Fade with the Wind

The messages were soon deleted, as if nothing had ever happened.

Ivy held her phone tightly, her hand trembling slightly. Her heart completely sank. She found it hard to breathe once more.

All of this–pushing her into water, fever, the swapping of medicine–was all part of their revenge plan.

Jason fed her that so-called medicine was just so that she could suffer even more.

Not long after, Jason called her.

"Where are you? Why are you not at home?" Jason said in a low voice, with a faint hint of panic.

Ivy took a deep breath to try to sound calm. "My fever got too high. I'm at the hospital."

There was a brief pause before Jason said, "I'll come right over."

"There's no need," Ivy interjected right away. "I just need to be on drips for one more day, and I can be discharged. I realized you've been really busy recently. You don't have to worry."

There was a silence on the other end of the phone, then Jason asked, "Did you look at your phone?"

So that was why he was calling her. He was worried she had seen those messages.

Ivy lied, "No. The doctor said that my fever was so high that I was almost dead. I didn't have the time to look at my phone."

Silence came once more.

Jason then said, sounding ambiguous at that, "I'm here with you. Everything will be fine."

Ivy tightened her grip on her phone. Her heart turned ice cold.

He said that he was with her, yet he was the sole cause of her misery!

Ivy got discharged from the hospital. She had just exited the hospital, about to call a taxi, when a group of men rushed up from behind her and covered her mouth.

Before she could resist, she lost consciousness.

When he came around once more, Ivy realized that she was lying in a dimly lit hotel room. Her limbs were tied.

A few thugs were around her, smiling at her lewdly.

"You're up. Don't worry. We'll properly spoil you." One of the thugs reached out to try to take her clothes off.

"Who are you? Let go! Let me go!" Ivy resisted with all her might, but she was weak from her recovery. She was not their match.

She tried throwing things, kicking them, and yelling loudly, but it was all in vain.

The men had almost stripped her completely. She was in despair, and tears kept falling uncontrollably.

Right at that moment, the door was kicked open.

"Get back, you thugs!" Jason snarled with fury.

The thugs were frightened by Jason's air of authority, and they quickly fled the scene.

Ivy curled up in bed, shivering with trauma. She looked up at Jason. For the first time, she saw panic and concern in his eyes.

"Ivy…" Jason quickly walked over to her. He reached out, rather shakily, to hold her, yet. However, Ivy, like a traumatized little animal, retreated and cowered frantically. Her eyes filled with fear.

Jason's hand froze mid-air. His eyes gleamed with pain.

Before Ivy could say something, she saw black and passed out once more.

Some time later, Ivy came around, feeling groggy. She heard people talking in the hospital room. Their voices were in whispers, but she could hear the anger in them.

"Why didn't you tell me about this revenge plan?" said Jason.

"I thought you wanted to quickly finish the ninety-nine rounds of revenge so you could finally be with Felicity? We noticed that you were busy, so we didn't want to trouble you. We decided to help you do it," said one of his friends nonchalantly.

"I didn't ask you to find people to assault her!" Jason raised his voice, his anger nearly overflowing.

His friends jumped. They said in disbelief, "Hold up. So, what if she was? I thought we had decided from the beginning that the plan would be ruthless? Why are you getting so worked up?"

Jason said nothing. Instead, he kicked the coffee table over with a violent crash.

Why was he so worked up? Even he himself did not know the answer to that.

All these years, Ivy had been pursuing him like a beam of sunlight–bright and relentless.

He remembered the day he agreed to be with her. She had stood there in disbelief before breaking into tears of joy. He had never seen anyone look that happy.

It was a sharp contrast to how she lay there like a withered rose at this moment, drained of all life.

He did not understand why it bothered him so much. He did not want to see her like that. When she looked at him so helplessly, his heart ached a little.

Seeing him remain silent, the group slowly pieced something together.

One of them spoke cautiously, disbelief creeping into his voice, "Jason, don't tell me that after all these years, you've fallen for her?"