Chapter 2

My resignation letter was simple and direct. I printed it, my hands still shaking, and drove to the office. The fever was a raging fire in my body, but my mind was a block of ice.

I walked into the sleek, modern lobby of Scott Development, a building whose original award-winning concept I had secretly designed in college, a fact only Matthew and I knew.

Stella was waiting for me at the reception desk, a triumphant smirk on her face.

"I knew you' d come to your senses," she said, reaching for the letter in my hand.

I pulled it back. "This is my resignation, Stella. I' m here to drop it off and clear out my things."

Her smirk vanished, replaced by a flash of fury. "You can' t be serious."

"I am."

She snatched the letter from my grasp and, without even reading it, ripped it into tiny pieces, letting them flutter to the marble floor.

"You' re not going anywhere," she hissed. "You' re going to go to your desk and sort those files."

When I didn' t move, her eyes narrowed. She pulled out her phone. "Fine. Let' s see what Matthew has to say about this."

She initiated a company-wide video call. Her face appeared on the large screen in the lobby, and a moment later, so did Matthew' s. He was in a hot tub, snow-covered mountains in the background. A young woman with bright blonde hair, Tiffany, was clinging to his side, giggling.

"Matthew, darling," Stella said, her voice dripping with fake distress. "Gabrielle is here, and she' s being completely insubordinate. She tried to give me this ridiculous resignation letter and even destroyed it when I told her you needed her to work!"

The company chat feed exploded on the side of the screen.

"Fire her!"

"What a psycho."

"Teach her a lesson, Matthew!"

Matthew looked from Stella' s pouting face to my image on the call. I must have looked terrible, pale and sweating, my eyes burning with fever.

He didn' t see a sick woman. He saw a possession that was malfunctioning.

"Stella," he said, his voice dangerously low. "Teach her a lesson."

"What should I do?" Stella asked, feigning innocence.

A comment popped up in the chat from one of the junior developers. "It' s hot in the office. Maybe she needs to cool down. Dump some water on her."

Stella' s eyes lit up. "That' s a great idea."

She gestured to two maintenance workers who were watching the scene unfold with nervous curiosity. "You two. Go get the water coolers from the break room. The big jugs. Dump them on her."

The men hesitated, looking at me with pity.

"Now!" Stella shrieked. "Or you' re both fired!"

They scrambled to obey. I stood frozen, not from fear, but from a profound, chilling sense of disbelief. This couldn' t be happening.

They returned, each hauling a heavy five-gallon jug of ice water.

On the screen, Matthew was watching, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "Do it."

The first wave of icy water hit me like a physical assault. It shocked the air from my lungs, my feverish body seizing from the sudden cold. The second jug followed, drenching me completely, my clothes plastered to my skin, water pooling at my feet.

The room started to spin. The faces on the screen, the mocking comments in the chat, Stella' s triumphant face-it all blurred into a dizzying vortex. I took a stumbling step backward, my legs giving out.

My head connected with the sharp edge of the glass coffee table behind me.

There was a sickening crack. A flash of blinding pain.

The world went black.

The very last thing I heard was Matthew' s voice, no longer cruel and mocking, but high-pitched with panic.

"Stella! What the hell did you do? Get her to a hospital! Now!"