The first step into the medical wing made me pause. It smelled the same. Sharp antiseptic, metal, and moonroot. It should have brought comfort. It didn't.
This place used to mean Shade. Healing. Recovery. I remembered every hour spent here, curled in the chair beside him while machines blinked and beeps marked time. I remembered holding his hand through the worst of it, whispering things he never heard. I slept in his bed more often than not, because it was the only time he seemed to settle. The healers allowed it. Everyone did. I was grieving my father, and no one was going to tell me no. The medical wing had been a second home.
Now it just felt cold.
Brooke lay limp under layers of sterile white blankets. Wires were tangled across her arms and stomach. Tubes twisted down her throat.
