The fluorescent lights of St. Jude’s Emergency Wing did not just illuminate the hallway; they stripped it bare, exposing the raw, ugly reality of the nightmare Alexander was trapped in.
He sat on a plastic waiting room chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands woven into his hair. His knuckles were stained with a mixture of his own dried blood from shoving the detectives and the phantom weight of what he had lost. Every few seconds, the heavy double doors of the operating theater would swing open, and his chest would seize, a suffocating spike of panic tearing through his throat until he realized it wasn't the surgeon coming out to tell him she was gone.
"Alex," James muttered, placing a heavy, trembling hand on his shoulder. "You need to breathe. The doctors are doing everyth
