My Pain Came Back Once They Betrayed Me Chapter 04

My Pain Came Back Once They Betrayed Me Chapter 04

Once the blood draw finished, Logan rushed off with the two doctors at his heels.

Two hours later, outside the joint Ford-Clark research lab dedicated to Zora’s treatment, the lead medical scientist came sprinting out, face flushed with excitement.

“Mr. Ford! We found antibodies in Miss Bella’s blood sample. That means Miss Bella’s rare disorder is fully reversed! These antibodies might hold the key to curing Miss Zora’s condition!”

Logan froze on the spot, stunned. His mind replayed the image of me collapsing on the pavement, stabbed and writhing in agony.

His voice shook as he repeated the question in disbelief. “What did you say? Who’s cured?”

“Miss Bella Clark’s disorder is gone,” the doctor clarified. “Has she mentioned feeling pain normally lately?”

Those two sentences sent Logan stumbling backward, lightheaded.

Of course I’d told him.

I’d told him when he shoved me into the kidnapper’s blade.

I’d told him when he dragged me off the hospital bed and forced my face into spilled soup on the floor.

I’d repeated it countless times, yet he’d never believed a single word.

He thought of the two brutal slaps he’d delivered to my face just three hours earlier, and a sharp, crushing ache tore through his chest.

Ignoring the scientist calling after him, he sprinted to his car and peeled out toward the hospital, racing straight to my room.

He threw the door open, only to find the space spotless, completely empty.

Hands shaking, he dialed my number—no answer.

He sent me messages through every messaging app, only to hit a red failed delivery symbol. Panic swallowed him whole.

He grabbed a passing nurse by the arm, gesturing wildly at the empty room. “Where’s the patient who was staying here? When did she check out?”

The nurse eyed him suspiciously and refused to share private patient information.

Logan pulled out his phone to call my parents, but the new texts popped up from the lab scientist first.

[Mr. Ford, we’ve confirmed the trial batch of experimental medication worked—the effects just had a delayed, unstable onset. We marked the trial a failure at the time, but it accidentally healed Miss Bella’s condition entirely.]

[I recall Miss Zora also volunteered for the same trial injections. How is Zora feeling these days?]

Reading the messages pulled Logan back to cold rationality.

He fired off a text to his assistant, ordering a full-scale manhunt for my whereabouts, then drove straight to the Clark family estate.

He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles whitened the entire drive. Pieces clicked into place in his mind.

The scientist had high hopes for that trial batch, so both Zora and I had volunteered for injections. Days passed with zero visible changes, so they’d written the trial off as a total loss.

But the day of the kidnapping, the medication’s delayed effects fully activated, erasing my pain insensitivity entirely.

If the same treatment had been injected into Zora—who shared my blood type and genetic makeup—could her hyper-sensitive pain disorder have faded too?

Logan turned the question over and over until he pulled into the Clark family driveway.

He pushed open the front door to find the house warm and cheerful. Zora walked out of the kitchen carrying a ceramic soup bowl.

She smiled sweetly when she spotted him.

But Logan’s gaze zeroed in on her bare hands, wrapped around the hot bowl with no oven mitts or gloves at all.

To an average person, the bowl would feel only mildly warm. But for someone with Zora’s hundredfold pain sensitivity, it should have been pure torture.

Memories of that day in my hospital room flashed through his mind—

Zora had carried that boiling chicken noodle soup without any protection, too.

Logan’s expression darkened sharply. He took the bowl out of her hands and set it aside, then clamped his fingers tight around her wrist.

He squeezed hard, fully expecting a scream of agony—but nothing came.

Zora frowned, pushing his hand away playfully and pouting at him.

“What’s gotten into you, Logan? You just grabbed my wrist out of nowhere and hurt me.”