ZAYNE
The sight of Aurora lying beneath the harsh, fluorescent lights of the medical bay—pale, burning with a fever, and hooked to a clear plastic line—clutched at my throat like a silver blade.
Her mind had literally broken under the weight of the trauma. Her final, heartbreaking mention of feeding Cheese proved she had dissociated entirely just to survive the reality of her father lying on an operating table.
We stood in a defensive circle around her bed, our eyes locked onto the weak rise and fall of her chest.
"We can't leave her," Kaleb murmured, his voice hollow, his hands still stained with her father's blood. "Not like this. If she wakes up and sees none of us here, after what she said..."
