Chapter 3

The window in the seventh-floor room didn't seal properly, so gusts of cold air blew in.

The patient in the next bed coughed all night. I curled up with one hand over my chest as the pain spread from beneath my breastbone into my back. Cold sweat plastered my gown to my skin.

I pressed the call button for the third time that day.

The night nurse checked the IV pump and opened the medication log.

"Ms. Adams, the strong pain medication you've been paying for out of pocket has run out.

"The pharmacy says there's no money left in your backup account to cover a refill, so they can't dispense any more.

"The medication your insurance covers won't do much for you at this stage."

I called my father with a shaking hand. "Dad, they've stopped my pain medication. There's no money left in the backup account."

Silence stretched across the line for a few seconds.

He lowered his voice. "Isa needs an anti-rejection drug after surgery. It costs thirty thousand dollars a dose. I moved the money out of your backup account. When the company has more cash, I'll put it back."

"I need my pain medication. It hurts to breathe."

He sighed. "Anna, how many years have you been taking medication? You always say it hurts, and you always get through it in the end. The pain medication only keeps you comfortable. Isabella needs the drug that keeps her alive!"

"Mine keeps me alive, too."

"You're not waiting for surgery anymore. You're only on maintenance medication!" His voice hardened. "This family can't keep burning through money like this! Take some over-the-counter painkillers, and don't turn the whole house upside down right before her surgery."

I heard Isabella cough on the other end of the line.

His voice softened immediately. "Isa? Where does it hurt? Don't be scared. Dad's here."

Then he hung up on me.

The nurse brought me the over-the-counter painkillers. I managed one sip of water before my stomach seized. I hung over the side of the bed and threw up for a long time, bringing up nothing but bile streaked with blood.

Tears streaked my face. The pain kept me awake all night.

Before Isabella came into this family, whenever I got this sick, my father, my mother, and my brother were all right there.

So late that night, when Howard pushed the door open, I thought he had come to see me.

But his gaze went straight to my neck.

"Anna, let me borrow the medal."

My hand went to my collar. "What for?"

It was the St. Christopher medal my grandmother had left me. Whenever I was in the hospital as a child, she would press it into my palm and tell me it protected people who were lost or in danger.

I had worn it ever since she died.

"No." I closed my fist around it.

Howard's tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek. "Isa's surgery is tomorrow. Lend her the medal so she can make it through safely. Anna, Lucy lost her life saving you. Can't you let her daughter have this one blessing?"

I looked up at him, the taste of blood still rising in my throat.

"She took my transplant. You stopped my medication. You took my room. And now you want the last thing my grandmother left me?"

I hunched over on the bed, my shoulders shaking with the effort of each breath.

"Howard, what else are you going to take from me?"

He saw cold sweat beading along my neck and frowned. "Are you in a lot of pain right now?"

I didn't answer. I only gripped the pendant harder.

Isabella's tear-choked voice came through his phone. "Howard, did you get it? I really can't sleep."

Howard closed his eyes and held my wrist down.

"It's a necklace. Don't make me do this."

I pulled back as hard as I could. The IV line went taut, and blood welled around the needle in my hand.

"No!"

He held my wrist down and pried my fingers open one by one. Clenching the medal in his fist, he spoke into the phone. "Isa, don't cry. I've got it. I'll be right there."

The chain scraped across my palm as he pulled it away, and the pain nearly finished me.

After he hung up, he pressed his lips together and reached out to touch the top of my head, then slowly drew his hand back.

"If the over-the-counter painkillers aren't enough, have the nurse give you another dose."

He was completely serious.

As if that counted as taking care of me.

The second the door shut, my heart slipped into an irregular rhythm.

My heart rate began to fall from a hundred and ten beats per minute. A red warning light flashed on the monitor as the alarm cut through the dark.

As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard a nurse's voice crackle over a two-way radio while the family of the patient in the next bed kept complaining about an insurance bill.

It seemed I was still alive.

But everything that had kept me here had been taken from me, piece by piece.

Would I even make it through the next four weeks?