Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: A Kidney She Never Offered

In the hospital lobby Leigh refuses in front of a crowd of phones, breaks free and calls her grandfather for the first time in five years. He tells her to stay put because her brothers are coming.

The drivers put her in the back of the black car with a hand on each arm.

Blaine sat in front with Talia's thermos in his lap.

He held it carefully, because in his mind it was the proof against Leigh.

Talia rode beside her, dabbing her eyes.

"Leigh, I'm so sorry it came to this," she whispered. "Please don't hate me. I only want us to be a family."

Leigh looked out the window.

In her first life she had believed that voice.

She watched the streets of Sleridge go by and counted the turns to Sleridge Memorial.

The drivers walked her through the sliding doors with her elbows locked behind her.

The lobby was crowded.

A line stood at the check-in desk, and families sat in rows of plastic chairs holding paper cups.

Blaine strode ahead with Talia on his arm.

"Her blood is already typed," he told the woman at the desk. "The surgeon is expecting us."

Leigh stopped walking.

The drivers pulled, and she let her knees go loose so she dropped to the tile.

"Surgeon?" she said, loudly.

Every head in the lobby turned.

"I haven't agreed to surgery. I haven't signed anything. These men are taking me to an operating room by force."

Blaine came back fast, and his voice went low. "Leigh. You're making a scene."

"My husband wants one of my kidneys for the woman he loves," she said, clearly enough for the back row to hear. "I said no. He locked me in a room and sent two men."

Somebody near the window raised a phone.

Then three more phones came up.

"She's confused," Blaine told the room, with his best calm smile. "She's been under terrible strain. I'm her husband."

"Then show me my consent form," Leigh said. "With my signature on it."

The drivers glanced at each other.

Blaine's smile held, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

"Sir." A security guard had stepped closer, his hand resting on his belt. "Is she saying she doesn't want to go?"

"She's my wife."

"That wasn't my question."

Talia let out a small, wounded cry and swayed against Blaine's chest.

"Blaine, stop, you're scaring everyone," she said. "I don't need anything. I'd rather just go home."

Several people in the lobby softened at that.

Leigh knew exactly what those soft lines were worth.

She had believed them once, and it had cost her everything.

She got to her feet.

"Listen to how generous she is," she said. "Then ask why a surgeon was waiting for us before I had said yes." Talia's crying stopped for half a breath.

Blaine's head turned toward her. It was a small thing, and nobody saw it but Leigh.

The guard looked from Talia to the drivers to the phones.

"Ma'am," he said, "you're free to leave if you want to leave."

The drivers' hands dropped from her arms.

Blaine caught her wrist. "You are not going anywhere."

Her second brother had taught her this in the garden of the family house when she was twelve: turn the wrist against the thumb.

She turned it, and his grip broke.

She walked for the doors without running, because running looked guilty.

Behind her Blaine called her name.

Behind him a man was telling someone, "Did you get that? Get all of it."

Outside, the afternoon was bright and ordinary.

She had no phone. She had left it on the dining table, and Blaine had taken it.

She had no purse, no cash, and no ring.

An old woman stood at the bus stop with a shopping bag and a flip phone, staring at her.

"Please," Leigh said. "I need to make one call. I'll pay you back, I swear."

The old woman looked at her bare finger, her tear-streaked face, and the two men coming through the glass doors.

She held out the phone without a word.

Leigh dialed from memory.

She had not dialed this number in three years, and her fingers still knew it.

It rang four times.

Then a voice came on, rough and old and wary. "Who is this?"

Her throat locked.

Three years of silence sat on the line between them.

"Grandfather," she said. "It's Leigh."

Nothing.

She heard him breathe.

"I made a mistake," she said. "A terrible one. Grandfather, please come and take me home."

The drivers had spotted her.

They were crossing the parking lot, fast.

"Where are you?" Howard Aldrich asked. His voice had changed.

"Sleridge Memorial. The front doors."

"Stay exactly where you are," he said. "Don't move. Your brothers are coming."

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