FORTY – COLD, ONCE AGAIN

MASON

"No! Please, no!"

I bolt upright, flinging my MacBook to the side as the pain filled sound reaches me. I flick a glance at my watch. It's two in the morning.

"Please!"

It takes me a moment to realise that the sound is coming from the bed, from Mira. I reach her bedside in a flash, my pulse pounding wildly against my throat.

Lights begin blinking on and off, and alarms go off crazily as her heart monitor beeps, showing a rapid spike in her blood pressure.

But that isn't what really catches my attention. Mira twists and turns in the restricted bed. Her delicate fingers are bunched around the bedsheets in a death grip. Her knuckles are white, completely drained of blood.

Her eyes are tightly shut, her face contorted in a mask of pain as she writhes and twists on the bed.

I grab her shoulders and shake her as gently as I can, just as a sleepy looking nurse and Mira's personal doctor run in through the double doors.

"Mira. Mira, baby, it's Mason. Wake up."

" We heard the blood press