Casey stared at the bowl, lips parting and closing a few times. If her mouth wasn't so dry, she'd be salivating.
She wanted to dig in already, but first she wanted to understand what was going on — a task her groggy mind refused to work on. "You…"
Ivan immediately leaned forward. "Don't talk too much. Your throat sounds pretty bad."
Woah… Too close. He was too close!
Casey snapped her gaze down back to the bowl of chicken soup. If she felt heat in her cheeks, she blamed it on the cloud of steam rising from the hot meal.
She was beginning to find her bearings when Ivan touched her forehead, probably just to check her temperature. But it still startled her enough to make her jump.
He stepped back, nodding to himself. "I found you passed out in the middle of the hallway. You had a very high fever. It's rare to see an Awakened suffering from fever. Our enhanced immune system makes us pretty resistant to mundane illnesses."
