Sirens wailed outside as the fire brigade and ambulance arrived. Firefighters stormed the hallway, suppressing the flames, while paramedics rushed in with a stretcher.
Amid the chaos, I watched them lift Derek onto the gurney. His face was twisted in agony, a mask of pure suffering. I felt nothing but cold amusement.
A debt from a past life, repaid in this one.
Hadn't he wanted to wait for his "department beauty" to save him?
Well, he got exactly what he wished for.
Derek Finch's wails echoed through the hospital corridor. I laughed.
In my past life, I'd be lying in the bed next to him right now, mummified in bandages, foolish enough to expect his gratitude—waiting for a "thank you" that would never come.
Not this time. I stood outside the emergency room, completely unscathed.
The girl who "saved" him had a death grip on a nurse's arm, her voice sharp enough to shatter glass.
"Hey! Don't walk away! That guy hasn't paid me yet! Two million! He said he'd give me two million!"
The nurse looked ready to snap. "Miss, the patient is severely burned and unconscious. He needs immediate trauma care. Get out of the way!"
"No! If he dies, who am I supposed to get the money from?" She actually lunged for the stretcher. "I risked my life for this!"
Watching her claw at the dying man, her face twisted with greed, I couldn't reconcile her with the "Department Beauty" Derek had hallucinated about.
I shook my head and turned to the police officers.
As the sole eyewitness, I laid out the facts exactly as they happened—especially the most crucial detail: Derek had refused my help.
"He was lucid," I told the officer. "He explicitly rejected my rescue attempt because he was waiting for the 'Department Beauty' to save him."
I also described how the other girl's clumsy dragging caused the secondary explosion.
The young officer frowned. "Let me get this straight. The victim was conscious, and he refused to be rescued?"
"Yes. He insisted on waiting. The hallway surveillance cameras will back me up. I didn't abandon him—he sent me away."
The officers exchanged baffled looks.
After finishing my statement, I stepped back into the corridor just in time to run into Derek's parents.
In my previous life, Vincent and Isabella Finch had despised me. They picked apart every aspect of my existence, claiming my common background made me unworthy of their "genius" son.