Chapter 5

Ghost Zora POV:

Being a ghost wasn't like the stories. There were no chains, no white sheets. I was simply a consciousness, a point of view without the burden of a heartbeat.

I hovered near the ceiling of the operating theater, watching the chaos below with a strange, detached curiosity.

"Stop!" Dr. Petra screamed, throwing the defibrillator paddles aside. "She's gone."

The nurse was trembling. "Time of death: 10:42 AM."

Petra wasn't listening. She had picked up the scalpel again and widened the incision on my corpse's abdomen. Her face went pale, then green.

"Goddess above," she whispered.

"Doctor?" the nurse asked.

"Look at this," Petra hissed, pointing inside my body. "The organs... they're liquefied. It's Wolfsbane. Massive, chronic exposure. She's been rotting from the inside out for months."

I watched my own autopsy. It was gruesome, but I felt nothing.

Then, Petra probed deeper. She gasped, dropping her instrument. It clattered loudly on the silver tray.

"Where is the other one?" she demanded, her voice rising in panic.

"The other what?"

"The other essence!" Petra yelled. "She only has one! And it's shriveled and black! Where is her primary essence organ?"

The nurse shook her head. "I don't know. Her file says she's intact."

"The file is a lie!" Petra looked at my dead face, horror in her eyes. "She didn't have a spare to give. She was living on half a soul. This... this is murder."

Outside the glass, the hallway was quiet. Simon was laughing at something my mother said. He was leaning against the wall, looking relaxed. He thought I was just sleeping. He thought I was sturdy, like a weed that you could step on over and over again.

Petra looked at the clock. Then she looked at the dying, blackened organ inside me.

*"We can't transplant this," Petra said, her voice shaking. "It's necrotic. It's poison. It will kill the recipient."*

*"We have to," the nurse whispered, terrified. "The Alpha commanded a transplant. If Laila dies because we refused to operate, Simon will tear our throats out."*

*Petra hesitated. She looked at the intercom button. She could press it. She could tell Simon the truth right now-that Zora was murdered, that the organ is toxic.*

*But then she looked at Simon through the glass. He was powerful, unstable, and blindly devoted to Laila. If Petra came out with empty hands, she would be the scapegoat.*

*"Laila insisted," Petra muttered, a dark realization crossing her face. "She wanted the White Wolf's power. She thinks she's strong enough to handle anything."*

*Petra's expression hardened. It was a look of malicious compliance. "Fine. She wants the essence? She can have it. If her body rejects the poison, that's on her. I won't die for this family."*

I watched as she cut out the last piece of me. The piece that had kept me alive through five years of hell.

As the knife severed the connection, a memory washed over me, vivid and bright.

*Five years ago.*

*It was raining. I was chained to a bed in a basement. Not our basement-a dirty, illegal clinic in the rogue lands.*

*Laila stood over me. She wasn't sick then. She was desperate. She had no talent, no power, and the Alpha selection was coming up.*

*"Don't worry, Zora," she had said, holding a silver knife. "You're the White Wolf. You're strong. You can survive with one. I need this to be special."*

*She had cut me open while I was awake. She stole my essence to implant into herself, to fake the high-level energy signature of a Luna.*

*When I dragged myself home three days later, bleeding and broken, my mother had met me at the door.*

*"Where have you been?" she had screamed. "Laila just donated her kidney to your father! She saved the Alpha! And you were out whoring with rogues?"*

*They beat me. They threw me out into the rain.*

*And that was when Simon found me. He found me shivering under a bridge. He wrapped his jacket around me. He didn't know who I was. He just saw a girl in pain.*

*"You're safe now," he had said.*

I looked down at Simon in the hallway. He was checking his watch, impatient.

He had saved me then, only to kill me now.

Petra placed my blackened essence into a sterile container. "Take it to the recipient," she whispered. "God forgive us."

I floated through the wall, following the container.

*Go ahead,* I thought, looking at Laila's waiting form. *You wanted to be me so badly? Now you can die like me.*