She's Coming for Her Heart

The sound of the shovel striking the earth was especially harsh in the night. I stared at the Rose Garden before me, my fingertips clenched white with tension. Avril Atlante's heart must lie here. My employees dared not slacken; shovels whipped through the earth, soil clinging to the rose roots as it was flung aside. Red petals fell upon the mound of earth, stained like congealed blood. I kicked aside the toppled bushes, my voice harsh with fury: "Keep digging! We'll turn this place upside down to find it!" When Avril's grandmother was brought here, she was still murmuring to herself. The old woman wore a thin cotton coat, her hair wild and tangled like dead grass. I stepped forward, clasped her chin with a grip neither gentle nor harsh: "Tell me, where is Avril's heart?" Her eyes were vacant, her gaze fixed on the distant rose bushes, endlessly repeating, "Avril, my Avril..." I sneered coldly, gesturing toward the snow-covered field beyond the garden: "Speak now, or I'll throw you in there." "Just like your granddaughter, frozen stiff into an ice block." She trembled slightly but still could not utter a single complete word. At that moment, Dr. Versta, the hospital president, rushed over, his face paler than the snow. He grasped my arm, his voice urgent: "Mr. Scott, stop digging... You can't dig any deeper!" I tore my hand away sharply, my knuckles paling from the strain. "Do you dare stop me?" Dr. Versta staggered, pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase, and handed them to me with trembling hands: "Mr. Scott, please look... Miss Atlante and her mother have long been gone." I fixed my gaze on the papers, refusing to accept them, my throat constricting: "What did you say?" "Avril's mother May Atlante served as Miss Lincoln's drug trial subject last year," Dr. Versta's voice trembled, "The drug reaction was too intense; she suffered for three days and nights and did not survive." "And what about Avril?" I cut him off; my heart was seized in a crushing grip. Dr. Versta bowed his head even lower: "Miss Atlante... was dissolved by sulfuric acid six months ago; not a trace of bone remained at the scene." "The only thing left... was her heart. She had registered as an organ donor beforehand, and now..." I snatched the papers from him, my fingertips trembling fiercely. The characters on the paper twisted and writhed like crawling worms; I couldn't decipher a single one. "Impossible!" I screamed, hurling the papers violently to the ground. "This is Avril's cruel deception!" "She must be hiding somewhere, watching me with scorn!" Dr. Versta tried to speak, but the ruthless glare in my eyes silenced him. I turned back to the Rose Garden, picked up the shovel from the ground, and began digging with my own hands. Soil splattered across my suit, but I paid it no heed. Avril Atlante, you cannot fool me. Your heart is surely here. I will find it—I will make you come out and face me.