MasukThe clock on the wall had stopped meaning nothing. Chris had checked it so many times that the numbers blurred, slipping past him without registering. Minutes stretched. Bent. Curled in on themselves. The hallway smelled like antiseptic and burnt coffee and fear—old fear, the kind that never quite leaves hospitals, no matter how clean they try to make them. He stood when the double doors finally opened. Not all the way. Just enough for the first surgeon to step out. Chris’s breath caught—hard, sharp, almost painful. His body reacted before his mind could catch up. He was already moving, already halfway across the waiting area, hands clenched into fists at his sides like if he opened them, something vital might fall out. The surgeon looked… tired. Sweat darkened the collar of his scrubs. His hair, usually neat, stuck slightly to his forehead. He removed his cap slowly, rubbing a hand over his head as if grounding himself before speaking. Chris stopped a foot away from him. He d
The pen lay where it had fallen.On its side. Still.Chris stared at it like it might move on its own, like it might roll back toward him and demand a decision he wasn’t ready to make. The room felt smaller now. The walls closer. The air thinner.“Mr. Argent,” the surgeon said again, voice controlled but tight. “We need an answer.”Chris didn’t look up.He bent slowly, the movement stiff, deliberate, and picked the pen up from the floor. His fingers closed around it—not trembling this time. Firm. Certain in a way that surprised even him.“No,” he said.The word landed flat. Heavy. It didn’t echo. It didn’t need to.The second doctor frowned. “I don’t think you understand—”“I understand perfectly,” Chris cut in, finally lifting his head. His eyes were red now, rimmed and burning, but steady. Too steady. “You’re telling me the easiest way to save her is to take something from her she hasn’t even been allowed to want yet.”“That’s not—”“And I’m telling you,” he continued, voice low but
The waiting room didn’t feel like a room at all. It felt like a held breath. Chris had counted the tiles on the floor twice. The light panels on the ceiling once, then again, just to make sure they hadn’t shifted while he wasn’t looking. He’d sat. He’d stood. He’d leaned against the wall until the cold crept through his jacket and into his bones. Nothing settled. The air smelled sharp—clean in the way hospitals always were, a smell that never quite masked what it existed to cover. Fear. Blood. The quiet knowledge that some people walked out of places like this changed forever. The doors at the end of the corridor slid open. Then closed. Then opened again. Each time, his chest tightened on reflex, his body preparing for news it didn’t know how to take. He checked his watch. 4:18 p.m. The surgery was supposed to have started at four. “She’ll be fine,” a voice said nearby. Chris didn’t look. People said things like that to convince themselves, not because they believed it.
The wheels touched the ground with a muted thud, not loud enough to announce anything, just firm enough to make Mia’s body jolt in protest.Her hand tightened around the blanket.“Easy,” Chris murmured beside her, already leaning in, already reaching without thinking. His fingers brushed the edge of the stretcher, stopped short of touching her skin. He pulled back, as he remembered himself at the last second.She breathed out slowly. The cabin lights were too white. The air is too dry. Everything smelled faintly of antiseptic and recycled air and something metallic she couldn’t name.England.She let the word settle. It didn’t feel real yet. Nothing had happened since the accident. Since the papers. Since the name she’d signed and unsaid and signed again.A nurse spoke in a calm accent, clipped and efficient. Chris answered questions automatically—passport details, medical history, allergies. He sounded steady. She watched his jaw tighten with every response, the muscle flicking like
The television was on, but no one was really watching it. Muted. A ticker crawled along the bottom. A woman’s voice moves her mouth in a practiced rhythm, hands folded neatly at her waist. Allen stood by the window of his apartment, phone pressed to his ear, half-listening to a conference call he’d already stopped caring about. “Yes,” he said absently. “That’s fine. Push it to next week.” Glass reflected his own image at him—shirt sleeves rolled, tie loosened, jaw tight with the kind of focus that had nothing to do with work. Behind him, the city stretched out, grey and orderly. Predictable. A laugh came from the couch. Soft. “You’re not even pretending to listen,” Lydia said, legs tucked beneath her, wine glass balanced lazily in one hand. She didn’t look annoyed. She rarely did. That was one of the things he liked. “I’m multitasking,” Allen replied, ending the call without waiting for a response. He turned slightly, giving her a half-smile. “You knew what you were getting in
Morning came without asking.It slipped into the room in thin, pale streaks, catching on the edge of the curtains, glinting off metal rails and glass surfaces that never slept. The hospital was already awake—voices murmuring in hallways, carts rolling past, monitors keeping time with lives that refused to pause.Mia lay still, eyes open, watching the ceiling like it might change its mind and collapse.Her body felt wrong. Not broken exactly. Just… rearranged. Like everything inside her had been shifted slightly out of place, she was told to make peace with it.A nurse moved quietly around the room, checking the drips and adjusting the lines.“You’re leaving early,” the nurse said gently. “We’ll be transporting you by car to the airstrip.”Mia nodded. Her throat felt tight, but she trusted it not to betray her.“Any pain?”“Some,” she said. “I can handle it.”The nurse smiled like she didn’t quite believe her. “You always say that.”Mia almost asked how she knew. Almost smiled back.Ch







