Chapter 230 Pain That Doesn’t Heal
The air inside Ella’s mansion was thick with tension, the kind that wrapped around your lungs and made it hard to breathe. As Dickson stepped through the doorway, the first thing he saw was chaos—not the noisy, violent kind, but the dreadful, helpless kind. Liam lay shirtless on the couch, his body convulsing uncontrollably. Bandages were wrapped tightly around his lower abdomen, just above his waist, but they were soaked through with dark, fresh blood. His skin was pale, glistening with sweat, and his eyes were open wide, staring blankly ahead, unfocused, the whites clearly visible. Every muscle in his body twitched as though he were being electrocuted from the inside out.
Ann and Ella were crouched beside him, both trying desperately to hold him down. His movements were erratic, powerful, and completely involuntary, forcing them to use all their strength just to keep him from falling off the couch or injuring himself further.
As the door slammed shut behind them, Ella looked up, her expression strained and desperate.
"Lana," she gasped, her voice cracking. "He’s been twitching like this for the past five minutes. It’s gotten worse. Much worse."
Lana didn’t waste a second. She dropped her laptop onto the marble coffee table, the loud thud echoing across the room, then rushed to Liam’s side. Her hands hovered above his body for just a second before she dropped to her knees next to him.
Dickson followed quickly behind, halting in his tracks as he got a proper look at Liam. His eyes widened with horror. This wasn’t a scrape or even a bullet wound. This was something else entirely—and it was killing his best friend right before his eyes.
"Good Lord," he muttered, voice thick with disbelief. "What the hell happened to him?"
Without waiting for an answer, he dropped beside Liam, opposite Lana, and took over from Ella. His hands wrapped firmly around Liam’s wrists and shoulders, pinning him down with strength and stability that came naturally to him. Liam continued to tremble, but the wild twitching was subdued under Dickson’s grip.
Lana pressed her hand over the center of the wound, the blood warm and sticky against her skin. She expected to feel it pulse harder, to bleed more beneath her fingers. But instead, something strange happened. The bleeding began to slow.
Then it stopped entirely.
And just like that, the shaking halted too. Liam’s muscles relaxed as if someone had flipped a switch. His breathing remained shallow, but steady. The chaotic noise of the room seemed to hush all at once.