Chapter 4
Her own flesh.
The children she carried for nine months, raised through endless sacrifices.
Now pyromaniacs avenging Celeste.
Stella pushed against the Valium haze–fingers limp as dead flowers. Fire gnawed the doorframe. Smoke strangled her screams.
Thud. She rolled off the bed, body heavy as wet sand. “He–lp-” The rasp died beneath the inferno’s roar.
Her last sight: the doorframe collapsing like a guillotine blade.
“Back with us?” A nurse adjusted Stella’s IV. “Mr. Henderson next door smelled smoke. Called 911 just in time.”
Stella stared at the acoustic ceiling tiles.
“1
Liam’s voice in the darkness, ‘…sure we should burn her?”
Fiona’s vicious reply, “She hurt Aunt Celeste!”
The memories flayed her nerves. Stella ripped off the pulse oximeter.
“Your grafts need rest!” the nurse protested.
Stella stumbled past her, crashing against the nurse’s station. “Please–your phone! Emergency call.”
“Metro PD. Emergency response.”
”
“Attempted murder. My children drugged me. Set our house ablaze.” Her voice didn’t waver.
A beat of stunned silence. “Relationship to victims?”
“I’m their target.” She breathed into the receiver. “And their mother.”
Sliding down the wall, Stella felt the ghost of flames lick her spine.
Finn stormed in thirty minutes later, still in dress blues. Celeste hovered behind him with Liam and Fiona–their faces polished clean
of soot or remorse.
“You filed charges?” Ice formed on each syllable.
Stella met his gaze. “Yes,against your arsonists.”
He gripped her wrist–bandages weeping pink serum. “Their blood runs in your veins! Your duty is to protect them!”
“Duty?” Stella’s laugh scraped raw. “They dosed my water. Poured gasoline. Watched me burn.”
“Stella, please!” Celeste rushed forward, tears like liquid diamonds. “They acted on impulse–defending me!” Her manicured hand covered Stella’s blistered skin. “I lectured them for hours! They’re children! You’d condemn your babies to juvie?”
Outside the door, whispers fermented.
“Suing her own kids?”
“What mother does that?”
Celeste dropped like broken porcelain onto the linoleum. “I beg you!” Her forehead nearly touched Stella’s hospital slippers. “Punish me instead!”
Air fled the room.
“Aunt Celeste!” Liam’s howl tore through the stillness. He slammed Stella’s gurney–IV bags swung like hanged men. “You monster!”
Before orderlies could intervene, Liam’s fists pounded Stella’s ribs. “You don’t deserve her kindness!” Each blow reignited her burns.
Chapter 4
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Fiona’s eyes teared crimson as she lunged and tugged Celeste’s sleeve. “Get up, Aunt Celeste! We’d rather face court–martial–hell, we’d die–than watch them humiliate you like this!”
Amid the chaos–Finn’s frozen silence, nurses pulling Liam away, Celeste’s Oscar–worthy collapse–Stella touched her seeping bandages.
These, she understood. Physical wounds
healed faster than betrayal.
