The hospital's private VIP room is a suffocating silence.
Heavy curtains are drawn tight across the glass walls, swallowing the afternoon light before it can reach the floor. The room sits in a muted twilight, lit only by the soft glow of the monitors beside my bed. The air smells of antiseptic—cold, clinical, settling in my lungs like smoke.
I lie on the bed, an IV taped to the inside of my elbow, a thin tube feeding something clear and cool into my veins. The tape pulls at my skin when I move, a small, persistent reminder that I'm tethered here.
My eyes are fixed on the ceiling, tracing the nearly invisible seams between the panels for the hundredth time. My face is a mask of boredom and confusion, a poor disguise for the unease curling in my stomach like a trapped animal.
Moon sits on the couch across the room, his body angled toward me, his blue gaze pinned on my face with an intensity that makes my skin prickle and my pulse quicken.
