Chapter 78

A few minutes later, Williams had reluctantly given in to her caregiver’s bizarre method. The logic was simple, even if humiliating: if forcing her injured arm into movement required psychological tricks, she would endure it. She kept repeating it to herself. Evelyn will disappear when the contract ends. This is temporary.

She is temporary. But her arm wasn’t.

If it did not recover, she would have to leave the city, vanish until she healed. And she could not allow that. Not after all she went through.

So, she sat down at the table, one arm tied behind her, while her injured arm rested on the wood in front of her. Evelyn adjusted the last knot and stepped back, glowing with satisfaction.

“Good!” she said, her voice bright and entirely too cheerful. She placed the bowl of steaming fish soup before Williams and cleaned the spilled crumbs from the marble, humming softly. “You are served. This soup has a lot of protein in it; I am sure it will help you heal faster.”

Williams watched every graceful, efficient movement with a despair she could not hide. It was not just the enforced disability; it was enduring Evelyn’s moment of righteous triumph, her face luminous with purpose.

Evelyn returned, holding the ladle. “You have two choices, Doctor Williams. You can try to eat by yourself, or I will have to feed you. Either way, you must finish everything.” She placed a glass of water beside the unused teacup.

“I’m not hungry,” Williams managed, her throat tight.

Evelyn tilted her head, her smile sharpening. “Every time I raise the spoon to your mouth, you are going to open it and eat.”

“No, wait…”

“Open.”

“Wait a minute!” Williams pleaded, her voice cracking with the sheer, pathetic reality of her helplessness.

Evelyn did not wait. With one hand, she gently secured Williams’s chin, and with the other, she inserted the spoon past the barrier of the doctor’s clenched lips. The touch startled Williams far more than the soup did.

“There,” Evelyn murmured. “Good girl.”

Williams’s face burned. “Don’t… call me that.”

Her authoritative tone couldn’t stop the ritual as it continued. Each spoonful was a micro-aggression, a tiny, forced act of surrender. Williams struggled painfully with the impulse to pull away, to lash out, but the rope restricted all sudden movement. She was trapped, enduring the strange intimacy of being fed by the woman she wanted most to dominate.

The bowl was half empty. Still, the arm had not moved. She looked at the inert hand, then at the bright face of her captor.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Williams whispered, defeated. Her composure cracked, just a fraction. It was the first time Evelyn had seen such an unfiltered expression of misery. Her arm had not moved once, despite the intense psychological pressure. It’s over, Williams thought. The nerve is damaged. The great Dr. Niran Williams is done.

Evelyn stopped, put the spoon down, and reached out. Her fingers landed gently on Williams’s inert, cool skin. “Williams, it’s going to be okay.”

Warmth surged, too fast, too deep.

“You don’t have to touch me,” Williams said, trying to pull her hand away.

And that is when it happened.

The fingers of her injured hand twitched, a faint, unmistakable muscular response beneath Evelyn’s touch.

Evelyn gasped and jumped back. “Williams, your hand moved!”

Williams looked down, stunned. Her fingers bent in a fleeting, agonizing contortion before a sudden, pounding pain struck her shoulder, twisting the muscle.

“Ahhh!” she cried, the sound raw and involuntary.

“Are you okay?”

“A muscle spasm! I’m in pain. Untie me quickly and get me a painkiller!”

Evelyn rushed to obey. Williams stumbled toward the bedroom, shaking her freed hand, followed closely by Evelyn. In the room, Evelyn poured water. Williams snatched the glass, swallowing a tablet without looking at her.

“So, it was psychological,” Evelyn whispered.

“Possible,” Williams replied, avoiding her eyes.

“Did my touch trigger it?”

Williams’s head snapped up. She bristled, the question too close to the burgeoning truth. “No! What are you thinking? You hurt me. Now leave me alone. I want to rest.” She directed Evelyn toward the exit, adding with sarcastic venom, “Please.”

Her tone was cold, but her ears were burning red. And Evelyn noticed.

“Alright.” She stepped back, then added with a sly curve of her lips, “Maybe I should touch you more often.”

Williams rubbed her temple. “It’s nothing special, and you are not a psychologist. Leave me. I want to rest. It’s getting late.”

Once Evelyn was gone, Williams sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her twitching fingers. Evelyn’s crude method had worked. Was she really that terrified of dependency, of humiliation?

She rose and walked to the bathroom, removing her clothes. The hot water of the bath enveloped her, softening her tight muscles. In the steam, the quiet images she did not want returned. Her body resting on Evelyn’s, her breath, her lips.

She shook her head violently, but her brain would not relinquish the memory, the softness, the soap scent, the intimate, panicked haze of Evelyn’s gaze.

Williams usually avoided physical contact, repelled by the idea of another person’s perspiration or proximity. But Evelyn’s touch was different. It was clean, warm, and currently the single stimulus that breached her paralysis.

If I had pressed my body harder between those legs, would she have felt it? Williams thought, horrified by the trajectory of her own mind.

“ENOUGH,” she hissed, plunging her head into the bathwater, trying to drown her infected thoughts and return to clinical reason.

She emerged dressed in a sleek black silk nightgown and looked at herself in the mirror.

“What if I try her method… again?”

She needed to understand the mechanics, to strip the result of any emotional context. She searched for a rope. Painfully, she tried to tie her good hand behind her back as Evelyn had done earlier, but could not manage the knots with one hand.

She scanned the room, frustrated, then had an idea. She moved to the head of the bed, sat down, and, using her teeth, managed to secure her wrist tightly to the mahogany frame. Once locked, she stared at the inert right hand.

For long minutes, she focused, willing the fingers to move and retrieve a discarded pen lying on the coverlet.

“Come on, Williams. You can do it. Focus. Niran.”

Nothing.

Discouraged and disappointed, she took a deep breath, resigned herself to failure, and leaned back against the headboard to rest.

And then her hand moved. A slight, involuntary ripple across the knuckles.

Wait, she thought, her eyes widening. She reflected quickly. I need to relax. No need to force it.

She tried again, softer this time.

Slowly, her fingers began to move.

“Yes!” She laughed breathlessly, a fierce, triumphant smile spreading across her face. “Nothing escapes Dr. Niran Williams!”

Her perseverance paid off. After countless attempts, she was succeeding. The pain was still a sharp anchor, but she was forcing the muscle memory back. Satisfied, she used her recovering hand to drag her laptop closer. She had to practice. She took the opportunity to continue her initial research on Yada, anything to distract her from the forbidden thoughts creeping back.

Meanwhile, Evelyn remained awake in the kitchen. She used to ensure Williams slept peacefully, lights off, and covers in place. She felt a strange mix of sympathy and resentment for the doctor. What would become of her if she lost the one thing that defined her pride?

At this hour, she should be sleeping, Evelyn thought, finishing her hot chocolate.

She slowly walked up to Williams’s room. As she approached the closed door, she heard strange, muffled sounds coming from inside. Curiosity overcame caution. She opened the door slowly, quietly.

The scene that greeted her was utterly shocking.

Williams sat on the bed in her silk nightgown, damp skin glowing, hair clinging to her neck. One hand was tied to the bedframe again. The other, her injured one, rested shakily on her laptop.

But what shook Evelyn was not the scene itself.

It was the voice echoing from the speakers.

“Ahh… yes… don’t stop… harder, please…”

Williams froze. Her eyes flew to the door, wide with horror. She tried with all her strength to slam the laptop shut, to click the stop button, but the sudden stress caused her motor skills to shut down. Her fingers seized up, frozen above the keyboard.

When she looked toward Evelyn, her eyes were wide, shocked, and entirely comprehending.

“I… I…” Williams stammered, her voice gone, her composure utterly annihilated.

Evelyn stood frozen, face burning, heart racing wildly. She shut the door as calmly as she could, the latch clicking with deliberate quiet. She walked back to her own room, entered, and closed the door. She lay down and pulled the coverlet over her head, trying to erase both the visual and the sound.

Was Williams watching an adult movie? she thought, struggling to process the private mess she had just witnessed.

For her part, Williams finally managed to untie herself with her numb hand and violently slammed the laptop shut. How could she escape this profound, total humiliation? That was it. The rebel was going to think she was a pervert. First, she burst into her room and stared at her half-naked, and now she was caught watching…

She threw the sheet over her head and turned off the light.

Then, faintly, the voice in her mind echoed again.

It doesn’t matter; nothing is above Doctor Niran…

“No, not now!” Williams yelled into the darkness.

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