<h4>Chapter 110: Chapter 110 BROKEN DOLL</h4>


    SERAPHINA’S POV


    Hourster, I could still hear the screech of tires.


    Could still see the sickening sway of Celeste’s body, the blur of her hair as she toppled sideways into the street.


    Even after she disappeared into the ambnce, and I climbed in after her, after the sirens wailed us down the road, Mrs. Harlow’s terrier racing after us, my chest wouldn’t unclench.


    I sat there in a haze, the once serene world around me suddenly too bright, too loud, too fast.


    And so fucking confusing.


    I couldn’t fathom it.


    ‘You’re not the only one who can fake a crisis, sweetie.’


    I remembered once when Celeste got nothing more than a paper cut and treated it as though she’d been mortally wounded.


    She shrieked that she could see bone, demanded an ambnce, and even sprawled across the chaise like a tragic heroine awaiting herst rites.


    The family doctor was summoned for what had already stopped bleeding, and Celeste milked it for weeks—refusing chores, parading around with a useless bandage, and sighing dramatically whenever someone asked her to lift so much as a book.


    Celeste had always been cruel, always cunning, ridiculously dramatic. But this?


    Throwing herself into the path of a moving car? My brain scrambled around the image like it couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t fit the sheer insanity into the outline of the girl I’d once thought I knew.


    Everything in the emergency ward was happening in a dizzying blur.


    Nurses in pale scrubs moved with hurried, sharp precision, calling out codes and requests.


    The sliding doors groaned behind me again and again as more people swept in.


    My mother arrived first. Her heels clicked like gunshots across the linoleum, her fur coat dragging along the floor.


    Her lipstick was immacte, her face tight with controlled panic. Only the slight mascara smudges under her eyes hinted at her distress. “Where is she? My daughter—where’s Celeste?”


    I shrank back automatically, once again reminded that the daughter my parents looked for would always be Celeste.


    And then Ethan appeared, tall and grim, his hand brushing her shoulder as though he could temper her storm.


    His presence should have been grounding—and maybe it was for my mother. Instead, it rattled me further.


    He nced at me briefly—his expression unreadable, cold perhaps, or just stunned. I couldn’t tell.


    Finally, Kieran arrived. His stride was longer, urgent, his hair damp from the drizzle that had begun outside.


    When his eyesnded on me, something unreadable flickered there—suspicion? concern? I couldn’t pin it down before the moment broke.


    It was disorienting, all of them rushing in like a tide, pulling air from the room, leaving me stranded at its center.


    It almost reminded me of when my father had been on his deathbed.


    But the simrities niggled at me, and I almostughed at the absurdity.


    They would rush to the hospital for my father. They would rush for dramatic Celeste.


    But nobody rushed like this when I’d almost died giving birth to Daniel.


    I should have left as soon as they all came; I should have known that all of us being in close proximity with heightened emotions wouldn’t end well.


    But I kept seeing Celeste fall back into the road, kept hearing the tires screeching.


    I’d stay just long enough to know she was okay. She was batshit crazy, but she was—unfortunately—still my sister.


    After a while, a doctor appeared, pulling down his mask. They all surged forward to hear the news. “She’s stable. Mild concussion, a wrist fracture, some bruising on her ribs, and minor scrapes. We’re keeping her for observation, but she’s out of immediate danger.”


    Relief washed through the room—through them. Mother exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for hours, clutching Ethan’s sleeve as he held on to her elbow.


    Kieran’s jaw unclenched, the muscles twitching as he ran a hand over his face, and tension flowed out of him.


    I should have felt the same. Relief. Gratitude that she wasn’t broken beyond repair.


    But instead, all I felt was that clench in my stomach—the dizzying aftershock of watching her nearly shatter herself for spectacle.


    ‘You’re not the only one who can fake a crisis, sweetie.’


    After the doctor’s words, a shuffle of movement followed—relieved sighs turning into urgent nods as the nurse gestured for us to follow. The sterile corridors seemed to hum with too-bright lights and too-loud footsteps as we trailed behind, our little parade of strained faces and clenched hands.


    I walked with them, though every step felt detached, like I was floating above my own body.


    Inside her room, Celestey propped up against a stack of pillows, looking far more fragile than I’d ever seen her. And yet, still somehow immactely put together the way only Celeste could be.


    Her hair was in perfect waves down her shoulders, her arm cradled in a cast, ribs bound in bandages that peeked beneath the hospital gown.


    It was the kind of image that demanded sympathy—delicate, breakable.


    And then, of course, she started speaking.


    “She—” Celeste’s voice cracked as her eyesnded on me. Her skin was pale, her lips glossy. “What is she doing here?”


    A question I was beginning to ask myself.


    “How can you show your face here,” she rasped, “after shoving me into the street?”


    The usationnded like stones hurled across the ward.


    My mouth fell open. I was too shocked to form sound, let alone words.


    “Are you sad?” she continued, her eyes gleaming. “Are you upset I didn’t die like you wanted?”


    This. Fucking. Bitch.


    I was still in the process of processing the trap I had waltzed into when my mother whirled around so fast her coat fanned out. Her hand came up, sharp and swift, aiming for my cheek.


    I was still too stunned to flinch or bother moving. I just froze and braced.


    But the blow nevernded. Kieran’s hand shot out, mping around my mother’s wrist midair.


    His voice cut across the room, low but firm. “Margaret, don’t.”


    Mother’s eyes zed. “She tried to kill my daughter—”


    “We don’t know the full story yet,” Kieran said, his tone sharp enough to discourage argument.


    He turned to me, his voice softening. “Sera, what happened?”


    I stared at him. At all of them.


    At Celeste, whoy there like a broken doll, hershes fluttering, her mouth curled into the faintest smirk she thought no one could see.


    At my mother, who, just a couple of days ago, sat in my living room iming I was still her daughter, iming she would never abandon me.


    Now, her eyes zed with loathing and usation, the hand she’d unhesitatingly raised to strike me still hovering in Kieran’s grasp.


    Tell him. Tell them.


    The words crowded my throat, desperate to exin. I wanted to scream it: that Celeste had lost her mind, that she’d leapt in front of that car like a fucking psycho, that this was all part of her n to turn the entire world against me.


    But my mother’s doubt had already sunk in. She was still ring at me, still trembling with rage, still ready to strike if Kieran let go.


    And suddenly I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. I was younger. Smaller. In that suffocating house, standing against the wall, holding the jagged pieces of the vase Celeste had broken in my hand as my mother’s shadow loomed.


    Her disbelief, her scorn, her sharp hand—all of it merged with now. Seamless and suffocating.


    They’d never believed me then. Why would they believe me now?


    A bitterugh ripped from my throat. “Exin? To you?” My voice shook with something cold. “What would be the point? You’ve already decided. You always do. Celeste is always the saint, and I’m always the bad guy.”


    “Sera,” Kieran said, reaching for me.


    I jerked my arm away before he could hold me, but where his fingers brushed my skin seared like iron.


    “No,” I snapped. “If you really believe I would do this—”


    I turned my gaze to my mother. “If you truly believe I would push my own sister in front of a car, then call the police. Charge me.” I held my hands out, wrists pressed together.


    Her gaze flickered for a moment before hardening again. “That’s all you have to say?”


    I dropped my hands.


    Their faces blurred. Margaret’s fury. Ethan’s unreadable stare. Celeste’s triumphant weakness. Kieran’s stormy silence.


    I couldn’t bear it for a second longer.


    “I have nothing to say. I’m not dealing with this bullshit. You’ll be hearing from mywyer.”


    I turned away and walked out. My harsh breathing was a hollow echo that followed me through the ward, down the corridor, and out the sliding doors.


    The world outside pped me with cold rain.


    The sky had cracked open, pouring sheets of water down the hospital steps. I gasped at its bite but didn’t slow.


    My hair stered against my cheeks, my clothes clung to me, but I couldn’t summon the will to find shelter or an umbre.


    Let it soak me. Let it wash their poison off me.


    My chest ached, the numbness finally breaking into pain so sharp it felt like my ribs were splintering.


    I pressed my palm against my sternum, like I could hold myself together, but the ache only deepened.


    How could they believe Celeste’s lies so easily?


    Was I really so monstrous in their eyes?


    A sob wed its way up my throat, but I bit it down. Not here. Not now.


    I was halfway to the curb, ready to trudge home in the storm, when a hand closed around my arm.


    “Sera, wait.”


    I spun, heart racing, and found Ethan.