"Thought you could take a chunk out of me and just bolt?" Marley's consciousness teetered on the edge of a dark abyss as she heard it—the cool, low male voice that seemed to wrap around her like a familiar shroud.
Marley turned weakly, her vision swimming as she tried to focus on the man squatting behind her. Short black hair framed his face, falling just enough to tease the sharpness of lance-shaped eyebrows. His nose, tall and straight, gave him an air of regal indifference, and his lips curved into a smirk that was both infuriating and dangerously alluring. His presence radiated nobility, devoid of arrogance—a trait so rare it etched itself into the minds of those who witnessed it. Of course, she recognized him. How could she not? It was him—the very same man whom she slept with.
"Please... don't touch me," she pleaded, the words catching in her throat as a twisted mix of desire and disdain filled her. Her body contorted involuntarily, exacerbating the gash on her hand, the blood flowing more freely now, staining the earth beneath her. A haunting paleness crept across her face, mirroring her inner turmoil.
Laughter and murmurs encircled them, a cacophony of judgment as everyone seemed to take Olivia and her daughter's side. "Too cruel," they said, voices dripping with scorn. But Marley hadn't laid a finger on that child. She bit back the tears that threatened to expose her vulnerability, feeling the sting of isolation sharper than any physical wound.
"Leave me alone!" Her voice cracked as she shoved at Dane's solid form. Desperation clawed at her throat, each word a plea for escape. But as she fought, darkness crept into the edges of her vision, her strength ebbing away like water through clenched fingers.
Dane watched, concern breaking through his usual frost as Marley's eyes fluttered closed. He touched her forehead, heat radiating from her skin. No response. The woman who faced life head-on was slipping through his grasp.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, an unexpected tenderness coloring the word, as he gathered her limp body into his arms. Dane, always so composed, now felt a ripple of panic.
Marley drifted in the abyss of unconsciousness, a sea of black where dreams and reality tangled like thorny vines. Her mother's voice echoed from a time long gone, sweet and soothing—"Sweetheart." The endearment, once a balm, now stung with irony. She was adrift, her body leaden, tethered to life by a thread.
"Sweetheart," a voice murmured again, but it wasn't her mother's—it couldn't be. It was deeper, laced with urgency, and it belonged to a man she wished never to owe anything to—Dane. Memories of her past, of being the cherished daughter of the Brooks clan before disgrace and betrayal colored every corner of her existence, played in her mind like an old film. Once upon a time, she had been someone; now, she was merely the shell of that girl, scorned by her father, discarded by Oscar, mocked by Olivia.
Marley's eyes snapped open against her will, as if pulled by invisible strings. Cold sweat plastered her bangs to her forehead, each breath a struggle to pull into her lungs. The ceiling tiles above—a stark white canvas—stared back at her impassively. Antiseptic invaded her senses, sterile and sharp. Hospital. A place for the broken, the bleeding.
"Good morning, Mrs. Archer. You're awake," cooed a nurse, all smiles and synthetic warmth. Marley wanted to spit venom, retort with something biting, but her throat was sandpaper, her wit extinguished by exhaustion.
"Wha—?" she rasped out, barely audible.
"Take it easy. You've been through quite an ordeal." The nurse's practiced concern only irked her further.
Memories flooded back, jumbled and jagged. The clash with Olivia, Oscar's shove, the shattering glass. Blood. Dane's unexpected rescue. Her hand went instinctively to her abdomen, though she knew not why. A wave of nausea rolled over her, and she pressed her lips tightly together, refusing to give it an outlet.
"Need... water," she uttered, fighting the fog in her brain, trying to piece together how she ended up here, under these fluorescent lights, with the pitying gaze of a stranger upon her.
"Of course." The nurse busied herself, offering a cup with a straw. Marley took a tentative sip, the cool liquid a temporary reprieve.
"Oscar... is he here?" she croaked, though the thought of facing him twisted her insides.
"No, Mr. Archer hasn't been by," the nurse replied, oblivious to the sting her words carried.
"Figures," Marley muttered. Of course, he hadn't come. Why would he? She closed her eyes, willing the world away, wishing she could dissolve into nothingness rather than deal with the mess her life had become.
"Try to rest," the nurse advised, oblivious to the storm raging inside her patient.
Rest? As if sleep could erase the gnawing emptiness, the betrayal, the humiliation. Marley turned her head away, staring at the sterile wall, its blank facade a mirror to her current state. Alone, and profoundly lost.
The sterile clink of glass roused Marley, a soft intrusion in the oppressive silence of the hospital room. The nurse, with practiced hands, detached an empty infusion bottle and replaced it with a full one. Her movements were gentle, almost maternal—a stark contrast to the emotional tumult Marley felt churning within her.
"Good news," the nurse said, beaming down at Marley though her tone was soft, as if treading on sacred ground. "You're pregnant."
Pregnant? The word fell like a stone in Marley's already roiling stomach. She blinked rapidly, sure her ears were betraying her. The nurse's smile widened, oblivious to the hurricane she had just unleashed.
"Four weeks along," the nurse continued, her voice laced with the kind of joy that should be infectious.
But Marley's face tightened, her skin drained of color. Unhappy? That was an understatement. Terror gripped her, a visceral claw that squeezed tight around her chest. Instinctively, her right hand wandered to her flat belly, fingers pressing as if they could dispel this new reality.
"Four weeks?" she blurted out, her own voice foreign to her. "That's—not possible."
Her back hit the pillow with force as she attempted to sit up, the world tilting dangerously. "Why am I—How can I be pregnant?" Each word punctuated by a jagged breath, her mind scrambling for purchase in a landslide of confusion.
"Your tests don't lie," the nurse replied, her smile finally faltering, sensing the shift in atmosphere.
"Tests..." Marley echoed hollowly, the syllable hanging between them like a condemned man's last word.
The nurse reached out, likely aiming for reassurance, but Marley recoiled. The touch was too much, too real. She pulled her knees up to her chest, armor against a blow she hadn't seen coming. The walls of the room seemed to close in, each antiseptic-laden breath tightening the vise around her heart.
She sat up, ignoring the nurse's tut-tut of caution, her body a live wire of agitation. "Why?" The word came out choked, a scared little hiccup in the vastness of the room. "How?"
It wasn't possible. Not after Olivia's cruel taunts, the sharp sting of Oscar's betrayal. A baby? Here? Now? Her thoughts scrambled, tripping over each other in a desperate race to nowhere.