[Sera]
Sound comes back first.
A steady electronic beep. Footsteps in a hallway, soft-soled and purposeful. Somewhere nearby, the squeak of wheels on linoleum, fading left.
Then smell. Antiseptic. Plastic tubing. And underneath it, something faint that doesn't belong here. Pine. Cold air. A coat that isn't mine.
I open my eyes. Gray light through half-closed blinds. Daytime. My brain does the math slowly, like pushing through wet sand. It was night when I fell. Friday night. This is Saturday morning. Hours, gone.
The IV line runs to the back of my left hand. A pulse oximeter clips my finger, feeding numbers to the monitor beside me.
Memory reassembles in pieces, out of order. The elevator hallway. Cold tile against my cheek. Killian's voice. Before that, his hotel room, rain on glass
