[Alice's POV]I reached for his hand. He flinched, as if my touch burned, but I held on."David, please," I said, and the calm cracked, and the desperation underneath it spilled through. "Don't make me choose between my child and my life, because I will choose my child, and I will die, and Camilla will lose her mother. Then you will spend the rest of your life knowing that you could have prevented it by just — by just letting me try."He pulled his hand away. Stumbled backward. The great David Newcombe, the man who commanded rooms and bent wills and had never once in his privileged life been denied anything he wanted, was standing in a private hospital suite watching his ex-wife choose death over his ultimatum, and he was crumbling."I can't," he said. His voice was barely audible. "I can't let you die, Alice.""Then don't. Let me fight. Let me try. Let me be the five percent."The silence stretched. A minute. Two. The clock on the wall ticked, each second a small, sharp hammer blow a
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