Harder this time.
A shock rips through me—fingers, chest, throat—so sudden I gasp. Panic and hope explode against each other inside me, too big for my ribs, too sharp to swallow.
I fumble for the call button with my free hand and slam it. “Nurse! Doctor! Someone!”
The door bursts open faster than I expect. Asher, a nurse, then two doctors, then more staff flood the room in a rush of white coats and blue scrubs. Calm voices, practiced movements. They check the monitors, his vitals, his pupils. They move around me with quick, precise hands, the room suddenly too bright, too crowded, too loud.
“I felt him squeeze my hand,” I tell them, breath shaking. “Twice. He—he squeezed it.”
“He squeezed your hand?” Asher asks breathlessly. His eyes searching mine and darting over Xavier’s comatose body.
“Yes. It was like he was responding to me. Ash--” I rush over to him, beaming.
“Before we celebrate. It is important to know that that can happen,” he says gently. “Comatose patients sometimes exhibit involuntary motor responses. It doesn’t necessarily mean?—”
“I know what I felt,” I snap, voice cracking right down the middle.
His expression doesn’t change. “It can be difficult to tell, Miss Torres. The brain?—”
“He squeezed my hand when I spoke to him,” I insist. “Not randomly. Not when you poked him. WhenIwas talking. That’s not an accident.”
They exchange looks. One of the nurses offers a sympathetic smile. “It’s a good sign that his body is responsive. But it’s too soon to know how meaningful it is, all right? We’ll keep monitoring.”
They run a few more tests, then drift out as quickly as they came, leaving the air buzzing in their wake.
“Val,” Asher sighs after a while.
I go back to sitting next to Xavier, my body hanging over his hospital bed. My hand in his.
“I know what I felt, Ash.” I snap, not wanting to hear him be realistic right now, because I can feel it. I know it is only a matter of time before Xavier comes home. I know he is fighting for me.
13
VALENTINA
Breakfast feelslike walking into a trial I didn’t agree to attend.
The kitchen is already full when I come down: chairs pulled out at strange angles, the island crowded with plates, mugs scattered across every flat surface. Someone burned toast. Someone else made eggs. There’s a pot of coffee that looks like it’s doing more work than any of us. Conversations overlap and break apart in pockets—low male voices, a handful of women, the hum of people who know they should be eating and sitting and existing like normal, even though nothing is.
The second my foot crosses the threshold, the volume drops.
Not to silence, not completely, but to something thinner. Edged.
Heads turn.
Faces tilt.
Eyes land on me.
Some of them soften in recognition. Little nods, quick smiles, that “morning, Val” cadence people have been practicing ever since Xavier went down and I got pushed into his chair. Othersjust… look. Measuring. A few pairs of eyes narrow slightly, not in open challenge, but in the kind of suspicion that comes from too many rumors and not enough answers.
I force my shoulders back and walk toward the coffee like I don’t notice any of it.
It’s impossible not to notice.
As I move through the room, I can feel people shifting their bodies around my path. A prospect scoots his chair in a little too close to the table. One of the older council guys smears jam over his toast with more pressure than necessary, his gaze flicking up from under his brows, then down again. Cassandra is at the far end of the island in a silk robe like she owns the whole district, one manicured hand wrapped around a mug, eyes cool and watchful as she tracks my progress.
I’ve always known she doesn’t love me. Tolerates, respects, tolerates again. Today her mouth presses into a tighter line than usual.
