The Illegitimate Flame: Bride of Ashes
Chapter 157- fight together

Chapter 157: Chapter 157- fight together

Her sobs—raw, broken, and utterly hopeless—dripped into Charles’s ears like slow poison, seeping into his bones, choking his breath.

He felt like an executioner.

A heartless butcher.

Stripping her life away one shred at a time.

How could he forget?

They were bound together. Entwined.

There was no separating them now.

And then he felt it.

As his hand pressed gently against her swollen belly, a kick.

Sharp. Insistent.

The tiny life inside her surged forward, as if sensing the chaos outside—fighting, pleading to stay, to live.

His heart sank.

"Charles," Janet whispered, tilting her face toward him. "She’s moving. Can you feel her?"

Her voice trembled with fragile hope.

He did.

He felt it.

The thump of life beneath his palm.

For a fleeting moment, he hesitated.

A father’s heart stirred.

But the spell shattered the moment he looked into Janet’s unseeing eyes—those lifeless orbs shining with blind devotion—and he pulled his hand away. Quietly. Without a word.

Then he reached for her waist, ready to carry her to the operating room.

"No! You’re a monster—I hate you!"

Janet lashed out with everything she could grab—pillows, blankets—anything within reach, flinging them at him in a storm of fury and heartbreak.

Charles took it all.

He let her fight, let her scream.

"Stop this," he said hoarsely. "Save your strength. The surgery has to happen today. There’s no other way."

But Janet wasn’t listening.

Her hand scrambled across the bed—desperate, searching.

And then—cold steel.

Her fingers curled around it: a fruit knife, small but sharp.

Her breath hitched.

By the time Charles realized what was happening, her back was pressed to the wall. She held the blade in front of her blindly, her hands shaking but firm.

"Don’t come closer!" she cried. "I need this child. Without her... I’ll die. Let me go, Charles. Just let me go!"

"Janet, give me the knife!"

Charles was already moving, panic choking his voice.

But she flinched away like he was poison, her legs pulling her tighter into the corner.

"You don’t get to decide anymore!" she screamed. "She’s all I have! If you take her away—there’s nothing left! Just let me die with her!"

The blade glinted in her trembling hands, and Charles’s blood ran cold.

She couldn’t see what she was doing.

One wrong move—

"Janet, please—what about me?" he burst out. "Do I mean nothing? Do you really think I want to kill my own child? God, Janet—I can’t lose you! As long as you’re alive, we still have a chance. But you—you’re being selfish!"

He knew he shouldn’t raise his voice.

Not now.

But the fear—her words—her despair—it tore something inside him wide open.

He reached for her, slow, careful.

"Give me the knife. Please, just—"

But then it happened.

With one sharp motion, she turned her wrist.

A thin, red line split open across her skin.

And then—blood.

It wasn’t much.

But to Charles, it was an ocean.

"No—Janet!"

His scream tore from his throat as he lunged forward.

Blood stained her hand, dripping over her knuckles, seeping into the bedsheets. She sat frozen, her face pale but unshaken, lips pressed together in a line of terrifying resolve.

He had never seen her like this.

So fierce.

So desperate.

So utterly... willing to hurt herself, just to stop him.

"Why are you doing this...?" His voice broke as he fell to his knees beside her, eyes locked on the crimson stain growing between them.

"You’re killing me, Janet... you’re killing me..."

The blood didn’t blind him.

But the grief did.

What he saw wasn’t her wound.

It was her heart.

Bleeding.

Bleeding because of him.

Charles dropped to his knees, catching her as her body slowly collapsed in his arms. His hands gripped her blood-slicked wrist tightly, his voice cracking in a fury of panic.

"What the hell are you all waiting for?! Get the damn bleeding under control!"

Doctors and nurses rushed forward, but the chaos around them barely registered in his ears. All he could see was her.

Her pale face.

Her trembling lips.

And the crimson river still pouring from her hand.

Janet still clutched the blade.

Her fingers were white-knuckled, refusing to let go even as her wound deepened, blood pooling beneath her.

If she had aimed for somewhere else...

God, if she’d hit something vital—

He couldn’t even think it.

And then—her voice.

So soft. So heartbreakingly calm.

"Why couldn’t we wait just a little longer?" she whispered. "I’ve held on for so long, Charles... I don’t want to give her up now. Please... you take her. You hold her for me... just once..."

Her bloody hands wrapped around his, and his soul shattered.

She wasn’t begging anymore.

She was promising.

Offering her own life in exchange for their child’s.

Bleeding not out of despair—but faith.

Faith in him.

Then came the sound.

A dull clatter as the knife finally slipped from her fingers.

It hit the floor like a bell tolling for the dead.

And Charles—

He broke.

Crushing her against his chest, his arms trembling, he buried his face in her blood-soaked shoulder and whispered with shattered breath,

"I promise. I promise—we’ll keep her. We’ll keep our baby..."

He’d nearly become a man he couldn’t recognize.

Someone cold. Calculating.

But looking at her now, limp and warm in his arms, her blood soaking through his clothes—he hated that man.

Hated himself.

Janet didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

Her tears soaked into his collar.

But he knew—those weren’t tears of pain.

They were his.

For the first time... he wept.

All she had left was him.

All he had left was her.

And now, so fragile, so broken—this was all they could hold on to.

Time.

That was all they begged for.

A little more time.

The cut on her hand was deep—deep enough to show how far she was willing to go.

It took a long time to clean and dress the wound.

No anesthesia. No complaint.

She endured everything.

Because the baby was still there.

Still alive.

Charles never let go of her, not for a second. They sat on the edge of that hospital bed, locked together in silence. The world outside ceased to exist.

Then she spoke, voice barely above a breath, her face buried in his chest.

"Trust me, Charles. I can do this. I’ll make it. For you. For our baby. I’ll hold on—no matter what."

He didn’t reply.

He couldn’t.

He just held her tighter.

He could feel the tremors in her body.

And beneath his hand—her heartbeat.

Still steady. Still fighting.

The path ahead would be hell.

He knew it.

But it was the path they had chosen.

"I’ll let you keep the baby," he finally said, pulling back to look into her face. "But you must promise—you’ll follow the doctor’s orders. You’ll fight, Janet. You’ll fight for yourself too. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded.

A quiet, unwavering nod.

She would fight.

For love.

"Let’s go home," she whispered. "Please, Charles. I want to go home. I can’t stay here... not in this place. It feels like waiting for death."

She clung to his scent, to the sound of his heart, to the warmth of his embrace.

To him.

To the world that still had him in it.

"Alright." His voice choked with emotion as he kissed her damp forehead, rocking her in his arms. "We’ll go home. We’ll go home together."

"Let’s fight again, Janet," he whispered, their fingers laced tightly together. "You and me. This time... we’ll fight together. All the way."

Nothing—not fate, not death—could tear them apart now.