Chapter 692 Cornered

Chaotic footsteps echoed in the corridor, and Elsie’s legs trembled. She glanced frantically to either side only to see people blocking both ends of the hallway.

Gritting her teeth, she bolted straight into the nearest room. “Mom! Owen! Help me!”

The sound of her voice hit Owen like a hammer. Lily’s eyes went wide, and she nearly sprang from the bed, the pain at her incision almost knocking her off her feet.

They both turned to see a bloated-bellied woman rush through the ward in a panic, searching for somewhere to hide before yanking open the curtains and slipping behind them as if she could disappear.

Lily gasped with joy. “Owen, did you hear that? It’s Elsie! It’s Elsie—she’s really alive!”

Owen stared, dumbstruck, at the pair of feet sticking out beneath the curtain. They were crammed into ill-fitting slippers, the skin so swollen and purplish they looked like bear paws—nothing like a young woman’s feet.

And that belly… it was as big as if she were carrying twins. She’d only been gone three months; it was impossible for her to be that pregnant.

But the voice… it was unmistakable.

The room’s door slammed open again, and a group surged inside—doctors, nurses, security, even other patients’ relatives.

“She ran in here! She’s definitely hiding!” one of them called, and another’s eyes dropped to the telltale feet below the curtain.

Without a word, a doctor pointed. The security guard tightened his grip on his steel control fork and nodded, inching forward on silent feet.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing? She’s my daughter!”

“She’s not!” Owen cut in immediately.

How could this swollen, stinking woman possibly be Elsie? Lily had lost her mind.

When she’d run past just now, the stench had hung in the air—so foul it made his stomach turn. There was no way that was Elsie.

“That is Elsie!” Lily pounded the bed in frustration. “Don’t you recognize your own sister’s voice?”

“She’s only been gone three months. You think she could get a belly like that? Stop talking nonsense,” Owen snapped.

Lily faltered. She was starting to see how wrong this looked.

The guard had already closed in on the curtains, lunging with the fork in one swift motion. “Got her!”

The steel prongs locked around her, pinning her in place. Two more people yanked the curtains back. Elsie flinched from the sudden light, letting out a sharp cry as she covered her face.

Others instantly covered their noses, gagging at the stench.

“She’s got some kind of infectious disease, right? How else could she smell like that? Maybe it’s something nasty.”

“What? Then what about our ward? No way—we’re making the hospital move us immediately, and they’re paying for damages!”

Elsie’s eyes brimmed with hurt. “I’m not sick. Don’t slander me…” She turned tearfully toward Lily and Owen. “Mom, Owen, tell them! I’m Elsie! I’m your family! How could I have something dirty like that?”

Lily finally saw her daughter’s face clearly. She stared for several seconds, stunned. In just three months, Elsie had wasted away to skin and bone, almost unrecognizable—except for that grotesquely swollen belly. Owen stared too, shocked to see her alive and even more shocked at what she’d become. But when her tear-streaked eyes met his, what rose in his mind wasn’t sympathy. It was memory after memory of her arm-in-arm with Timothy, walking in and out of upscale apartments. The hospital scandals where she’d caused disaster after disaster, and he’d stood in front of her, absorbing the families’ fury while she hid behind him like a victim, even crying that she was afraid.

His cheeks burned hot with shame. What the hell had been wrong with him back then, thinking those families were being unreasonable, that they were bullying his sister?

Now, lying in a hospital bed himself, he could finally see things from the patient’s side. Elsie had blood on her hands, and the only reason those families hadn’t torn her apart was because he’d shielded her and used threats to hold them back.

“Owen…” Elsie’s tears hit the floor as she waited for him to speak up for her.

But his face stayed unreadable—no warmth, no pity.

Why wasn’t he defending her?

Her knees gave out, and she crumpled to the floor, looking up at the ring of people around her. “Please, don’t hit me,” she sobbed. “Owen will be upset… at least don’t do it in front of my Owen and my mother…”