Tethered Spirit: Bound To My Murderer Husband

My son was dying in my arms, and the man who should have been saving him was likely choosing an engagement ring for another woman.

I rushed Jeremy to the Emergency Room, his small body heavy and limp against my chest. But the person blocking the sliding doors wasn’t a doctor. It was Yvonne, my fiancé Benedict's new lover.

She looked at my desperate, rain-soaked face and sneered.

"Don't ruin my night with your drama," she hissed. "Benedict is busy."

She and her brother shoved me back onto the wet floor. My son died on the cold tiles of the entrance. My heart gave out moments later, unable to bear the grief.

When Benedict finally walked past our bodies, he didn't even look at our faces. He crumpled up the note I had written begging for help and tossed it into the trash.

"Unbelievable," he muttered. "She uses the kid as an excuse to interrupt my shift again."

He stepped over his own dead son to go to a party.

But I didn't disappear. I became a ghost, invisible and tethered to him by an unbreakable chain. I watched him laugh with the woman who killed us. I watched him live his perfect life while I floated in the void.

Until he found the autopsy report. Until he saw the date of birth. Until he found the broken locket in the evidence bag engraved with *Benedict & Ava*.

Now, he spends every night crying into the dark, begging for a forgiveness he will never get.

He thinks he is simply haunted. He has no idea he is paying a blood debt that will never end.

Chapter 1

Ava POV

My son was dying in my arms, and the man who should have been saving him was likely choosing an engagement ring for another woman.

The rain slashed against my face like shards of ice, blurring the neon sign of the Emergency Room. Jeremy was heavy, a dead weight against my chest, his small legs dangling limp. His lips were the color of a bruised plum.

"Just breathe, baby. Just breathe for Mommy."

I tried to check my phone again, hoping for a miracle, but the screen remained a stubborn, black mirror. Dead battery. Just like my luck. Just like my hope.

I stumbled toward the sliding glass doors, my lungs burning as if I had swallowed fire. I knew this hospital. I knew who worked here. Benedict had mentioned it once, casually, while he was putting on his tie in the morning, telling me about his new fiancée, Yvonne. She was a nurse here.

The irony tasted like bile in my throat.

I burst through the entrance, dripping wet, looking like a madwoman.

"Help!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "Please, someone help my son!"

People turned. Heads shook. But the person who stepped forward wasn't a doctor. It was her. Yvonne.

She stood there in her crisp blue scrubs, looking impeccable despite the chaos of the ER. Beside her was her brother, Francis, who looked more like a club bouncer than a human being in a place of healing.

"Yvonne!" I rushed toward her, nearly tripping over my own feet. "Please. It's Jeremy. A snake bit him. He's not breathing right."

Yvonne looked at me. She did not look at the dying boy in my arms. She looked at my wet hair, my cheap coat, my desperate eyes. A slow, cold sneer spread across her face.

"Well, look who decided to show up," she said, her voice low and venomous.

"Please," I begged, shifting Jeremy's weight. "He feels cold. You have to get a doctor. You have to tell Benedict."

"Don't you dare say his name," she hissed.

She took a step back, as if I were contagious. Francis stepped in front of her, crossing his massive arms.

"The ER is full," Francis grunted. "Go to the county hospital."

"That's twenty minutes away!" I screamed. "He doesn't have twenty minutes!"

Yvonne inspected her fingernails.

"You should have thought about that before you decided to play the victim card tonight," she said. "Benedict is busy. We have a party to get to later. Do not ruin my night with your drama."

"This isn't drama! This is his son!"

Yvonne laughed. It was a dry, sharp sound.

"So you say. Everyone knows you're just a gold-digger who trapped him. That boy is probably some bastard you're trying to pin on the Sinclair family."

She linked her arm through Francis's, turning her back on me.

"Get her out of here, Francis. She's disturbing the patients."

Francis shoved me. Hard.

I stumbled back, my shoes slipping on the wet floor. I fell to my knees, but I did not let go of Jeremy. I took the impact on my elbows, a jolt of pain shooting up my arms, but I kept his head from hitting the tile.

A nurse walking by stopped, her eyes wide with shock.

"Yvonne?" The nurse started. "Should we—"

"Mind your business, Sarah," Yvonne snapped. "She's just a junkie looking for drugs."

I crawled toward the corner, huddled against the wall. The world seemed to be narrowing down to a pinhole. I looked down at Jeremy.

His chest was not moving.

"No. No, no, no."

I remembered Benedict handing Yvonne a ruby pendant weeks ago. He had told her it was a family heirloom. He had promised her the world. He had told me nothing. He had hidden me away like a dirty secret because his mother was strict, because he was weak, because he loved the idea of Yvonne more than the reality of us.

Yvonne walked back over, looming over me.

"Get out," she said. "Don't make me call security. Take your little bastard and leave."

I looked at her, really looked at her, and I realized she did not hate me because of a misunderstanding. She hated me because I existed.

I looked back at Jeremy. A line of white foam was trickling from the corner of his mouth. His body gave one violent, terrible jerk, and then went still.

It was a silence louder than the storm outside.

I pulled him closer, rocking back and forth on the cold floor.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into his wet hair. "I am so sorry Mommy couldn't save you."