“Good. That’s what I like to hear. Margot made this meal for you. Say what you want, but she’s the only one still thinking about you. Be grateful.”
He tossed the food container on the table and left without another word.
That night, I picked up the brush again and painted until I was shaking. Hunger got the best of me eventually, so I caved and ate the meal.
So no, I wasn’t someone with unbreakable pride.
The next few days, it was the assistant who brought me food. I could barely see straight anymore, but I didn’t let myself stop. Not even for a second.
He said once we were even, I could go. So I kept painting—pouring everything I had into it.
Time blurred, and I just remember blood splattering on the canvas. I wiped my mouth, smearing the red across my hand, and kept painting like nothing had happened.
When I finally finished all twenty paintings, I told the assistant to send Darell a message, telling him I’m done and to come pick them up, and let me go.
I didn’t want to die in that rotting basement. The debt was paid. It was time to leave.
I had just drifted off to sleep on the squeaky cot when I heard his voice again—sharp and disgusted.
“This? You dare show me this and ask me to ‘check it over’? The colors, the composition—everything’s a mess!”
“Regina, you did this on purpose, didn’t you? You think putting out garbage like this won’t ruin Margot’s reputation? All those techniques I worked so hard to teach you—what, did you feed them to the dogs?” he thundered.
Regina's POV
I don’t know why, but my eyes drifted to his ring finger.
There was a ring on it now—silver and gleaming, shining so brightly that even through my blurred vision, it stood out like a spotlight.
He glanced over the paintings and flatly said, “Only this one with the roses is halfway decent. The rest? Complete garbage.”
His silhouette moved between the canvases, growing fuzzier and harder to follow. Eventually, I just closed my eyes.
“Darell,” I said quietly, “I can’t paint anymore. Please… let me go.”
I wasn’t lying. Maybe the tumor had grown too fast, too wild, clouding my eyes, fogging up my brain.
I couldn’t see clearly. I couldn’t paint well anymore.
“If I still owe you, I’ll pay it off in the next life,” I said. “But let me leave now. I just want to go somewhere with flowers.”
There was a long silence. Then I heard a laugh, sharp and mocking.