Twenty minutes later, Victoria walked past Beatrice’s room and heard a heavy thud.
“Beatrice?” she called out.
Silence.
Victoria tried the door. Locked. She didn’t hesitate. She ran to the master bedroom, grabbed the heavy iron fire poker, and ran back. With two violent swings, she smashed the lock mechanism and kicked the door open.
Beatrice was slumped on the tile floor, her breathing shallow, an empty bottle beside her hand.
“No, no, no,” Victoria gasped. She dropped to her knees. “Maya! Get up here!”
Maya Khan sprinted in moments later with her medical bag. “Check her airway. She took sedatives. We need to purge the stomach.”
For the next ten minutes, the bathroom was a chaotic scene of medical intervention. Maya administered an emetic while Victoria held Beatrice upright, forcing her to vomit the toxins before they could stop her heart.
Finally, Beatrice gasped, drawing a ragged, clear breath. She looked up at Victoria, tears streaming down her face.
“Why?” Beatrice wept. “Let me go. I ruined it. Cross knows.”
Victoria didn’t judge her. She didn’t recoil. She pulled the broken matriarch into her arms, holding her tight on the cold floor.
“You don’t get the easy way out, Beatrice,” Victoria whispered fiercely. “We are going to fix this. But you have to stand up. We need you.”