She Tried to Shut Me Down But He Was Running on Me Chapter 02

She Tried to Shut Me Down But He Was Running on Me Chapter 02

I never truly fell asleep.

Or rather, my brain had forgotten how to sleep after nineteen years of constant wakefulness. Even the powerful sleeping pills could not force me into real slumber, only dragging me into a dying, muddled chaos.

I couldn’t make out complete sounds—only the fragmented screech of emergency alerts.

【Anchor source brainwave declining continuously.】

【Target consciousness cloud connection failed.】

【Restore primary anchor channel immediately.】

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt sealed shut with lead.

The bitter taste of pills lingered in my throat, and violent stomach spasms wracked my body in waves.

I had no sense of time passing until a sharp slap jolted my cheek.

“Mia.”

“Wake up.”

“Stop faking death.”

Charlotte Wade’s voice drifted from a distant haze, cold and utterly devoid of warmth.

I pried my eyes open with immense effort, and the harsh hospital lights stung sharply.

Charlotte stood beside the medical bed, flanked by two bodyguards and a regular on-call physician summoned in haste.

The doctor’s face tightened at my condition.

“Ms. Wade, her pupillary response is negligible and her blood pressure is crashing. She needs gastric lavage. Now.”

Charlotte frowned coldly.

“I brought you here to prove she’s faking her symptoms, not to listen to your alarmist nonsense.”

The doctor spoke with obvious hesitation.

“She has clearly ingested a dangerous dosage of sedative medication, ma’am.”

“Dangerous dosage?”

Charlotte let out a mocking laugh.

“She’s supposed to be incapable of sleep, isn’t she?”

“If she never sleeps, how can a few sleeping pills possibly overdose her?”

The doctor fell silent, at a loss for words.

I parted my trembling lips, my voice so faint it was barely audible.

“The cable…”

Charlotte glanced down at me.

“Still clinging to that useless cable?”

I strained every ounce of strength to gaze toward the corner of the room.

The brainwave anchor cable still lay abandoned on the floor.

If I could just reconnect it.

If I could re-establish the link.

Blaine might still have a chance.

I propped myself up on my elbows, desperate to rise, but my body felt limp and foreign, beyond my control.

The slightest movement sent a tearing, burning pain exploding from the neural interface at the base of my neck.

“Don’t move!” The doctor lunged forward instinctively to hold me down.

“Her neural implant is overheating. Any further strain will cause irreversible nerve damage.”

“Irreversible damage?”

Charlotte sounded almost amused, as if she had heard a ridiculous joke.

She walked slowly to my side and bent down to stare straight at me.

“Mia, haven’t you been scamming the Ford family out of millions with this little implant?”

“Let’s see how well you perform without it.”

My breath caught in pure terror.

“Don’t…”

A violent pounding suddenly erupted from the sealed hallway door.

“Ms. Wade! Open the door!”

It was Dylan Reese, his voice shredded from shouting.

“We’ve lost all contact with Mr. Ford! The Middle East medical team has sent twelve consecutive emergency red alerts!”

“Mia must reconnect the anchor channel immediately!”

Charlotte’s expression darkened completely, her patience snapped thin.

She turned sharply to the bodyguards.

“Why is he still on the top floor?”

One bodyguard lowered his voice respectfully.

“Engineer Reese holds high-level clearance, ma’am. The lower-level access barriers cannot block him.”

Charlotte sneered coldly.

“Revoke his access privileges at once.”

She grabbed the temporary authorization terminal on the table and pressed confirm without hesitation.

The fierce pounding outside ceased instantly.

Dylan’s voice shifted, sharp and disbelieving.

“Charlotte, you just froze the neural engineering team’s clearance?”

“Do you have any idea what this means?”

Charlotte strolled to the door and spoke calmly through the thick panel.

“It means this top-floor ward is no longer your personal playground to burn the Ford family’s money in Blaine’s name.”

“Ms. Wade!” Dylan shouted in urgent fury.

“You’re going to kill Mr. Ford!”

“Enough!”

Charlotte’s voice rose sharply, laced with unbridled rage.

“All of you keep chanting his name, keep saying she cannot sleep.”

“But Blaine is my fiancé!”

“If he was truly in mortal danger, why has he never told me a single word about this?”

Dead silence hung in the hallway for a long moment.

Then Dylan’s hollow, defeated voice came through the door.

“Because Mr. Ford never wanted you to know Mia exists.”

Charlotte’s face blanched in an instant.

She tightened her grip on the terminal, her jaw clenched hard.

“What did you just say?”

Dylan sounded completely unreserved now, as if he had nothing left to lose.

“Mr. Ford signed a top-tier nondisclosure agreement years ago. Fewer than seven people in the entire world know Mia’s true function.”

“You are not on that list.”

“Whether you accept it or not, Ms. Wade, Mia matters more than you do in Mr. Ford’s life support system.”

The words pierced straight through Charlotte’s deepest insecurity like a sharp needle.

Her polished composure shattered.

“More important than me?”

She turned slowly to face me on the bed.

In that moment, I knew everything was ruined.

She had not been convinced.

She had been provoked.

She stepped toward me, her eyes dark and menacing.

“Mia.”

“Did you hear that?”

“They say you mean more to him than I do.”

I tried to shake my head, but my body refused to move.

Charlotte suddenly reached out and pinched my jaw hard enough to bruise.

“You’re just an unwanted orphan from a shelter. What could you possibly have that I don’t?”

She forced my head up, locking my gaze to hers.

“Is it this face?”

“Or is it that freakish thing inside your brain?”

My pupils trembled violently.

Charlotte caught the reaction and smiled coldly.

“So there really is something special about you.”

The doctor’s face turned pale with panic.

“Ms. Wade, you cannot tamper with the neural implant, not while she’s sedated and mentally unstable. Forced examination will cause permanent brain damage!”

“Examination?”

Charlotte released my jaw, her tone terrifyingly calm.

“No.”

“I’m calling an internal tribunal.”

“Tomorrow morning at nine, assemble all senior executives of the Ford Medical Tower.”

“I want every single one of them to see exactly what kind of monster the Ford family has been sheltering for three years.”

The doctor grew frantic.

“But she requires urgent resuscitation now!”

Charlotte shot him a frigid glance.

“Is she dead?”

The doctor fell silent, stalled by the question.

“If she’s alive, she can wait until tomorrow.”

With that, she turned and walked out of the room.

The second the door clicked shut, darkness swallowed my world once again.

But this time, from within the depths of that endless static, a voice filtered through. Faint. Fragile.

It was someone shouting for me, desperately, across an unimaginable distance.

【Mia.】

【Hold on.】

A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye.

Blaine.

You’re still here.

Then I cannot fall asleep.