Cold air and the smell of the storm met them inside. Declan knelt on the floor with his back to the door, shoulders moving as he worked at the grout.
He had sharpened the edge of a plastic cafeteria spoon. With it, he scratched the same characters into the grout between the tiles.
ST-V-01.
“The tibia connects here.” He scraped out another line. “No, the fibula is lateral. I need the fibula. Chloe, where did I put it? I can’t put you back together when you hide the pieces.”
Scraps of bone diagrams covered the floor around him.
The rubber soles of the orderlies made no sound. Declan looked up only when Elias’s shadow fell across the carving.
He dropped the spoon when the orderlies raised him. They guided his arms into a canvas straitjacket and fastened the buckles. Declan did not resis
