“You’re not,” she murmurs, stepping closer.
Her shoes squeak against the linoleum—soft-soled, practical.
“Come on. Let’s get you up.”
She touches my shoulder—barely a feather-light brush—but something in my chest snaps apart at the contact.
Not anger. Not violence.
Just something brittle that’s been holding on too long, cracking under the pressure of its own weight.
She helps me stand, and I sway hard enough she grips tighter, her small hands surprisingly strong against my arm.
“Easy. You’ve been here a long time, sweetheart. When’s the last time you had water?”
Sweetheart.
If she knew what I was—what I’ve done, the blood on my hands that isn’t just Xavier’s—she’d be calling security, not fetching me water.
She’d be running.
“I’m not leaving this room,” I mutter, the words coming out harder than I mean them to. “I’m not leaving him.”
She nods, as if she understands men like me. As if she’s seen a hundred of us—hollow-eyed, blood-stained, desperate—haunting these halls like ghosts who haven’t figured out they’re already dead.
“Then I’ll bring water here.”
When she returns with a paper cup, I drink half just to make her stop looking at me like that.
Lukewarm water sliding down my raw throat like a mercy I don’t deserve.
“You waiting for someone?” she asks, settling into the chair beside me like she has all night.
“My brother. Xavier King.”
Recognition flickers across her face like a struck match, there and gone in an instant.
Then pity—the kind that tightens the chest because it always means the news isn’t good enough.
“What?” The word comes out sharp. Demanding. “Tell me.”
“The doctor will explain better. But he’s stable right now.”
Stable.
That cursed non-word.
That medical purgatory where hope and despair shake hands.
Stable just means not dead yet. Just means we’re waiting to see which way he falls.
Before I can demand more, the double doors at the end of the hall swing open with a sharp metallic bang.
“Isaiah?”
A doctor.
Older woman, gray streaks threading through dark hair pulled back in a severe bun.