Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 243: Destruction And Blood

Clara ended up spending the whole night at a place that felt like a complete nightmare.

Her parents had rushed to the station when they heard that their daughter had been taken in. With their position, they couldn’t believe anyone could dare arrest their daughter until they heard who had ordered it.

Andrew Sterling!

They hurried, and rushed, got the best lawyers and did everything to get their daughter out that night, but no matter how good their lawyers were, they couldn’t get Clara released that night.

The lawyers had to stay up all night, asking for all the evidence found against Clara which prompted her to be detained. The police went on to explain that they hadn’t found anything in CCTV footages which was a clear indication that someone had deliberately tampered with them intending to commit a crime that night, they also went on to show the lawyers the test reports which was the solid evidence that carried the whole case. Later on, Clara’s lawyers requested a re-test of the liquid that proved Clara guilty, their test came out clean and they had rushed to the station but the police adamantly refused to release Clara until they had tested it again for themselves claiming Clara’s lawyers could have rigged things.

It had taken all night before the station brought out their own test results and apologized for a mistake in the initial test that they had taken as evidence.

It was clear to everyone that someone in power had wanted to put Clara through this whole thing, but the Hastings couldn’t do anything to fight back, at least not against that person.

When Clara was escorted out of the station, she looked haggard, her hair was brittle and unkept one would think she had been in there for a year, there were no bruises that indicated physical torture, but looking into her eyes that looked half dead, one would think she had experienced the most painful thing in the world. She was shaking and shivering even in the shining sun outside, hugging her arms to herself like someone who’d just been brought out of Antarctica.

Clara’s mother was a beautiful woman in her late forties, having been born into the high class had ingrained elegance into her bones, but she almost broke out in a cry of fury seeing her precious daughter in that state.

Clara couldn’t feel any warmth even as she was stuffed into the car where the heater was immediately started up and a blanket was wrapped around her body.

"Why are shivering like this Clara, was it that cold in there?" Her mother asked panickedly unable to bear how much her daughter was shaking even when she was already in warmth.

Clara opened her mouth as if to answer, but her teeth were clattering so hard the sound echoed within the car. In the end no words came out of her mouth. Her lips were dry and looked lightly purple, and she was sweating profusely despite shaking like that.

"What did those lowly bastards do to you? This isn’t a natural cold. Henry, quick take us to the hospital." Ingrid Hastings immediately ordered their driver when the sight of Clara’s condition seemed to get worse. "If anything happens to my daughter I’ll make sure to take all of them down. Don’t worry darling, Mom’s here with you." Ingrid hugged her daughter tightly in the car giving her warmth.

Clara merely laid in her mother’s arms, her eyes which were vacant and lost turned hateful, so deeply hateful one would think she could kill someone at this very moment.

’Good, very good Andrew.’ she thought internally. ’You have already told me what you want to say. You already know, you know that I’ve always wanted you and today you’ve told me who it is you want, who you want to protect, who you want to fight for to the extent you take revenge for her. So you’ve known, you already know what I did to her and you quietly waited for the day you would punish me for her.’

Clara suddenly chuckled, the sound harsh and dry, her throat was parched so the sound was grating to the ear. Ingrid was frightened at first that Clara was suddenly laughing like that.

It sounded so scary she moved back looking in Clara’s face with bewilderment and hints of fear.

Clara was laughing, her teeth were clattering and tears were pouring down from her eyes. She looked like a newly possessed person from a horror movie.

"Clara..?" Ingrid called but Clara seemed too far lost. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"I became beautiful...I became.. beautiful a long time ago, and... and everyone started to like...like me, everyone started to want me...but you... everyone...wants me..." She spoke to herself but it was as if she was seeing someone in front of her whom she was talking to in an empty space and no one was there. Ingrid Hastings felt a strange cold engulf her whole body completely as she watched her daughter act deranged.

"What are you saying Clara?" Ingrid cried, her worry for her daughter evident in her voice.

"...years...all these years you could...you should want me by now...but it’s her...she...she stole you...she stole you from...from me!"

"Please hurry Henry, get to the hospital as fast as you can!" Ingrid ordered the driver in a harsh voice feeling scared for her daughter.

She hoped, no she prayed that there wouldn’t be a repeat of what happened to Clara years ago.

A long time ago Clara had been just like she was now and disaster had followed, it had taken years to heal her and get her back to normal.

’Hold on my dear, I won’t let you go back to the person you used to be.’ Ingrid promised internally.

All night, Clara had experienced a nightmare. The policemen had kept her in a dark room, a very dark room where she couldn’t see a thing. She couldn’t see her own skin in that kind of darkness.

Clara’s deepest fears came from pitch blackness because there had once been a time she had almost lost herself to the darkness in her mind, but she had been pulled out.

The darkness they plunged her into didn’t seem to be enough, she began to hear voices, along with that came a strange kind of cold, it felt like it was seeping into her through the walls itself, creeping into her skin slowly. The cold slowly became unbearable.

It was deliberate torture someone had made the police put her through, the kind of torture that person knew could break her.

Clara was in a literal nightmare all night. A nightmare so cold and painful.

The cold wouldn’t subside, it slowly got worse and in that endless darkness she had fallen to the floor and it had felt like pure ice, it was as if she was a small item, kept in a refrigerator as the temperature slowly rose higher and higher till it became unbearable she felt like her hair was slowly becoming icicles.

Refrigerator? Her mind suddenly echoed.

She recalled she had done something like this to someone before, she had played a little trick that put that woman in a cold room, back then she had never thought she would one day understand what it felt like to experience so much cold one would want to tear off their own skin and use it as a blanket if only it would make this unbearable cold go away, if only it would offer some warmth.

It was at that moment as she had almost passed out from the unbearable chilliness that it had settled in her head.

Andrew...

This was all his doing, and he had done it for Anne.

It was at that moment that Clara realized that the girl who had come into their lives just a few months ago had fully and utterly stolen the man’s heart, it was at that moment she had felt utter defeat. And that defeat had driven Clara’s mind into a dark place, a place that thought of destruction and blood...