My Brain Fades, His Hate Never Ends Chapter 07

My Brain Fades, His Hate Never Ends Chapter 07

Jude Cole saw the Polaroid and the card. He snapped, ready to hurl them across the room.

“What gives him the right?”

“Who does he think he is?”

I stopped him.

“Jude, don’t throw it.”

I picked up the new Polaroid and ran my finger over its cold plastic body.

“I want to see him.”

Jude froze.

“Elara, what are you saying?”

“You know who he is. He-”

“I know.”

I cut him off, my gaze clear and steady.

“He’s a man who looks so sad.”

“I want to know why he’s that broken.”

Jude stared at me, speechless.

He knew my illness had stolen so many of my memories.

But it had also left me pure, like a child.

I couldn’t tell good from bad.

I only trusted what I felt.

And what I felt from Elias Voss was grief.

Thick, suffocating, hopeless grief.

In the end, Jude gave in.

He dialed the number on the card.

A voice on the line-Elias’s assistant.

“My sister wants to see Elias Voss.”

Jude’s tone was ice.

The assistant paused.

“Mr. Voss isn’t available right now.”

“He’s undergoing treatment.”

“Treatment?”

Jude frowned.

“I thought he just had a cold.”

The assistant sighed.

“He doesn’t.”

“Mr. Voss’s renal failure has relapsed.”

“He had a kidney transplant five years ago, but he suffered severe rejection.”

“He’s been on medication ever since.”

“Recently… extreme emotional stress made his condition crash.”

“The doctors say if a matching donor isn’t found soon, he… won’t last three months.”

Jude hung up, stunned.

Renal failure.

He hadn’t been faking how sick he was five years ago.

He really could have died at any moment.

He looked at me, his face twisted.

“Elara, he’s… really sick.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t bother him.”

I shook my head.

“I’m going.”

I didn’t know what renal failure was.

I only knew he was dying.

Just like my journal said-five years ago, he was dying too.

And I’d pulled his ventilator tube.

I wasn’t going to be wrong again.

On my insistence, Jude took me to the Private Luxury Medical Center where Elias stayed.

When we arrived, Scarlett Hale was shouting at a doctor outside the room.

“What do you mean no matching kidney?”

“What good are you?!”

“I don’t care how you do it-you save him!”

Her makeup was perfect, but her eyes burned with panic and venom.

She saw us and stiffened, then exploded.

“Elara Cole? What are you doing here?”

“Come to watch him die?”

“As long as I’m alive, you will never come near him again!”

She spread her arms like a guarding animal, blocking the door.

Jude stepped in front of me, staring her down.

“Move.”

“Why should I?”

Scarlett laughed coldly.

“I’m his legal wife. I decide who sees him.”

“You’re the one who almost killed him. What right do you have to be here?”

“Killed him?”

Jude barked a bitter laugh.

“Scarlett, don’t forget who left him to die five years ago. Who lied about saving him just to steal Mrs. Voss’s

title.”

“If anyone’s the killer here, it’s you.”

Scarlett’s face drained white.

“You… you’re lying!”

“I didn’t!”

“You know the truth.”

Jude didn’t waste another word. He shoved her aside and opened the door.

The room reeked of medicine.

Elias Voss lay in the bed, eyes closed, tubes snaking all over him.

He was thinner than the last time I’d seen him.

His cheeks sunken, his lips colorless.

If his chest didn’t rise faintly, he would have looked like a body without life.

Something squeezed my chest tight.

I could barely breathe.

I walked slowly to his bed and knelt down.

I reached out and touched his cold hand, gentle as I could.

He stirred. His long lashes flickered.

Then he opened his eyes slowly.

The second he saw me, his gaze lit up.

Like a dying man catching sight of light.

“Elara…”

His voice was thin as wind.

“You came…”

I nodded.

I pulled the new Polaroid from my pocket.

I held it toward him, then toward myself, and snapped a photo.

The picture developed slowly.

Him in the hospital bed, pale and fragile.

Me kneeling beside him, eyes full of worry.

I flipped it over and wrote on the back.

Elias Voss.

I paused. I didn’t know what else to call him.

Future husband?

I hadn’t said yes yet.

I thought for a second, then added three words.

A sick man.

I held it up for him to see.

He stared at the writing, froze, then smiled bitterly.

“Yeah.”

“I’m just… a dying man.”

Scarlett burst in, wild with jealousy.

“Elara Cole! Stay away from him!”

She lunged for the photo in my hand.

Elias suddenly grabbed her wrist with all his strength.

“Don’t touch her.”

He stared at Scarlett, cold and final.

“Scarlett. We’re getting a divorce.”