She raised a questioning brow at everyone in the ward. Empty laughter cackled from her lips. “I’m the victim! I got stabbed for no reason, yet you’re all so cold-blooded to me. You asked me what I want. Well, I want to stab her back! Can you fulfill this request?”
My jaw tightened. I eyed her coldly and agreed, “That’s fine by me!”
Ashton’s brows furrowed into a deep “V” as he looked furiously at me. “Scarlett, shut up!”
“You’re fine with it?” Rebecca smiled ear-to-ear. “Great! Come over here, and we’ll get even after stabbing you.”
With that said, her cold glare fixated on me as she ripped out the IV needle from her arm. “There are no knives here, but I won’t need one. I’ll use this needle instead. We can call it even after I impale you.”
I approached her. My body moved surely and steadily, devoid of any fear. As I closed in on her, her sneering smile curved deeper.
Within seconds, her arm snaked forwards with the needle, aiming for my eye. Gasps sounded from all round.
Ashton was quick to notice her plan. His arm darted faster than hers, snatching the needle from her grasp. Unfortunately, the needle drew blood. It slit a long, bloodied line down his palm.
Witnessing this, heavy sighs of relief weighed down the room. Cameron collapsed into Zachary’s arms, burying her head into his chest. Complicated emotions surged as she said to me, “You should go. Let’s forget any of this ever happened.”
Rebecca sizzled in betrayal. “Mom! What are you talking about? She wanted to kill me! How can you let her get away with it?”
“Shut up!” Cameron yelled. Disgust colored her eyes green. “She wouldn’t have hurt you if you didn’t harass her in the middle of the night. Deep down, you know perfectly well why she stabbed you.”
Rebecca’s stared incredulously at her. Shock and disbelief burned under her skin; she refused to believe that the woman before her was her mother.
Realizing how harsh her words sounded, Cameron paused to recompose before meeting her daughter’s eyes again. Then, she spoke in a gentler voice, “Rebecca, you’re okay now. Just take a couple of days to rest and recover in the hospital, don’t stress yourself over anything else.”
But Rebecca was not easily swayed. She had spent most of her time alongside Ashton who sheltered and spoiled her. All those years in her life had cemented her arrogant and stubborn temperament. There was no way anyone could convince Rebecca to let go of her grudge.
Shooting daggers at me, Rebecca snorted. “Even if everyone here defends you, you’ll still go to jail. Don’t forget, Scarlett. Your fingerprints are all over the knife that you stabbed me with. I doubt anyone here can stop me if I insist on filing a case against you. As long as I’m alive, I’ll sue you for attempted murder. I’ll make sure you get at least a couple of years and rot in a jail cell.”
Clang! Ashton smashed a glass of water that originally sat on the bedside table.
With eyes locked on Rebecca, he picked up a shard off the ground. “Your wound receives seven stitches on it, is that right?”
Rebecca watched him cautiously, “What are you up to?”
“You wanted a life for a life,” he responded. “Clearly that won’t do because you didn’t die. So however deep your wound goes, that’s how deeply I’ll stab myself. Are you happy with that?”
Ashton proceeded to lift his shirt. Within seconds, he forcefully plunged the shard into his abdomen.
I was so shocked and I rushed to stop him, but it was already too late. The shard sank deeper and deeper into his skin.
Rebecca stared at him in disbelief. Her hands shot up to her lips as she watched him in anguish. “Does she really mean that much to you?”
Ashton’s hand pressed onto his wound, blood gushed onto his fingers, seeping into the cracks of his nails. An overwhelming pain pulsed in my chest. I raced towards him, hoping to drag him outside to a doctor or a nurse to get treated.
But he held me down while looking at Rebecca. “She’s my wife. I will bear the burden of her mistakes as well as any pain she feels. What I can do is to protect her to the best I can. Whether or not she’s a good or bad person will not change the fact that she’s my wife.”
My eyes reddened at the sight of his wounds. Concern and anger brimmed at the corner of my lips. “Who asked you to bear those burdens for me? I don’t need your intervention. I can take responsibility for the troubles I’ve caused. It’s just a few years in prison. I can handle it on my own.”
I spun around to leave as I was ready to turn myself in.
Suddenly, Ashton’s fingers coiled tightly around my wrist. He growled with a low voice, “Shut up!”
Then, his attention turned back to Rebecca. “If this wound isn’t deep enough for you, I can still pierce the shard deeper.”
“Get out!” Rebecca shrilled. Her bubbling emotions were on the verge of an explosion. “All of you, get out! I don’t want anyone in my sight!”
Blood seeped onto Ashton’s clothes. It dripped and formed a strikingly vermillion puddle on the hospital floor. Jared had just called for a doctor. He immediately picked up that Ashton’s hand that was still pressing on the shard. Furiously, he shouted, “Stop forcing the shard inwards! Do you really want to die that badly?”
Ashton said nothing. He only looked at Rebecca, obviously waiting for her to say that she’d drop the charges against me.
Rebecca focused on Ashton, her eyes were filled with pain and despair. She clambered off the hospital bed, picked a shard from the ground, and rammed it at him.
Since I stood next to Ashton, I quickly rushed in front of him and blocked Rebecca’s attack. The glass shard cut through my arm. The pain caused beads of sweat to form at the nape of my neck.
Thankfully, Rebecca was injured and didn’t have much strength to shove the shard any deeper. She glared at us for the longest time before she loosened her grip on the shard, letting it shatter onto the ground. Her voice quavered, “Both of you just leave. I won’t press charges!”
…
In the doctor’s office, Jared cleaned my wound. Ashton, however, was sent into the operating theater. Messy thoughts bounced at high speeds in my mind.
