Platform Seven

The farce of that day ended with Larry storming out, his men trailing behind him.

The look he shot me as he left could have ground my bones to dust.

I knew it was only the beginning.

And sure enough, the very next day, my dessert shop, Moonlight, was smashed to pieces.

When I arrived, chaos greeted me. The glass door was a spiderweb of cracks. Tables and chairs lay overturned. Carefully crafted desserts and pretty tableware lay shattered across the floor, cream and jam smeared over the walls and floorboards. The air hung thick with a cloying, sickly-sweet scent of decay.

Everything I had built with my own hands was destroyed.

I looked at it all calmly. I didn’t call the police. I didn’t cry.

I just walked silently inside, sifting through the wreckage, searching for something.

Finally, deep inside a smashed cabinet, I found it—a small, locked box. The lock was broken, too.

I opened it. Empty.

My parents’ memorial tablets were gone.

In that moment, the dam I had held up for nine years collapsed. My legs gave way, and I knelt in the filth of mixed glass shards and cream.

I could have let everything else go. The shop, these things—ruined was ruined.

But those were my parents’ only memorial tablets.

After that scandal years ago, both the Jordan and Timothy families had seen them as a disgrace. They were forbidden from the ancestral halls, forbidden from having memorial tablets; even the names on their headstones were deliberately blurred.

These two small wooden plaques—I’d had them carved in secret and hidden here, in my safest corner. They were my last tangible connection to them.

Kneeling on the ground, I pressed my forehead against the cold, rough floor and bowed my head again and again.

Not to beg for mercy. Not to repent.

I just hurt.

It hurt so much it felt like my insides were being shredded.

The familiar, suffocating pressure rose in my chest again. I coughed violently, a metallic, coppery taste flooding my throat.

Just when I thought I might die right there, a pair of polished leather shoes stopped in front of me.

I looked up. Through blurred, tear-filled eyes, I saw Larry’s face—cold and utterly devoid of warmth. He looked down at me as if I were a lowly insect.

"Ellie," he said, his voice laced with vengeful satisfaction. "Beg me. Beg me, and I’ll tell you where the tablets are."

I looked at him and suddenly laughed.

Leaning on the floor, I swayed to my feet, wiped the tears and grime from my face, and walked up to him.

"Larry," I said, looking straight into his eyes, my voice hoarse but clear. "Do you really think I’d get on my knees and beg you again, like I did nine years ago for my mother?"

His brow furrowed slightly, as if my reaction surprised him.

"You’re wrong," I continued. "My mother is dead. My family is gone. I have nothing left now."

I leaned in close, almost whispering into his ear. "A person with nothing left… can go mad. Guess what a mad bounty hunter might do?"

His body went rigid for a split second.

"For example," I smiled even brighter, "make your pretty, clean little fiancée disappear from this world. Completely."

"You wouldn’t dare!" A flicker of something—alarm, anger—finally broke through in his voice.

"Watch me."

I let the smile drop, my face expressionless. "Larry, give me back the tablets. Otherwise, this ends when one of us is dead."

In the end, I still didn’t get my parents’ memorial tablets back from Larry.

By the time I left the ruins of the dessert shop, my body was at its limit. Leaning against the wall, I half-stumbled to my car and drove to Dr. Louis’s private clinic.

Dr. Louis had been my mother’s attending physician and was the only person who knew about my condition. He looked at my latest test results, his brow knotted so tight his graying beard seemed to tremble.

"Reckless! Utterly reckless!" He slammed the report on his desk. "Ellie, how many times have I told you? You must rest, avoid any emotional stress! Look at this now—the rate of metastasis is three times faster than I projected! Are you trying to kill yourself?!"

I sat across from him, calmly pouring myself a glass of water.

"Uncle Louis, don’t be angry," I said softly. "You’ve always said this illness has no cure."

"That doesn’t mean you give up!" he replied, pained and exasperated. "At least… at least you could buy more time! You’re still so young…"

I smiled faintly and said nothing.

More time for what? To suffer one more day in this endless pain and hatred?

"Uncle Louis," I took a card from my bag and slid it toward him. "There’s enough in there to cover all the fees. Keep the rest. Consider it a token of my gratitude."

"What is this?"

"I don’t want to continue treatment."

I looked at him, my gaze steady. "For whatever time I have left, I want to live with some dignity. Not lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes, like some monster."

Dr. Louis looked at me, his lips moving soundlessly for a long moment before it all dissolved into a heavy, weary sigh. He knew my temperament. Once my mind was made up, nothing could change it.

When I left the clinic, night had already fallen over Seaport City.

I drove aimlessly through the streets. Outside the window, neon lights glittered, crowds bustled, and countless windows glowed with warm light.

Not a single one was lit for me.

I took out my phone and found the number I had blocked countless times, yet was etched into my very bones.

I dialed.

It rang for a long time before he answered. Larry’s voice was icy and impatient. "What game are you playing now?"

"Larry," I coughed twice, suppressing the coppery taste in my throat. "Let’s make a deal."

He scoffed. "What gives you the right to make deals with me?"

"Haven’t you always wanted me dead?" My voice was calm, as if discussing something unrelated to me. "I’m dying. You won’t have to lift a finger."

Silence stretched on the other end.

"When I’m gone," I watched the cityscape fly past the window, my voice quiet, "I don’t want to be alone. Will you take care of my remains?"