The hospital smelled like antiseptic and age.
Andrew Best walked through the long hallway in silence, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black coat, jaw tight, eyes weary. He had barely slept the night before. Not after the image of Amelia leaving the estate. They haven't spoken since then, and he was beginning to worry that he was losing her.
Now, walking these sterile halls, it was another ache pressing on him.
His father.
The once-formidable Richard Best now lay in a hospital bed with machines humming softly around him, his face pale and sunken, age catching up to him faster than any of them had expected. The diagnosis had finally come in. A degenerative heart condition. A slow unraveling of life. The doctors were managing it, but the prognosis was clear.
He had limited time.
