Page 20 of Ellie 3

I winked at her, my heart full of love and encouragement at what she was doing.

“My petty reveal aside, let’s do this right and like adults,” she said after a deep breath, gesturing to who was with her. “Every president of North America is told who owns ASH in case there’s a catastrophe or something happens to me. It could devastate the continent—several given we’re the largest trauma center in the world.

“You know the people up here with me and they’re not going to lie to you any more than I would. I’m the founder. I’m the one who started this whole crazy idea.” She chuckled and rubbed her hands over her face. “So let’s start with some of the questions I hear—the rumors about the founder that I catch the most.”

“I can tell the story if you want,” Alan offered when Ellie glanced at him.

“No, I’m fine. I just—it always feels wrong to take the credit as the founder when you’ve done as much as I have.”

He snorted. “No one in the world has done as much for anything in the history of anything than you have for ASH, Ellie. I’ll take the award of wingman or sidekick, but it’s always been you.”

She smiled when several people nodded and looked out at us. “ASH was founded on an idea that everyone deserved the chance to be saved. And yes, it was originally All Souls Hospital,and I did disagree with humans being shipped off to their own continent. It broke my heart to segregate thepeopleof this planet in that way as the answer to the war.

“It always will because I knew some truly amazing humans. It was a human who died protecting me after I ran from my family. A vampire recognized me and wanted the prize of reclaiming my father’spropertyand bringing me back home. That human died fighting to keep me safe. I—I have countless examples of the goodness of humans.

“And now they only know us as monsters who took their world. Some understood back then because evil exploited what happened. But a hundred years later and none of those humans are still alive. It’s humans who only know the restrictions and limitations we’ve imposed on them. I said it back then and I still say it now that someday that bill will come due.”

It was going to be a bill that cost more than we were going to be willing to pay. What she meant was clear and I didn’t disagree, but it was also all I knew.

She told the story she’d told me about her protégé and what had happened to her, but then she went on. There was more to the story that I didn’t know which shocked me.

“That girl, thatchildby today’s standards only ever wanted to make people’s lives better,” Ellie said, tears in her voice. “That is the reason ASH was built here in Atlanta. This is where it all happened. Dr. Carpenter was one of the people I went to for help. He and several vampires who helped us get ASH off the ground were the ones who came.

“Where I am standing is where the ringleader of it all—his house was here. And the garden atrium? That is where my protégé and her family are buried. Deep below it so they are never disturbed. They believed in helping people—the goodness of people and they are at peace where goodness and help are received every day.

“I fully believe that.” She let out a slow breath. “I met Alan by chance. It was a miracle I could find him again with how things used to be. It was luck he found the others to help. And then after it was over, we tripped over Carla.” She smiled when Carla snorted. “It was all a sign that it had to be here. Atlanta might have been a racist horrid place, but it became more.

“It still has more potential, and I will be damned if I let the selfishness and childish, unprofessional antics of some ruin what—” She chuckled and I followed her gaze, my eyes going wide. “Say the words. Don’t just storm out like a child. Say the damn words because you showed your hand the moment you declared the owner was a man.”

“Now, at least she doesn’t have to explain why she hid partly due to sexism,” Carla drawled, most women in the audience making some noise of agreement or amusement.

The attending who had started it all spun around and threw up his hands. “You win. I quit. Clearly, I’m not going to convince the owner after your deception and bullshit. So fine, you win and are better than me to—”

“This isn’t aboutyou,” Ellie drawled. “It’s about ASH. It’s always been about what’s best for ASH. You threw down this fight for your selfishness—the selfishness of your group, so don’t go rewriting history. I wanted to stay hidden because what’s important isASH, not singing from the rooftops that I founded it.”

“Wow, yeah, you deserve to be an attending,” the president drawled when the doctor flipped Ellie off and walked out. “So he was all up the board’s butt, right?”

Ellie sighed. “He’s the nephew of a former board member who passed down his seat to his son even though it’s in the bylaws that couldn’t happen. So yeah, his cousin was on the board, but it was his uncle who got him the job. Then he’sbeen here so long without ‘issue’ besides normal doctor antics of golfing too much and wanting work-life balance.”

“Except he barely worked,” Alan drawled. “Ten-to-three four days a week is part-time for the love of the gods. He has a bunch of residents that do everything, and he gets paid the bonuses. All under the guise of being an amazing teacher. But he never showed his stripes outrightly until this—even after the board was tossed.”

I chuckled when I heard people whispering they hadn’t known that… And several had joined him in his mutiny. I saw a group of three women hiss about that before getting up and storming out as well. I would guess they were his staff and he’d persuaded them to join him, but they didn’t have the backing he did.

Well, it was their fault for throwing their careers away. They could have gone along with it to his face but talked to Ellie on the side. She was blindsided, so obviously no one had warned her.

So yeah, I didn’t feel bad. They’d made their beds, and they could suffocate under the weight of their shitty decisions.

Ellie let out another slow breath and looked around. “ASH is not about me, but maybe it’s beyond time people understand that the founder isn’t some amazingmanthat people put up on a pedestal. I am a bastard born of rape to a sociopath, gambling addict, and habitual liar. I was raised on lies and people trying to use me at every turn.

“Even after I found out I was a maid’s daughter, I played along with what was expected of me. But I broke free and ran, risking everything to save myself and people died to protect me. That was why I became a healer. That human didn’t have to die to protect me. I was trained with a sword, but he did what he thought was right.

“And he died because of it. However, if I’d had the training I do now, I could have saved him. That stayed with me. Thatmoment was how I found my purpose, and I learned everything I could to heal and help others.” She turned and looked at the president with love. “A bastard daughter, a useless woman according to too many vampires, saved a bratty kid.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that kid would grow up to become the president. All my attempts to save you and my stubborn desperation and your snarky sexism your stupid father taught you ended up being what unlocked the cure for maybe the deadliest supe disease children faced.”

“I’m lucky you didn’t turn me over your knee and toss me off a roof for the way I treated you,” the president said with emotion. “You were so damn set on proving me and my father wrong that—”

“It was never about proving either of you wrong,” she told him firmly, shaking his head when he frowned. “It was the trust your mother put in me. The way she begged me to save her sweet boy who snuck her flowers when his father wasn’t looking. The boy who thanked the cooks and she knew would grow up to be a great man.

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