, even a young nurse in the corner that had been pretending not to listen.
I slapped my hand over my mouth but the sound bounced off the sterile walls that seemed to be closing in. The sounds kept coming, half sob, half laughter. My sanity splitting at the seams, unraveling like the yarn of an old, worn sweater.
"You know," I said, tilting my head like I was giving them a tip, "if you hated me this much, you could've just left me at the hospital the day I was born. Or better yet, tossed me in a bin behind it. Save you the trouble of pretending I was ever part of the family."
A few of them froze.
I chuckled, bitter and breathless. "But no, you kept me around like a family pet that bites. Then you act surprised every time I shit on the carpet."
There was stunned silence before my brother's snarl shattered the quiet. "So this was some type of sick revenge after all? Because we finally deemed it time to tell you the truth?" He took a menacing step towards me. "You had to get back at the family who fed and clothed you?"
His fist went up, and I smiled, closing my eyes, waiting for the impact—wondering which tooth I'd lose this time around.
I never heard it land.
CRACK.
My eyes flew open just in time to see Ajax's arm wrenched mid-air, his fist frozen just inches from my face.
A hand—large, veined, and vice-like—had caught his wrist.
Caesar.
He'd come out of nowhere, like a shadow. One second it was just venom and violence in the hallway. The next, he was standing between me and the blow meant to knock the life out of me.
"You lay one more fucking hand on her..." Caesar's voice was low, venomous, barely controlled, "...and I will break every bone in your arm. Then I'll start on the other."
Ajax growled, trying to yank himself free—but Caesar didn't budge. If anything, he twisted harder.
A sickening pop echoed as Ajax's knees buckled with a cry.
"Let go of me!"
"You first."
He flung Ajax's arm to the side like it was trash. My brother stumbled back, clutching his shoulder in pain, but Caesar didn't even look at him again.
His eyes, those familiar, infuriatingly green eyes were locked on me now. "I am so sorry, I couldn't make it, Lily," His warm hand came down to cradle my jaw. He retrieved a little box, his eyes hopeful and regretful. "I got you your birthday present." He stroked my cheek, softly like I was the most fragile thing in the world.
"Cae...sar," I muttered, my voice cracking as the dam broke.
His expression softened more, worry etched in the features of the boy I loved. "What happened? You are hurt. What..."
"She murdered our mother!" Charlotte screamed, her voice threatening to shatter glass.
"You need to leave this instant," a gruff, annoyed voice that belonged to the hospital security, cut her next words short.
"My mother---"
"Only one family member is allowed to stay," he cut her off.
"We will be leaving," Caesar said, helping me up.
But I shook my head. "Mum was in an accident. She is..."
Caesar stroked my back. "These people will not let you stay." His voice reeked of disdain. "I will take care of you. Your mum would understand." He assured.
I searched his face for the fear that seemed to fill every corner of mine but found none.
"I can't leave her," I rasped, my words scraping through my throat. "If she dies and I am not here..."
"She won't." His hand tightened on mine. "You hear me? Iris is too damn strong. And you, you're going to walk out of this hospital on your feet, not curled up like roadkill in front of those animals. We will sleepover in at the parking lot, in my car."
I swallowed hard, glancing back at the closed room where they were still trying to save Mum. But I knew I had to leave. We had already caused more than a scene.
Behind us, Charlotte and the rest of them kept hurling words like knives, but the nurse had finally stepped in to push her back.