She stands at the side of the bed, one hand on Heath’s blanket, the other pressed over her mouth like she is trying to hold the panic inside. Heath has shifted onto his back, breathing through parted lips, cheeks still flushed. The sight of him makes whatever is left of my composure tilt.
Stefano enters behind me.
Erin looks up and goes still.
Her fear of him is not dramatic. She doesn't scream or hide. She simply freezes, eyes wide, little body caught between wanting to run and not wanting to leave her brother.
Stefano stops immediately.
That is the first thing I notice.
He doesn't move closer. He doesn't demand calm. He doesn't fill the room with his presence the way he does everywhere else. He stops in the doorway and lowers his voice.
“Erin.”
She sniffles.
“No one is angry.”
Her chin trembles. “He’s hot.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t wake up right.”
“The doctor is coming.”
“What if he takes him?”
“No one takes him from this room unless Maya goes with him.”
I look at Stefano.
He doesn't look back.
Erin does. “Promise?”
Stefano steps into the room slowly, then crouches near the foot of the bed. Not too close. Still lower than he was, which somehow changes the size of him in the room without making him smaller.
“I don’t make promises to children unless I intend to keep them,” he says.
Erin looks at me as if checking whether that is allowed to be believed.
I do not know what my face does.
Whatever it is, she climbs onto the bed and curls closer to Heath.
Stefano watches her for a moment, then looks at Omar. “Thermometer.”
Omar hands it over.
Stefano doesn't try to touch Heath immediately. He gives it to me.
I sit on the edge of the bed. “Heath.”
His eyes move beneath his lids.
“I need to check your temperature.”
