The Cuban sun was already high when Esmeralda stepped out of the taxi, her heart pounding against her ribs. The hospital loomed ahead—whitewashed walls, palm trees swaying gently, the scent of sea salt in the air. She rushed through the glass doors, her voice already rising.
"I'm here for Lily Fernarndez. Room 204. She was admitted last month."
The receptionist looked up, startled. "One moment, ma'am."
Esmeralda tapped her foot, her fingers trembling. The woman returned with a furrowed brow.
"There's no Lily Fernando in our system."
"What?" Esmeralda snapped. "She was here. She's been here for weeks. Check again."
The woman hesitated. "She was discharged yesterday."
Esmeralda's breath caught. "Discharged? Where?"
"I'm sorry. She passed away."
The words hit like a sledgehammer.
"No," Esmeralda whispered. "No, that's not possible. She called me. I missed the call. She—she was trying to reach me."
The receptionist's face softened. "She died yesterday morning. I'm sorry."
Esmeralda staggered back, her legs buckling. She collapsed into a chair, gasping. Her mind reeled. She had been watching Allan and Cassodie fight—entranced, distracted. That missed call had felt like a delay. A promise. Not a goodbye.
She didn't remember leaving the hospital. Only the blur of streets, the heat, the ache in her chest.
She found herself in a bar—dim, quiet, tucked between two crumbling buildings. The bartender was old, black, with eyes that seemed to shimmer with knowing.
"You look like you've lost something," he said.
Esmeralda didn't answer. She drank. Rum. Whiskey. Tequila. Whatever he poured, she swallowed.
Along the night she rambled on about the events of the day of the week of the months after she met Cassodie and Allan.
Her intoxication somehow did not make her talk about the powers thing maybe because she thought he would call her crazy maybe she didn't believe it herself.
"You thinking of ending it?" he asked.
She blinked at him. "Would it matter? I mean I have nothing to live for and in a few years I'll be six feet under."
He leaned in. "Find another reason to live. Even if it's just spite."
She laughed bitterly. "Spite?"
"Spite's a start." He said drying a glass soon to be wetted by another meaningless concoction.
"Not a good one and there is nothing to be spiteful off." Esmeralda replied looking at her glass like a child she was high he could tell.
"Well what about life or the rich family you work for those are good targets."
"Nah that sounds hard you know living with hate is harder than living with a bomb straped to your chest." Esmeralda replied suckling on a decorative grape thoughtfully placed on her martini.
"At least it won't kill you." He said mixing up another concoction for her only her.
"But it will make my life miserable." Esmeralda butted looking around the empty bar nothing but chairs that were supposed to be filled with a damning humanity but weren't.
"No traffic?" She turned to ask but he left or maybe he wasn't there all she had was a bottle of vodka staring into a bar she could have sworn she was inside of.
She now wondered if Allan felt the same way when he described his teenage years to them.
Marrie always looked at him wrong she thought he was crazy now was she? Who knew loss drives people along cliffs who knows whether she was too far gone.
Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the advice. She found herself at the morgue, slipping three thousand dollars into the attendant's hand, it was a free country she thought anyone should do all they can to get a bit of something extra to put on the table.
"I need her body," she said.
The man didn't ask questions. He led her to a cold drawer.
Lily lay inside, pale and still, her beauty untouched by death they shared everything aside from their state of being one was eerily clod the other banefully warm.
Esmeralda took her in her arms, trembling. She carried her to a waiting car, then to the private jet Marrie had loaned her—no questions asked. The favor had been called in with desperation, not dignity.
In the air, she opened her purse. Her mind wandered to the petri dish Allan gave her.
"I should probably move on or something." She casually told herself as she consumed the glowing material inside the dish.
Her mind reeled her screams a violent irredeemable echo that nobody felt or heard due to the altitude.
Then she heard it.
Are you ready to walk a path where love and happiness are vices?
The voice was familiar. The bartender. The whisper in her mind.
She looked at Lily. Her sister. Her reason.
"Yes," she said. She didn't know why this all felt normal to her didn't want to know she still half believed she was in a perverted nightmare.
Pain exploded through her body. She screamed, clutching her head. Her blonde hair turned metallic silver, strands shimmering like liquid steel. Her eyes shifted—grey, cold, ancient.
The voice spoke again.
You are cured.
Esmeralda sobbed, hugging Lily's lifeless body. "Thank you," she whispered.
She was thanking her sister for allowing her to survive and not having to feel guilty for choosing to die, was it wrong? Hell yes. Was it immoral? Depends on your definition.
Silent tears streamed down now these were regretful and remoursefull ones they wanted to bath Lily's corpse but didn't have nearly enough capital to do so.
You can save her. But you must complete a task.
She didn't ask what. She didn't care. She believed. She had to she was too disoriented to question.
The mansion was silent when she arrived. She slipped through the halls like a ghost, carrying Lily's body wrapped in silk.
She found the lab—the same odious room she and Allan had discovered.
The fluid still shimmered.
The photo of Allan's grandmother still hung crooked on the wall.
She placed Lily on the table, her hands trembling.
The voice returned.
are you ready Esmeralda Fernando to step into greatness.
Esmeralda closed her eyes.
"I'm ready."
Even if it means your life?
"Life is only as valuable as the reason for living and without Lily I have no reason to do so."
Hopefully you do not rue those words one day like I did.