Then he casually picked up a cup of dirty water that had been sitting beside the cleaning supplies and poured it onto the carpet in front of me.
"You want your grandma to live? Sure."
"See, in a modern, rational society, it's survival of the fittest. Nobody needs superstitious old deadweight like her."
He pointed at the puddle of filthy water on the floor. "But hey, I'm a generous guy."
"Get on your knees right now. Lick that clean. Then sign the papers. And maybe, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll let her live one more night."
The room went deathly silent.
Manager Lambert and the others wore expressions of barely concealed anguish, but with the bodyguards standing right there, none of them dared to move.
All they could do was bury their heads a little lower.
I lay sprawled on the floor, trembling from head to toe.
My dignity had been ground into the mud beneath their feet.
But I couldn't let my grandmother die. She was the only family I had left in this world.
In the depths of my despair, I lifted my bloodshot eyes and fixed them on Beverly, who stood off to the side, utterly unmoved.