Mated To The Crippled Alpha-Chapter 237: The Girl in Wax

What stood in front of me looked exactly like me.

At first, I thought it was a mirror. But it wasn’t. It was a wax figure, crafted so perfectly that my stomach turned. The height, the shape of the shoulders, the curve of the lips, even the faint lines on the hands everything was mine. The skin didn’t look like wax. It looked real. Too real. Whoever made it had copied every detail with frightening precision.

But it was the eyes that froze me in place.

They weren’t dull or glassy like fake display models. They looked alive. Warm. Aware. They stared back at me the same way I would stare at my own reflection.

No artist could create eyes like that.

Then the realization hit me like a blade to the chest.

Those were my eyes.

Rage exploded inside me so fast my jaw tightened painfully. My hands trembled as I stared at that grotesque version of myself. How could they be so cruel? What had I done to deserve this? It wasn’t enough that they killed me. They couldn’t even let me rest. Instead of a burial, instead of dignity, they turned me into a display. A twisted art piece.

Tears blurred my vision as I slowly lifted my hand and reached toward the figure. My fingertips hovered over the eyes my eyes and dread crept into my chest.

If they took my eyes... what else had they taken?

My organs?

Had they carved me up and turned the rest of me into those disgusting decorations I had seen earlier? The beads made of intestines. The cold, lifeless pieces of someone’s body treated like objects.

My breathing became shallow as my fingers brushed lightly against the wax eyelids.

And then the voices came. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Hurry, she’s not dead yet. Take her heart."

"The surgery went well."

"She’s gone? What a pity. Silas didn’t hold back. Such a beautiful face, ruined."

"Peel off her skin. We can make a book from it. The rest will do for a drum."

"Her eyes are beautiful. Let’s preserve them for a wax figure."

"Send the remaining organs back to her family."

The words echoed inside my head like distorted memories underwater. I didn’t recognize the voices, but they felt familiar in a way that terrified me. Like the final sounds I heard before everything went dark the first time I died.

The pain in my head grew sharper, drilling into my skull. The voices overlapped, louder and louder, until it felt like my mind was splitting apart. I clutched my head with both hands, shaking.

"No..." I whispered weakly.

"Riley! What’s wrong?"

Lewis’s voice cut through the noise, and suddenly I was pulled into his arms. I buried my face in his chest, crying uncontrollably. My tears soaked through his shirt, but I couldn’t stop. The ringing in my ears became unbearable. It felt like something invisible was tugging at me, dragging me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

Like my soul was being pulled away again.

"Carl... it hurts. Please... let’s go..." I tried to say, but before I could finish, darkness swallowed me whole.

When I opened my eyes again, I was looking down.

Lewis was beneath me, holding my body tightly in his arms.

If he was holding me... then who was I?

I lifted my hands slowly. They looked translucent, familiar in a different way. This was how I had looked before when I was nothing but a wandering spirit. I had separated again. I wasn’t inside Riley’s body anymore.

Panic exploded inside me.

"No... no, no, no." I rushed toward my own body. I had fought so hard to return. I refused to go back to being nothing. I tried to push myself back into Riley’s body, but it was like hitting a wall. Something blocked me. I couldn’t get in.

Lewis had already placed my body in the car. His face was pale, his hands trembling as he held me. Julian stood nearby, still calm, still unaware of what was really happening.

"Don’t worry," Julian said lightly. "Elena just fainted. She’ll wake up."

But Lewis wasn’t calm. He remembered. He had seen my soul leave before. He knew this wasn’t normal. His fear was written all over his face.

"Elena, don’t leave me," he whispered desperately. "Please... don’t go."

I tried to touch his face, to wipe away the panic in his eyes. My hand passed straight through him. I screamed his name, but my voice didn’t reach him.

I tried again and again to return to my body, but nothing worked.

If I couldn’t go back... Riley’s body would eventually become nothing more than an empty shell.

How did it end up like this?

If I had known that going there would cause this, I would never have stepped foot in that place. I paced frantically around the car, around my own unconscious body, searching for answers. There had to be a way back.

At the hospital, doctors rushed around me. Machines beeped steadily. They ran tests, scanned my brain, checked my heart.

"She’s only unconscious," one doctor said, confused. "Her heart rate is stable. Everything looks normal."

"Then why won’t she wake up?" another muttered.

They had no explanation.

Julian began to look uneasy, but he still believed it was stress. Lewis didn’t. He never left my side that night. He sat beside the hospital bed, holding my hand, brushing his thumb gently across my cheek.

"Elena... can you hear me?" he whispered.

"I can hear you," I cried desperately. "I’m right here."

But I was invisible. Untouchable. Alone.

The loneliness crushed me. I had felt warmth again. I had known Lewis’s arms, his voice, his presence. Now I was trapped outside of it. The cold felt unbearable.

Suddenly, Lewis lifted his head slightly, his eyes scanning the empty space in the room.

"Elena... are you here?"

My heart if I even had one tightened. I moved closer to him.

"I’m here," I whispered.

He stood up abruptly. "Theo, bring me candles."

Julian looked confused. "Uncle, what are you doing?"

Lewis didn’t answer. He lit three candles and told Theo to turn off the lights. The hospital room fell into darkness, illuminated only by the soft glow of flickering flames. Shadows danced across his face.

"Elena," he said firmly, staring into the empty air. "If you’re here, blow out the candle."

Julian stared at him like he had lost his mind. "You think her soul left Riley’s body?"

Lewis’s eyes didn’t move. He was looking straight at me.

"I have a feeling," he said quietly. "She’s here."

I felt something inside me break and mend at the same time. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

I focused with everything I had. I gathered every ounce of strength, pushing it toward the small flames.

The first candle flickered wildly.

Then it went out.

The second followed.

And then the third.

Darkness filled the room.