I had just finished my check-up and stepped out through the glass doors of the hospital's outpatient building when a sudden, brutal force yanked my arm. I stumbled and crashed onto the cold tiled floor.

"You bitch! Have you no shame seducing men right inside a hospital?! I'll beat you to death today!" A woman in a mink coat grabbed my collar and dragged me aside, her nails scraping across my neck and leaving a burning sting.

"Since you like acting like a slut so much, why don't we let everyone get a good look at you?"

I struggled desperately, raising my voice in protest. "You've got the wrong person. I'm not a mistress!"

The woman shoved her phone right in front of my face. "How dare you deny it! Isn't this a photo of you with my husband?"

I fell silent as I looked at the man in the picture, for he was the leukemia patient I had just been matched with—the very one I was preparing to donate bone marrow to.

The Donor Accused

When I froze, Belinda Kingsley took my silence as confirmation. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my head toward the steps beside us. I just had several tubes of blood drawn, so I was already dizzy and weak. Her assault on me nearly knocked me unconscious.

"Don't play dumb. If you had the guts to seduce someone else's husband, then you should've seen this coming, too!"

Her grip tightened in my hair, yanking so hard it felt like my scalp was being torn off. I reached up and pried at her fingers, my nails digging into the back of her hand. She hissed in pain and flung me away, causing the back of my head to crack against the ground.

The crowd around us began to murmur.

"She looks so pretty. Who would've thought she'd do something so shameless?"

An older man spat in my direction. "Disgusting. Back in the old days, someone like her would've been dragged off for punishment!"

Now that they had people backing them up, Belinda and her mother, Karen Vossler, grew even more emboldened.

Karen yanked my coat open in one rough motion. "You wretched tramp, let everyone take a good look at you!" She grabbed my chin and forced my face toward the crowd, her nails digging into my cheeks.

Phones were raised. Cameras came so close they were practically pressed against my face. I twisted my head desperately, trying to avoid the lenses. Alas, I was too weak to break free.

"Stop this!" I shouted hoarsely, but my voice was swallowed by the surrounding noise.

My hands shook as I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out a document. "I'm a registered volunteer with the National Marrow Donor Registry. Your husband has leukemia—only he and I are a match!"

The crowd fell silent almost instantly, stepping back from the clearly about-to-explode keg.

"Oh… she's a donor? Then, this really might be a misunderstanding."

Belinda glanced at the paper in my hand, her movements turning hesitant.

I braced myself against the ground, about to stand up and explain everything properly. Unfortunately, Karen suddenly snatched the document away. She crumpled it into a ball in a few quick motions and threw it straight at my face.

"Belinda, you're not actually believing her, are you? George has always been perfectly healthy. How could he possibly have leukemia? You're his wife! You live with him every day. Wouldn't you have noticed?"

The hesitation on Belinda's face vanished instantly, replaced by fresh anger. She raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face. "I almost fell for your nonsense. My husband is perfectly fine. How dare you make up something like that to curse him!"

I endured the burning pain on my cheek and growled through clenched teeth, "Are you stupid? Call your husband and ask him if you don't believe me. We'll see who's lying, then!"

Belinda let out a sneer. "Fine. I'll call. Like my husband would ever lie to me."

She pulled her phone out of the designer bag hanging from her arm. After a few beeps, a woman's voice answered from the other end. "Hello? Mr. Coleman is in a meeting right now. May I be of assistance?"

Belinda's expression darkened instantly. She snapped into the phone, "Who gave you permission to touch my husband's phone? I'm not dead yet. So, who do you think you are, trying to take my place?"

Taken to the Station

A trace of unease crept into Belinda's voice as she continued, "By the way, let me ask you something—has there been anything wrong with my husband's health lately?"

There was a brief silence on the other end before the woman replied, "Mr. Coleman is in good health. His meeting is about to start, and I need to prepare the materials. Goodbye."

Belinda rolled her eyes in exasperation. "She hung up on me before I was even done talking. I'll have George fire her later!"

Karen chimed in from the side, "Exactly. Keeping someone like that around him is just asking for trouble sooner or later."

Belinda turned back to me. "Well? What else do you have to say now? Come on. You're going to the police station with me."

I almost laughed out of sheer disbelief.

This woman was a bimbo through and through, just without the beauty. That secretary clearly knew the truth; she just didn't want to spell it out for her.

The crowd began buzzing again.

"So it was fake? That certificate was probably printed at home."

"I knew it. What are the chances a volunteer just happens to run into the patient's family?"

"She looks so honest, too. I didn't expect her to be so calculating."

Belinda and her mother violently manhandled me into a taxi.

"Driver, take us to the nearest police station. I'm turning this rumor-spreading mistress over to the police."

The driver silently glanced at us through the rearview mirror and pressed the gas.

The moment we arrived and saw the police, Belinda grabbed my sleeve with one hand and pointed at my nose with the other. "Officer! This shameless woman seduced my husband. I caught her red-handed, and now she's even spreading rumors that my husband has leukemia!

"I want her arrested!"

Karen stood beside her, arms akimbo as she screeched loudly, "That's right! Homewreckers like her should be locked up for years! Officer, you have to stand up for us!"

The officer on duty was a young man in his early 30s, wearing glasses, still carrying a hint of the naivety of someone not long out of the academy.

He looked at me and saw the swollen bruise on my forehead, the red handprints across my cheek, and the smear of blood at the corner of my lips. I looked like a complete mess.

"Miss, are you alright?"

I took a deep breath and enunciated slowly. "Officer, I request that you retrieve the hospital's surveillance footage. I'm a registered volunteer with the National Marrow Donor Registry. I'm not a mistress. The footage will show me going in for compatibility testing."

I turned to Belinda. "You keep insisting I'm a mistress and that I seduced your husband. Fine. Let's pull the footage and see what really happened. I'll admit to whatever nonsense you spew at me if I am. But if I'm not…"

I trailed off before continuing darkly, "I will be holding you accountable for everything you did to me today."

Belinda's expression shifted for a moment, but she quickly forced it back into a sneer. "Fine. Show us the footage. I'd like to see what kind of excuse you come up with next."

The officer nodded, picked up the desk phone, and made a call. He spoke briefly into the receiver, gave the hospital's address, and the time frame for the footage. Once he hung up, he leaned back in his chair to wait.

Karen kept muttering under her breath during the wait. She was just loud enough for everyone in the reception hall to hear. Meanwhile, Belinda sat on a plastic chair with one leg crossed over the other, occasionally shooting me sharp looks.

Her eyes were filled with absolute confidence, as if she had already won. I didn't know what she thought she was winning, but it was like watching a strutting peacock without the feathers.

I leaned against the wall, my head throbbing where she'd hit me earlier. The dizziness from having eight tubes of blood drawn lingered. The ground beneath my feet felt wobbly, as though I were standing on cotton.

About 20 minutes later, a notification popped up on the officer's computer. The video file had been transferred.

Evidence Without Truth

He opened the player and turned the screen toward the three of us. "The hospital's surveillance system broke down two months ago. This is the most recent footage we could retrieve. Come take a look."

The footage showed the hematology department corridor on the third floor. The camera angle was high, looking down over most of the hallway. People moved in and out of frame. Then, I appeared, holding a document. I was walking while reading it.

I remembered that day. I had gone in to do compatibility testing with another patient. We hadn't matched, but I ended up matching with Belinda's husband instead.

A man approached from the other end of the corridor—it was her husband. This had been two months ago, just after his diagnosis. He still looked like a healthy man on the surface. When he saw me, he quickened his pace and stepped directly into my path.

There was no audio, only visuals. In the footage, he stood in front of me, his head slightly lowered as his lips flapped urgently. His brows were tightly furrowed, his lips moving rapidly, his hands gesturing again and again. Then, he suddenly stepped forward.

From the camera's angle, it certainly looked like he had pulled me into his arms.

"There! Look! All of you, look!" Belinda slammed her hand on the desk, making the monitor shake. "Is she not a mistress? He's hugging her! They're practically pressed together! If that's not an affair, what is?"

Her voice trembled with glee, her eyes gleaming as if she had just uncovered undeniable proof.

Karen immediately leaned closer, squinting as she pressed her face near the screen.

After getting a clear look, she whipped her head around and nearly spat at me. "You shameless wench! You're already hugging each other in a hospital corridor! Who knows what other filthy things you've been doing behind closed doors!"

I shot to my feet. "That's enough! Your husband was begging me to donate bone marrow to him that day! I didn't even know him before that, let alone interfere in your marriage!"

The officer frowned slightly, tapped a key, paused the footage, and zoomed in. We looked as though we were locked in an intimate embrace in the footage. Anyone without context would assume it was a pair of lovers.

Belinda said, turning around and bracing both her hands on the desk, "Officer, the evidence is right there. What are you waiting for? Arrest her! Homewreckers like her should be punished by law!"

The officer glanced at her and then at me, his tone cautious. "Ma'am, we can't determine that she has an improper relationship with your husband based on this silent footage alone. Even if that were the case, this would be considered a domestic dispute. We can't make an arrest."

Belinda immediately flew into a rage. "What do you mean you can't? I know what you're doing. You just won't arrest that slut. What are you, useless? Oh, I see what's happening!"

Her gaze darted between the officer and me, her expression shifting into sudden realization. "You're protecting her because she's pretty, aren't you?"

The officer clearly wasn't used to such confrontation and looked flustered. "Ma'am, you can't make accusations like that. We're handling this according to the law."

Belinda refused to back down. "Accusations? I'm telling you to lock this mistress up now, or I'll file a complaint against you!"

My phone rang right in the middle of her crazed tirade.

"Hello, is this Ms. Travers?" a voice said urgently on the other end. "You came in this afternoon for compatibility confirmation, yes? Mr. George Coleman's condition suddenly deteriorated. He's experiencing an acute hemolytic reaction and is currently being resuscitated.

"The attending physician asked me to notify you to please return to the hospital immediately if possible. We may need to proceed with emergency stem cell collection—"