"Mommy..."
The word hung in the sterile air of the hospital room, fragile and trembling. Lemon Faulkner lay against the stark white pillows of her bed, her face so pale it was almost translucent, save for the faint, bluish tint beneath her eyes. She looked less like a child and more like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and painstakingly glued back together.
Slowly, a single, hot tear tracked down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail against her sallow skin. "I... I don't want the treatment anymore."
Serena Ashford froze. Her hand, which had been stroking her daughter’s matted hair, stalled mid-air. The silence that followed was suffocating, filled only by the rhythmic, mechanical wheezing of the heart monitor and the distant, muffled bustle of Riverbend General Hospital.
"Can w
