I lay curled on the damp, sweat-soaked mattress, shivering uncontrollably. My teeth rattled against one another in frantic, involuntary bursts. Above me, the chandelier—an ostentatious, imitation-crystal monstrosity that Denise had insisted on hanging when she moved into our home uninvited eighteen months ago—swayed in double vision.

The bedroom door didn’t simply swing open; it met the adjoining plaster wall with a violent crack that echoed down the hallway.

“Still not dead? Get up and cook dinner, you worthless woman!”

Denise stood in the threshold, her face contorted into that familiar mask of theatrical disgust. Her hair was perfectly set in rigid, chemically lacquered waves, her manicure freshly done in garish crimson. She looked like a vulture perched on the ruins of someone else’s dignity.

Behind her stood Ethan. My husband. The man I had promised five years ago to love in sickness and in health. He wore a crisp, tailored ivory dress shirt, sleeves neatly rolled to his forearms, gold cufflinks catching the dim bedroom light. He was scrolling absentmindedly through his smartphone, his eyes flickering toward me for a fraction of a second before darting away, as though looking at his wife were an unpleasant chore on a Sunday afternoon.

“Ethan,” I managed to croak. My vocal cords were swollen, vibrating with a dry, pitiful rasp. “Please… call an ambulance. I can’t… I can’t stand up. The fever won’t break.”

Ethan didn’t move an inch. He didn’t even put his phone in his pocket. He simply exhaled a heavy, exasperated sigh.

“Don’t start with the melodrama, Claire,” he said, his tone flat, exhausted by my very existence. “Mom has had a headache all afternoon, and I’ve been running the floor at the restaurant since seven in the morning. You’ve been lying in bed all day doing nothing. The least you can do is make something light for dinner. Some roasted chicken and vegetables. It doesn’t take a medical degree to turn on an oven.”

“Ethan, it’s a hundred and four,” I whispered, tears of pure physical agony burning the corners of my eyes. “I threw up an hour ago. My kidneys ache.”

Denise let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter. She marched toward the king-sized bed, her low heels digging harshly into the wool carpet. “A hundred and four! Listen to the little princess! When I was carrying Ethan’s elder brother, I had double pneumonia, pleurisy, and a gallbladder infection all at once! Did I lay in bed crying? No! I scrubbed the floors on my hands and knees and made three courses for my husband’s partners! You young women today are made of paper and excuses!”

Before I could pull away, Denise’s bony, manicured fingers clamped onto the corner of the heavy down duvet. With a vicious, practiced jerk, she ripped the blankets entirely off my body.

The conditioned air of the master suite hit my exposed, fever-drenched skin like a wave of liquid nitrogen. A sharp, animal whimper escaped my lips as violent spasms wracked my spine. I curled instantly into the fetal position, wrapping my arms around my ribs, shivering so violently that the headboard rattled against the wall.

“Look at her,” Denise sneered, tossing the blankets onto the floor near the bathroom door. “A grown woman curling up like a dying dog. Get up! You think my son married you so you could be a decorative statue? You don’t bring in a single dime. You wear rags from discount racks. You drive a beat-up sedan that embarrasses him in front of his investors. The absolute bare minimum you can offer this household is hot food on the table!”

“Mom, leave her,” Ethan muttered, though there was zero compassion in his eyes—only pure inconvenience. “If she burns the roast, we’ll just order takeout. It’s not worth hearing her whine.”

“No!” Denise snapped, turning on him with blazing eyes. “She needs to know her place, Ethan! You let her walk all over you! She hasn’t even produced an heir after three years of marriage! A barren, penniless parasite—that’s what she is!”

She lunged forward, grabbing my right wrist. Her nails, filed into sharp almond points, bit directly into the tender flesh of my arm. She yanked upward with all her strength, intending to drag me bodily off the mattress.

A sharp, searing spike of pain flared through my shoulder. The room spun wildly; nausea rose in my throat like boiling bile.

“Let go of me,” I said.

The voice was no longer pleading. Despite the fever ravaging my nervous system, something cold, ancient, and unyielding snapped into place behind my ribs.