“Mary, can you hear me?”

I watched her face, my own breath catching in my throat.

For days, she had been nothing but a quiet figure under the heavy blankets, fighting a fever that would not break.

Now, her lips parted, dry and cracked from the cold air of the streets and the dry heat of the hospital.

She let out a soft, rattling breath that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete.

“Ethan?” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper.

Her eyes opened, cloudy and unfocused at first, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights.

Ethan froze, his hand suspended in the air.

“I’m here, Mary,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “I’m right here.”

She blinked slowly, her gaze shifting from the ceiling to his face.

It took a moment for recognition to register in her pale blue eyes.

When it did, a sudden tension gripped her shoulders, and her body went rigid under the sheet.

The heart monitor chimed faster, the numbers on the screen jumping from seventy to ninety-five in seconds.