The Heart–Eater’s venom granted them monstrous strength.
They browled like beasts, neither yielding.
It took several sailors to pry them apart
As they lay gasping, 1 “helpfully” suggested,
“Captain, why not amputate their arms? Slow the venom’s spread.”
Kim Cooper shrieked,
“Shut up! You’re just jealous of my looks!”
“I’m going to be a modell I can’t lose any an!”
She turned tearfully to Cullen.
“Cullen… Elena’s bullying me. Say something!”
But Cullen was already hacking at his own arm with a knife.
Black blood sprayed as be severed the infected veins.
“Take me! I’ll cut it off!!
Kim paled.
After ten minutes of hesitation, she finally picked up a blade and chopped.
The captain, resigned, locked them in separate cages at opposite ends of the ship.
Neither dared to look at the other.
Only then did I let myself feel the agony in my abdomen.
When the captain learned I’d miscarried, he gave me his best cabin and a big lobster they just caught.
1 traced my flat stomach, smiling bitterly.
There was a time Cullen loved me desperately.
When we were poor, he’d work all night for a whole month, just to carve wooden flowers for me.
he skipped meals to buy me shrimps saying.
“Other girls have this. So will you.”
I helped build his business empire from nothing
Then one day, he said,
“You work too hard. Let’s hire an intern.”
That intern was Kim Cooper–lus “savior.”
Within months, she got promoted again and again, until she became my equal.
Then his mistress.
