He Asked How to Compensate Me While I Was Dying Chapter 04

He Asked How to Compensate Me While I Was Dying Chapter 04

That night, I woke with my wrists and ankles 

bound and a timer strapped across my chest. It 

showed fifteen minutes. 

Mallory was tied nearby. 

Unlike me, she showed no fear. The moment she saw that I was awake, she gave me a vicious 

smile. 

“Arden, who do you think Grant and your parents will save when they find out we were kidnapped together? You probably don’t know I’m carrying Grant’s baby. He’ll choose me, and they’ll leave your here to die.” 

I remembered the marks on Grant’s neck and felt 

no surprise at all. 

My silence enraged her. She slapped me and 

ground her boot into the half–healed wounds 

across my chest. 

Pain drained the color from my face, but I locked 

my jaw and refused to cry out. 

“You bitch! Look at you now.” Mallory laughed. “You should have stayed gone. Why did you come 

back and steal my family and Grant?” “All I had to 

do was cry, and those three lapdogs hired men to 

abduct you and give you ninety–nine lashes.” Her 

voice climbed higher with every word. 

“You cling to them like gum on a shoe. Don’t you 

disgust yourself? None of them loves you, so why 

won’t you disappear?” 

By the end she was almost shrieking. She pressed 

her heel against my head and twisted as if 

crushing out a cigarette. 

My cheek scraped over the rough concrete, and 

needles of pain stabbed through my face. 

Only the scream of tires outside made her step 

back. 

Mallory looked down at me with the confidence of 

someone who believed she had already won. 

“Your time is up. This bomb is real, and I have the 

detonator. The second I clear that door, I’m 

blowing this place apart. You can die here.” 

Blood ran down my face, but I no longer cared. 

It did not matter whom they chose. I had never 

planned to survive. 

A crash sounded outside. Moments later, military 

police surrounded Grant and my parents as they entered the abandoned housing complex. 

All three of them looked straight at Mallory. 

Triumph flashed in her eyes before she began to sob. 

“Grant, Mom, Dad, please save me. I’m terrified. 

They hit me, and the baby can’t take much more.” 

Grant’s face filled with pain. 

My parents ignored the abductor’s knife and moved toward Mallory, pleading, 

“We’ll give you anything. Please, let our daughter go.” 

But when the abductor demanded that they choose, they hesitated. 

“We’ll pay double,” Grant said. “Release both.” 

The man shook his head and put the knife to Mallory’s throat. “One. That’s the deal.” 

Grant closed his eyes, then turned on me. “Arden, why did you come out here by yourself?” 

I had no answer for an accusation that absurd. 

Anger gathered in his eyes. 

“I’m saving Mallory.” 

“You staged all of this, didn’t you? You’re still furious because you didn’t get to whip her. I investigated you. How could you be this cruel?” 

“Since you returned to the Bennett family, Mallory has bent over backward to avoid upsetting you. We all knew you were faking your episodes, but we protected your dignity. You repaid us by getting 

worse.” 

“I’m taking Mallory. Learn something from this, and come home when you’ve finally thought it through. Stop staging suicides whenever you want 

attention.” 

“You never intended to die. Eleven trips to the ICU should have been enough theater for anyone. I’ve played along long enough.” 

I drew one slow breath and smiled. 

Something stabbed through Grant’s chest. For one fleeting moment, he felt as though an 

irreplaceable part of his life was about to vanish. 

Mallory caught his wrist. “Grant, my stomach 

hurts. Something’s wrong with the baby.” 

At the mention of the baby, he abandoned the 

thought and carried her out of the complex. 

The abductor tied me to a concrete support and fled through the rear exit. 

I could barely lift my eyelids, but I made one final bargain with the System. 

“Spend every System credit I have. Broadcast everything they did to me, every lie from the past and every moment from today, to the entire world.” 

The words had barely left my mouth. 

Boom. 

Fire rose like a living creature and swallowed me 

whole. 

Grant and my parents spun toward the blast, their 

faces turning white in the reflected flames. 

Two voices sounded at once. 

“Arden!” 

[Congratulations, Host. Welcome home.]