Chapter 3
“Ah-”
Agonized screams kept pouring from the electroconvulsive therapy room.
Mary’s cries faded from loud wails to silence.
Outside, Ralph leaned against the wall expressionlessly, cigarette butts piling rapidly at his
feet…
After the treatment, Mary felt utterly drained.
Pale and stiff, she was led out of the hospital by Ralph.
Snowflakes swirled outside.
Just as cold as the day she lost her child.
Shivering uncontrollably, Mary felt Ralph unexpectedly drape his coat over her shoulders.
Their eyes met, yet his gaze remained icy.
He stated, “Karen’s discharged. She’s moving into our villa. I don’t trust outsiders to care for her-you’ll do it.”
Mary lowered her eyes without responding.
Ralph pressed his lips thin, his tone hardening. “Mary, my patience wears thin. Don’t make this ugly.”
She flinched, finally raising swollen eyes. “If I care for Karen’s unborn child… will you truly tell me where mine is buried?”
Ralph’s eyes darkened.
His throat moved in a dry swallow, but he didn’t refuse. “Depends on your performance.”
He drove Mary home afterward.
At the doorstep, he took a sudden work call and told her to go inside.
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Mary wandered the living room before finding Karen-belly swollen-in the master bedroom.
The room was ransacked. Delinquent girls circled Karen, laughing as she held the gift box Mary had prepared for her dead child!
Mary’s pupils contracted. She lunged forward. “Don’t touch my baby’s gifts!”
But the girls pinned her down, giggling.
Karen flashed a taunting smile. “Let’s see what treasures the esteemed Mrs. Walker bought for her dead brat!”
She pulled out a snow globe, reading its inscription aloud: “Baby, you left Mommy today. The snow falls heavy-here’s a house to keep you warm…
Then she dropped the globe.
“No!”
It shattered on impact-like Mary’s heart fracturing.
Next, Karen grabbed a baby rattle. “Baby, you’re one month old today! Do you like Mommy’ s gift?'”
She smashed the rattle!
Then a hand-drawn family portrait-ripped to shreds after reading!
Mary struggled, eyes bloodshot. “Karen! Stop! I’ll kill you!”
Her hysteria only delighted Karen.
“Crash! Bang!”
Every gift was destroyed.
Karen played a recording of infant wails from her phone, sneering, “Who’ll you kill, Mrs. Walker? You’ve got no womb-you killed your own child!”
“Why didn’t you protect him? His tiny body was blue and mangled when they cut him out. Did that poor life deserve this?”
The phone’s relentless wailing shattered Mary’s sanity.
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Hands clutching her head, she moaned in agony, “Stop… please…”
Please, stop talking!”
Watching Mary’s emotional breakdown, Karen picked up a powered curling iron and stepped
closer to her.
“Useless without a womb, why are you even alive?”
As the words fell, Karen suddenly shoved Mary to the ground, yanked her pants down, and slammed the curling iron against her leg.
“Ah!”
Instantly, a shriek pierced the room, mingling with the stench of searing flesh.
Pinned helplessly on the floor, Mary convulsed from the burn.
Karen sneered triumphantly: “That was just warming you up. This time, I’ll scorch your face to ruins!”
Terrified, Mary stared as the curling iron swung toward her left cheek-
Suddenly, “THUD—”
The door burst open from outside. Ralph stormed in!
“What are you doing!”
When Ralph burst in, the delinquent girls scrambled to pull Mary’s clothes over her wounds.
Mary was too weak from pain to respond.
Karen pressed the curling iron against her own arm before collapsing to the floor with a wail.
“Mr. Walker, save me!
I brought friends to greet Mrs. Walker, but she went crazy and burned me with the iron!
She said since her child died, mine shouldn’t live either!”
“My hand’s burned, my stomach hurts!
Save my baby!”
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At the mention of the child, Ralph’s expression shifted. He immediately scooped Karen into
his arms.
Before leaving, he didn’t even glance at Mary, delivering only an icy warning.
“Mary!
Stay put until I return to settle this with you!”
After Ralph took Karen away, her gang fled in panic.
Silence reclaimed the room.
It took Mary long minutes to move.
She didn’t tend her wounds, just numbly stared at the shattered fragments. Trembling hands gathered each broken gift piece by piece.
But shattered things could never be whole again…
Just like her lost child, forever gone.
When Ralph returned, Mary had just collected the last fragment.
The man yanked her up from the floor, his voice glacial.
“Karen’s scarred arm has her distraught. Doctors say her mood affects fetal development. Mary, either give her skin grafts or apologize-calm her down now.
All color had drained from Mary’s face, leaving no trace of vitality.
She offered no defense, only a hollow whisper: “If I give Karen the grafts… will you tell me where our child rests?”
Ralph’s voice caught. Two seconds passed before he answered: “Fine!”
That night, Mary’s anesthesia resistance left her writhing in agony during the skin graft procedure.
Waking to find Ralph by her bed, her first question rasped: “Tell me… where is my child buried?”
Ralph’s expression darkened instantly.
The air around him grew colder as he gripped her chin, eyes shadowed. “Knowing where the
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child lies-will you join it in death?”
His fingers tightened suddenly. “Mary, I’ve announced your pregnancy. Soon, the Walker heir will be ‘born’.”
“Until then, you won’t stir up trouble.”
Mary stared blankly before shoving him away with a raw scream: “Ralph! You promised to tell me! You can’t break your word!”
“I’m his mother! He swam in my womb when I still had it! Dead or not-why won’t you let me see him?!”
Ralph remained unmoved.
Despair flooded Mary. She tumbled from the bed, kneeling before him.
“I beg you…”
“Just tell me where he is. I’ll ruin nothing. Please… let me see my child? I’ll beg on my knees! Please!”
“Tell me! I’m begging you!”
Mary kowtowed violently before the man.
Thud after thud, the floor echoed with each strike!
“Enough.”
Ralph suddenly stood up, yanking his tie in frustration as he glared down. “Mary, look at this pathetic mess you’ve become. You think your dead son would want such a disgraceful mother?”
Mary paused briefly before silently resuming her kowtows.
Only her trembling hands pressed against the floor betrayed her composure. Just as she neared her breaking point, Ralph’s cold and detached voice finally came from above-
“Community Cemetery, Plot 288.”
