Eve's room smelled like antiseptic and orange peels. Someone had set a cut wedge on the bedside tray and forgotten it. It curled at the edges like a smile that had stayed too long.
Evans sat where he'd been sitting for hours, her hand in his, thumb tracing the blue vein at her wrist as if he could coax it stronger. Machines made their small, official sounds. Through the blinds, the city was a scatter of cold lights.
“Tell me again," Eve whispered. Her voice had learned to be small so it could fit around pain. “Tell me the part where I get out of here."
“You get out," he said, sure by force, not by fact. “You walk. You run. You hate the taste of hospital coffee and remember that's a luxury."
She smiled at the shape of the picture, not its color. “You always narrate," she said. “Even whe
