I came back to consciousness like someone breaking through frozen water.
Everything hurt.
The ceiling above me blurred and sharpened in uneven waves. My torso felt sewn together too tightly. Every breath pulled at something deep inside my abdomen. Oxygen slipped into my nose with a soft hiss. Machines kept rhythm beside me—beep, pause, beep—like a clock measuring how close I still was to the edge.
Then I heard her.
“I’m telling you, Doctor,” my mother said, calm and razor-sharp, the same tone she used when forcing her way through any situation. “Evan’s labs are worsening. If you remove her kidney now, you can save our son. She’s young. She’ll bounce back. She’s always been… difficult anyway.”
I didn’t move.
Some instinct—primal and protective—told me to stay still. To let them think I was gone.
A man’s voice answered, steady but tense. “Mrs. Palmer, organ donation requires explicit consent. Your daughter is not conscious enough to give that. And—”
“We are her parents,” she cut in. “We’ll sign.”
The air shifted.
“That’s not how this works,” the doctor replied, colder now. “Taking an organ from an incapacitated patient without consent is illegal. I won’t entertain this again.”
I caught the faint scent of my father’s cologne near the foot of my bed. Cedar. Clean. Expensive.
He didn’t say a word.
Not outrage.
Not disbelief.
Nothing.
My mother’s voice dropped lower, uglier because she believed I couldn’t hear.
“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “Evan is our future. Claire has always been a complication. Always fragile. Always needing something. If sacrificing one kidney saves him, then that’s the decision.”
My pulse slammed against my stitches.
Evan.
Sixteen. Thin. Tired from dialysis. He wasn’t my enemy.
He was her justification.
The doctor exhaled sharply. “I’m contacting the ethics board and documenting this conversation.”
My mother responded like she was smiling. “Do what you must. But don’t stand between a mother and her son.”
Footsteps moved away.
My father’s shoes followed.
Still silent.
The door clicked shut.
For several seconds, I lay there, listening to the machines and the rush of blood in my ears, wondering if pain had twisted reality into something monstrous.
Then I acted.
Slowly.
Carefully.
My fingers found the nurse-call button beneath the blanket.
I pressed it once.
Then again.
Short. Insistent.
The nurse entered moments later.
“Rachel,” I croaked, forcing one eye open. “Don’t tell them I’m awake.”
Her face drained of color. “Claire? You’re conscious?”
“Please,” I whispered. “I need my phone. And I need a patient advocate. Now.”
Her gaze darted toward the hallway, then back to me. Something in her expression shifted—from routine concern to quiet understanding.
“They think you’re still out,” she said softly.
“Good,” I breathed. “Let them.”
She nodded once and stepped closer.
“They won’t get away with this,” she murmured.
I swallowed carefully, every movement tearing through my side.
“They won’t,” I said. “Because they don’t know what I recorded.”
