Doomed

Ch. From Doomed 7 From Doomed 7

Chapter 7

Third–Person POV

That last line hit Sasha like a blade driven straight through her chest.

She stared at the words, her mind gone blank and her whole body shaking. What did he mean by “killed“? Linda had just finished her surgery, and the doctors said that the treatment was going well just days ago.

Keith was the one who’d been hurt when Linda hit him. So how could she be dead?

Sasha stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living room, fumbling for her phone. She called Linda’s attending physician, Paul Langdon.

“Dr. Langdon! My foster mom… She’s still alive, right?”

Paul’s voice came back sharp and furious. “So now you remember she’s your family? Three days ago, when she died, her son called you begging for help, and you told the nurses to attend to some other boy who had nothing wrong with him!

“You wasted the window to save her. She died because of you!

“How exactly do you plan to make up for all the trouble you’ve caused our hospital?”

The truth peeled itself open in front of her, layer by layer, until there was nothing left to hide behind.

Everything inside her shattered.

The phone slipped through her fingers and cracked apart on the floor. Sasha dropped to her knees and doubled over, pressing her fists against the floor as a raw, agonized scream tore out of her.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Mom.”

Her voice broke into something barely human, but she couldn’t feel the pain. She stayed like that, shaking and sobbing, until blood from her cut–up hands pooled on the floor beneath her. Then she blacked out.

When she came to, she was hollow. She dragged herself back to the bedroom, white as a sheet, and held the things Rory had left behind while she cried until there was nothing left.

Three days later, the police called.

“We’re sorry, Ms. Belmont. Your boyfriend may have left the country. We can’t find any trace of him.”

Left the country? Sasha chewed on those words with a bitter smile.

“Rory, you really do hate me that much, don’t you? You left so I could never find you.”

She drank bottle after bottle of whatever burned the most, until she lost herself entirely. By the time Keith showed up, the bedroom floor had disappeared under a mountain of empties and broken glass.

Sasha was sitting in the middle of it all, her feet torn up from the glass, her hands, arms, and legs covered in cuts. There was blood everywhere.

He was scared for a moment, but he steeled himself, grabbed the bottle out of her hand, and shouted, “Sasha!

1/2

Chapte

+15 Bonus

How long are you going to keep this up? If Rory were here and saw you like this, do you think he’d still want anything to do with you?”

Sasha lifted her gaze. The second her bloodshot eyes landed on Keith, something flickered in them, like she’d just found something to hold on to.

“Keith…”

His face lit up. He pulled her close and held on tight. “I’m here, Sash. I’m right here. Rory’s gone, but that’s okay. You’ve still got me. We can finally be together without anyone getting in the way.”

The next second, she grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall with enough force to pin him there. Her eyes were deadly calm as she watched him struggle.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? That’s how Mom felt when she died.

“Keith, you ungrateful piece of garbage. You saw Mom dying, but you faked an episode just to get a reaction out

of me.

“You pulled the nurses away from her. That’s why they couldn’t save her in time. Rory had to sit there and watch his own mother die, and it’s because of you!

“Rory was the sweetest person alive. Mom was his whole world, and you made him watch her die! Did you forget how they saved your life?”

Keith choked out his answer through sobs. “Sasha! Everything I did, I did it for you!”

“For me, or for your future?” Sasha screamed and snatched a paring knife off the floor.

“You think I don’t know what you were planning? You’ve already made deals behind my back with people overseas. You were using me as your ticket out this whole time! Don’t you dare play innocent with me!”

She drove the blade straight toward his eye. At the last possible moment, she threw the knife aside and shoved him away.

She stood there staring down at Keith, who looked like he’d seen his own death, and then smiled in a way that made the air go cold.

“Oh, I just remembered. Before Mom took you in, your parents were about to sell you off, weren’t they? To that old woman in your village, the one who’d been single for 50 years?”