Dean stood in the doorway, his face a mask of pure fury. The easy-going charm was gone, replaced by something primal and terrifying.

He moved like a predator.

In a blur of motion, he lunged, grabbing the first man by the throat and slamming his head against the wall. A sickening crack echoed through the room. The second man came at him, and Dean spun, his elbow connecting with the man's jaw with brutal force.

In the chaos, the third man, scrambling on the floor, pulled a knife. He lunged, not at Dean, but at me.

"AVA!" Dean roared, a sound of pure, animalistic terror.

He threw himself in front of me.

I saw the flash of steel. I heard a wet, percussive thud.

The knife disappeared into Dean's back.

Blood blossomed through the fabric of his shirt. He let out a choked grunt but didn't fall, driving his fist into the man's temple. The man collapsed in a heap.

Security guards burst in, and Dean stumbled, his body going slack, falling against me.

"Dean," I whispered, my hands coming up to his back, feeling the warm, sticky wetness of his blood. My mind went blank. All the betrayal, all the anger, it all evaporated.

I was a doctor. He was bleeding out in my arms.

My hands, slick with his blood, fumbled for my phone. I dialed 911.

I spent the entire night at the hospital, pacing outside the operating room, then sitting by his bedside. The next morning, a nurse gently urged me to go get some coffee. I was exhausted, running on pure adrenaline. I finally relented, leaving my purse on the chair in his room.

I was halfway down the hall when I realized my mistake. I turned back.

As I approached his room, I heard his voice. He was on the phone.

"Yeah, it hurts like a bitch," he was saying, his voice laced with a familiar, arrogant humor. "But it was worth it. You should have seen her face. She was so worried."

My blood ran cold. I pressed myself against the wall, out of sight.

"She'll be all soft and grateful now," he continued, chuckling. "Perfect time to finally get in her pants for real, you know? It's been driving me crazy, her thinking I'm Adrian this whole time. I want her to know it's me."

There was a pause.

"Of course I still like Ashley," he said, his tone dismissive. "But a guy can have a little fun on the side, can't he? Especially when the side piece is as hot as Ava. Tonight's the night. I can feel it."

I didn't hear any more. I couldn't.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the sob that clawed its way up my throat.

He had staged it all. The attack. The heroic rescue. The life-threatening injury. All of it a sick, twisted performance to make me feel guilty, to make me feel indebted, to manipulate me into sleeping with him.

I stumbled away from the door, my body shaking uncontrollably, and fled the hospital as if the devil himself were at my heels.

The phone call came that night. It was Adrian. His voice was sharp, cold, and laced with an urgency that made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Get to the hospital. Burn unit. Now."

He hung up before I could ask any questions.

I ran, my heart pounding a frantic tattoo against my ribs. When I burst through the doors of the burn unit, Adrian was there waiting. He grabbed my arm, his grip like steel.

"It's Ashley," he said, his face a grim, stony mask. "There was an accident with some chemicals. She needs skin grafts. Extensive ones."

He started dragging me down the hall.

"Her skin type is rare," he continued, his voice devoid of any emotion. "We ran the database. You're a match."

He pulled me into a pre-op room and shoved me towards a surgical table. Nurses were already there, prepping instruments.

"What are you doing?" I stammered, my mind struggling to catch up.

"You're going to be the donor," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He and another male nurse forced me onto the table, holding me down as a third came at me with a syringe. I felt the sharp sting of the needle in my arm. Anesthesia.

"Wait," I begged, my words starting to slur as the drug took hold. "You can't-"

The attending surgeon stepped forward. "Adrian, we have enough. We've taken a significant amount from her thigh and abdomen. Any more from her back, and we risk damaging the nerve bundles along the spinal column."

"I don't care," Adrian said, his eyes fixed on something over my head. "Take more. I want enough for revisions. I want her to be perfect."

The surgeon hesitated. "It could affect Dr. Goodwin's mobility. Permanently."

"I said, take it."

The last thing I felt before the darkness consumed me was the cold, slicing path of the scalpel across the skin of my back.

When I woke up, I was in a standard recovery room. My back was a universe of pain.

Adrian was sitting in a chair by the bed. He didn't ask how I was.

He looked at me, his eyes as sharp and cold as the surgical steel that had just carved up my body, and said, "You did this to her."

I stared at him, my pain-fogged brain struggling to comprehend.

"We found corrosive liquid in her facial moisturizer," he said, his voice a low, accusatory growl. "She said you were the only other person who had access to her locker. She said you've been jealous of her for years."

"No," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I would never."

He didn't believe me. "Her face is ruined. Because of you."

In that moment, I understood. Ashley had done this to herself. She had intentionally disfigured herself to frame me, to create a situation so horrific that Adrian would have no choice but to destroy me completely.

Two military police officers came into the room. They read me my rights as they handcuffed my wrists to the bed frame.

I was under arrest for assault.

I don't know how long I was in that cell. The charges were eventually dropped due to "lack of evidence," which I knew was just a way for them to make the problem go away without admitting fault. When they finally released me, I was a ghost of my former self, my body a roadmap of scars and my spirit utterly broken.

I dragged myself back to the apartment building to get my few remaining things. As I fumbled for the key, a heavy blow connected with the back of my neck.

The world exploded in a flash of white, then went dark.

I came to with a rough burlap sack over my head. The sharp, sizzling crackle of a taser was the only warning I got before agony erupted across my body. Blow after blow rained down on me. I felt ribs crack, tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.

Through the haze of pain, I heard Dean's voice, cold and devoid of any charm. "This is just a start. She needs to learn what happens when you make a fool out of me."

The bag over my head was opened slightly, and something was dumped in. Dozens of small, skittering things crawled over my face.

Spiders. Tarantulas.

A primal scream built in my throat, but no sound came out. It was my deepest, most irrational fear. Dean knew. Of course, he knew.

The bag was yanked shut again. I felt myself being lifted, then thrown through the air.

I hit freezing, murky water with a sickening splash. The weight of the bag dragged me down, the water filling my lungs, the spiders a frantic, crawling horror against my skin.

Just as my consciousness faded, I was dragged out and dumped onto muddy ground. The bag was ripped from my head. I coughed up water and bile before passing out again.

I woke up in a hospital. A charity ward.

A nurse was standing over me, her expression a mixture of pity and impatience. "Your bill is overdue. If you don't pay by tomorrow, we'll have to discontinue treatment."

I clawed my way out of bed, my body screaming in protest, and shuffled towards the billing office. As I rounded a corner, I ran straight into them.

Adrian and Dean.

They both stopped short, their eyes widening in surprise as they took in my pathetic state—the torn hospital gown, the fresh bruises blooming on my skin, the blood seeping through the bandages on my back.

"Ava?" Adrian said, his brow furrowing. "What are you doing here?"

I just stared at Dean, my eyes burning with a hatred so pure it was a physical force.

"Ava, this is my brother, Dean," Adrian said, gesturing between us as if we were strangers.

Dean flashed a charming, boyish smile. "Nice to meet you," he said, extending a hand.

A laugh bubbled up from my chest, a wild, hysterical sound that was more sob than mirth. Tears streamed down my face as I laughed.

"Get a hold of yourself," Adrian snapped. "And stay away from Ashley. You've done enough damage."

Just then, a nurse popped her head out of a nearby room. "Mr. Hoffman? Ms. Nunez is asking for you."

They were gone in an instant, rushing to Ashley's side without a backward glance.

My phone buzzed. It was a call from the military administration office, formalizing the transfer my father had arranged. "Dr. Goodwin, your flight departs from JFK in two hours. A car is waiting for you downstairs."

I hung up the phone. I didn't go back to my room. I didn't go to the billing office.

I walked out of that hospital, got into the waiting black car, and went straight to the airport. As the plane lifted off the runway, leaving the city lights twinkling behind me like a handful of scattered, worthless jewels, I didn't look back.

I was finally free.