It was way after seven when he got back. He found Ronnie in the armchair set beside the bed. She was holding her sister’s hand, and stared in front of herself with a worried face in the darkness. Nick had to go back to work at some point in the afternoon, but before that, he had thoroughly examined Alex. He even took a blood sample from her to get it analysed at the clinic. Nathaniel knelt down beside the bed, and feeling broken, bent his forehead into the woman’s free hand. He was at his wit’s end. His unconscious mind kept the possibility of losing her far away from his thoughts. It must have been an act of self-defence that even just the whiff of the idea created a short-circuit in his mind. He kissed Alexis’ warm fingers with an obsessed dedication, while desperate thoughts flashed thr
