Chapter 236 Prove Your Worth

Chapter 236: Chapter 236 Prove Your Worth

"I don’t want to frighten you," she began, "but the situation is more complicated than you think. The drug repaired your injuries, yet nobody can guarantee that the monster’s bite hasn’t affected your body in some other way."

Ronan felt a chill spread through him. "But you have medicine here, don’t you?" he asked quickly. "If something happens, you can treat me again."

Camile sighed, looking as though the question pained her.

"I’ll do everything I can," she replied. "But this isn’t an ordinary hospital, Ronan. Medicine, especially something capable of treating your injuries, is extremely valuable. The leadership decides who receives it."

Ronan’s fingers grew cold. "Then tell them I’ll pay," he offered desperately, forgetting for a moment that the money he once possessed had become almost worthless. "I can work for them too. Whatever they need."

Camile looked away, hiding her irritation. What could you possibly pay with? You barely escaped with your life.

When she faced him again, her eyes were filled with apparent sympathy.

"That’s why I’m asking about the Wayne family," she explained. "If you can help us find them, I’ll have a reason to argue that you’re valuable to the base. I can convince the others to keep treating you and provide the cure if you need it."

Ronan stared at her, his earlier gratitude slowly giving way to uneasiness. "And if I can’t remember?" he asked.

Camile hesitated deliberately, allowing her expression to become distressed.

"Then even I might not be able to protect you," she whispered. "Please understand, Ronan. I saved you because I couldn’t bear to lose you, but there are people here who don’t care about our past. If they decide you’re infected and useless, they won’t listen to me."

The word useless struck him harder than he expected. Was that what he had become? A man whose life depended on whether he could remember an address?

Ronan looked at Camile, searching her face for reassurance. She was still holding his hand, and there were tears in her eyes, but he could not ignore how quickly the conversation had changed from his survival to the Wayne family’s whereabouts.

She rescued me. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t care... would she? He wanted to believe it. After everything he had lost, the possibility that Camile might be using him was almost too painful to consider.

"I’ll remember," Ronan said, forcing confidence into his trembling voice. "Just give me a little time."

Camile smiled with visible relief and gently patted his hand. "I knew I could count on you," she replied. "Rest for now. I’ll come back to see you soon."

She rose from the bed, carefully straightening her clothes. Ronan noticed faint reddish marks above the collar of her outfit, but before he could ask about them, she adjusted the fabric and turned towards the door.

"Camile," he called.

She stopped, suppressing her impatience before looking back with a smile. "Yes, Ronan?"

He swallowed, ashamed of how frightened he sounded. "You won’t let them kill me, will you?"

For a brief moment, Camile felt something unpleasant stir in her chest. Ronan had once looked at her with admiration, believing himself capable of protecting her from anything. Now he was begging her for his life.

She approached the bed again and brushed his hair away from his forehead.

"Of course not," Camile assured him softly. "As long as you help me, I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe."

Ronan nodded, clinging to the promise even though her choice of words troubled him.

After she left, he remained motionless for a long time. Then he closed his eyes and tried once more to remember the conversation in which Alexander had told the family where they were going.

There had been an argument. He remembered dismissing the relocation as foolish and insisting that his business mattered more than living in some remote place. What was the name? Think, Ronan. You heard it before.

Outside the room, Camile’s affectionate smile vanished as she walked down the corridor. A valley. That’s all that idiot remembers?

Still, she had noticed something useful. Fear had made Ronan eager to please her, just as affection once had. With enough pressure, perhaps his memory would return.

And if it didn’t, Mack had already made it clear what would happen to him.

....

~Vile Valley~

Laurel stopped at the entrance of Grandpa Wayne’s ward, her hand resting against the door for a moment before she pushed it open.

She had prepared herself to find him unconscious, but seeing him lying helplessly beneath the white blanket was far more painful than she had expected.

The old man who once commanded an entire household with a single glance now lay motionless, his face pale and sunken. An oxygen tube rested beneath his nose, while the steady beeping of the monitor seemed painfully loud in the quiet room.

Laurel approached his bedside, her chest tightening. Grandpa... how did things become like this?

She had never forgotten how he treated her when she first entered the Wayne family. He had been stern, sometimes unfair, and his insistence that she remain married to Alexander had made her resent him. Yet there had also been moments when he protected her from the family’s hostility.

Those memories were complicated. She couldn’t pretend that his kindness had erased the suffering she experienced, especially in her previous life. But neither could she look at him now and feel nothing.

I wanted you to understand why I needed to leave Alexander. I never wanted you to suffer. She pulled a chair closer and gently took his hand.

His skin felt cold. Laurel swallowed the uncomfortable lump forming in her throat. She had spent so much time preparing for disasters outside the fortress that she had never imagined someone would dare harm Grandpa Wayne within its walls.

"Grandpa, I’m back," she whispered, studying his unresponsive face. "You can scold me about leaving the fortress later, but first, you need to wake up."

The attending doctor approached with his medical report.

"Commander Laurel, we’ve been maintaining his vital signs, but his condition hasn’t improved significantly," he explained. "We suspect poisoning, although we haven’t identified the substance."

Laurel accepted the report, scanning the results before placing two fingers against Grandpa Wayne’s wrist.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on his pulse. Its rhythm was irregular, and beneath the weakness she detected a disturbing pattern that immediately reminded her of something she had encountered during her studies of traditional Chinese medicine.

She examined his tongue, the discoloration around his lips and the other physical signs, comparing them with what she knew about poisonous herbs.

Aconite...