Ty hated the pediatric hall more than the morgue.
The morgue had been cruel with honesty. Drawers, labels, steel, cold air. It told the body what kind of room it had entered.
The hall behind freezer B 3 wore painted fish on the walls.
Frost filmed over the cartoon eyes. Stickers peeled from cracked glass. Tiny plastic chairs sat bolted beneath a dead television, each chair built for a child who had once waited while adults used words like intake and overflow.
Someone had scraped at the ice on the television screen and left thin marks behind.
JJ stopped at the threshold.
"I hate this hallway more than the morgue already."
Yun-Jin looked at the chairs first, then at the blue line running from Ty's missing finger back toward the cup.
"Children waited here, and Mercy kept the chairs."
Heissman tried for his usual voice and only found half of it.
"I am choosing the floor-plan explanation until evidence ruins me."
