Chapter 3

I was practically forced into the operating room.

The temperature inside was freezing, the chilled air snaking up my ankles like ice-cold vipers.

The blinding surgical lights flared to life overhead, washing the entire space in a sickly, pallid glare.

Forced to lie back in the narrow surgical chair, my heart pounded wildly against my ribs like a battered drum.

"Relax, Mrs. Odette."

"It's just a minor procedure."

Dr. Vance's face was concealed by a surgical mask, leaving only a pair of heavily bloodshot eyes exposed.

His voice was still trembling, and the metallic clatter of the instruments in his hands rang out with a nerve-wracking sharpness.

Rowena stood off to the side, expertly attaching various IV lines and sensor pads to my body.

The ECG monitor began to emit a steady, rhythmic beep—beep—beep.

"Where is Thorne?"

"I want to see him."

I tried to sit up, but Rowena shoved me hard back down by the shoulders.

"Mr. Thorne is watching you right from the observation room, ma'am."

Rowena pointed toward a massive one-way mirror covering the wall to my right.

Even though it just looked like a mirror from the inside, I knew Thorne was standing directly behind it.

"Now, I'm going to administer the dilating drops and a topical anesthetic."

Dr. Vance leaned over me, hovering a small, clear dropper bottle right above my face.

"There might be a slight stinging sensation. Then your vision will blur, and your eye muscles will go completely numb."

"There is nothing to be afraid of."

The freezing liquid dropped into my eyes.

Seconds later, an intense, heavy aching washed over them. My field of vision began to bleed and blur at the edges, like water washing over a watercolor painting.

"Good."

"Now push a micro-dose of sedative to keep the patient from moving during the procedure."

Dr. Vance issued the order to Rowena.

Rowena picked up a syringe and pushed the icy liquid straight into the IV line on the back of my hand.

Almost instantly, a heavy, suffocating wave of weakness crashed over my entire body.

My limbs felt like they had been filled with liquid lead; even twitching a single finger became a monumental struggle.

"Is the lens ready?" Dr. Vance asked.

"It's ready."

Rowena turned toward the sterile cart beside her.

In the exact moment she turned, my gaze drifted past her shoulder and landed on a metal tray sitting on the bottom shelf of the cart.

Scattered carelessly across it were several torn medical wrappers, clearly discarded as waste.

Because of the dilating drops, my central vision was blurry. But thanks to a freak refraction from the blinding surgical lights above, I managed to clearly make out one of the torn, transparent plastic shells.

It was the outer packaging for an intraocular lens.

Along the side of the blister pack, printed in bold black lettering, was a glaring line of text:

[Material: PMMA (Polymethyl Methacrylate)]

A thunderbolt of raw terror exploded in my brain.

PMMA!

Polymethyl methacrylate!

My absolute, lethal allergen!

The suffocating, near-death agony from three years ago clawed its way back up my throat: the rapid swelling of my airway, the violent spasming of my trachea, the abrupt cardiac arrest...

If this lens was implanted directly into the fragile mucosal tissue inside my eyeball, a massive concentration of the allergen would flood straight into my bloodstream. I would go into severe anaphylactic shock in less than three minutes.

Trapped in this sealed operating room, left to the "resuscitation" efforts of Dr. Vance and Rowena, there was absolutely zero chance I would survive.

This wasn't going to be written off as some tragic medical accident. This was a long-premeditated, flawless murder!

"No..."

I tried to scream, but courtesy of the sedative, my throat could only produce a pathetic, reedy gasp.

"Scalpel," Dr. Vance extended his gloved hand.

Rowena slapped a razor-sharp micro-scalpel into his palm.

"Keep your eyes wide open, Mrs. Odette. It will be over in a flash."

With the scalpel in hand, Dr. Vance slowly descended toward my right eye.

I fought like hell to turn my head, to completely tear myself away, but my body utterly refused to obey me.

The heart rate digits on the ECG monitor began to skyrocket wildly, triggering a piercing, shrill alarm.

"Her heart rate is spiking way too fast!" Dr. Vance froze in a total panic.

"Ignore it, it's just a normal reaction to the sedative!"

"Just do it already!"

Rowena hissed the command, her tone steeped in undisguised urgency and sheer malice.

In absolute despair, I rolled my eye to stare at that one-way mirror on my right.

Even though I couldn't see through it, I could feel it—Thorne was standing right there.

The husband who swore up and down that he loved me was coldly watching me step through death's door, probably mentally calculating his five-million-dollar accidental death payout.

The ice-cold gleam of the surgical steel magnified infinitely in my pupil.

The blade's tip was less than a single centimeter away from my cornea.

I could not die here.

I absolutely could not!