Chapter 328

Celeste Harper clamped her eyes shut, bracing for the pain—but it never came. At first, she thought maybe the pain was just too intense and her body had gone numb. But then, with a loud thud, something heavy hit the floor right in front of her, stirring the air enough to slap her face back into awareness. Opening her eyes, she met a chilling scene: in the pitch-dark room, Nora Murray had collapsed before her. Eyes wide open in horror, a smirk still stiff on her lips, frozen in disbelief. Smoke curled up from a burn on her back, filling the room with the acrid stench of scorched flesh and fabric. Thick, black blood soaked the carpet in a slow crawl. “Nora…” A man—her exact lookalike—called her name, then immediately turned around as if to bolt. Then came a sharp whisper through the air. Celeste watched in stunned silence as something darted through the shadows and planted itself in the man’s back—a sleek, silver cylinder, shaped just like a hospital syringe. She recognized it. Ethan Sha