CHRISTIAN
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes since Isabella last looked at me. Since I last heard her voice.
She was still unconscious, her breathing steady, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough unless she opened her damn eyes.
I sat by her bedside, my fingers curled around her delicate hand. It still felt too cold, too fragile. I squeezed it gently, hoping she’d react, that she’d squeeze back. She never did.
My body ached from exhaustion, my muscles stiff from staying in the same position for hours on end. I hadn’t left this chair since the moment they moved her out of emergency care.
I couldn’t.
Every time someone even suggested I step away for a while, I shut them down.
I was not leaving her. Not again.
Nova whimpered in my lap,
