When There Is Nothing Left But Love

Confused, I asked, “What’s wrong, Tessa?”

She sneered at me for a while and pulled her clothes up, revealing her bandaged torso, much to my shock. “When did this happen? Who hurt you?” Who was I kidding? Of course I knew who hurt them. Her wound was on the belly, after all, but still, the fact made me shudder.

I saw the rows of operating theatres in Abe’s villa, and I saw how they stuffed women’s stomachs with kyanine. The scar on Tessa’s torso told me that Abe’s men had stuffed kyanine in them.

And then I was reminded of how deathly pale they were over the past few days. And they’d clutch their stomach, holding in their pain. This isn’t the glass room’s side effect. Their body’s rejecting the kyanine. It’s an alien object. No wonder they’re looking like this.

I asked, “Are the other girls like this too?” I felt a lump in my throat.

Tessa looked at me, her lips pursed, her eyes filled with hatred. She didn’t answer my question, and I thought she hated me. I couldn’t say anything else, so I stared back into her eyes. Anything I had to say would sound like hindsight, and that would make her hate me more.

All I could do was meet up with Armond as soon as possible so I could ask him to get someone to extract the kyanine from their bodies.

I said hoarsely, “Listen to me, Tessa. I’ll meet up with Armond. I know he can get someone to take that thing out of you guys.” Then I went out. The lobby was guarded by the man who brought us in the day before.

“Please go

to see

shortly. Please go back to

then?” I knew he’d come sooner or later, but I needed someone to take the kyanine out of the girls

man looked at me coolly and frowned. “It can wait until Mr. Murphy is here. Please do not get in the way of my work,

Armond only arrived that afternoon, and I quickly stopped him. “Mr. Murphy, my friends got kyanine stuffed in them. They need a doctor to take it out. That, or

suspicious if they found kyanine in the

and called a doctor, then he looked at me. “We don’t have an operating theatre here, and I can’t take them to

that much, and

Armond stopped me. “Stay here. It won’t be easy to get away from Abe and his

men who were going to send the girls to the hospital,

his suit was darker around his waist. That’s probably

and looked at me, his face pale.