Lana's POV.
The note was written in red, not ink because I could tell the difference. After fourteen years in the medical field, I was all too familiar with that rusty brown color that red ink pretended to be but never quite achieved. This was something else entirely. It had been pressed into the paper with intention, something that required a deliberate touch, and the letters were careful, unhurried, which somehow felt worse than if they had been scrawled in a panic.
“You cannot save what was already chosen.”
Seven words. I read them twice, my eyes tracing each letter with a clinical detachment I reached for like others might reach for prayer. The paper had been folded once and pinned through the center, indicating that whoever had placed it there had lingered at this door long enough
