Ethan sat on the hospital bed, tapping his fingers impatiently on the metal rail as the doctor finished checking his vitals. His mind wasn't on his own condition, he was thinking about her.
Mara.
She was resting now, but he couldn't shake the image of her pale, feverish face, the way she clung to him in the middle of nowhere, the way she had trusted him with her body, her warmth, her love…
His chest tightened. They were finally getting somewhere. He felt it.
And then Lucy walked in.
He barely spared her a glance at first, assuming she was just here to whine about his near-death experience with Mara. But then she held up an envelope.
"I didn't want to hurt you, Ethan," she started, voice soft, sympathetic too damn fake. "But I heard the nurses talking, and… I think you deserve to know the truth."
Ethan's patience was thin.
"If you have something to say, say it. Or leave."
Lucy stepped closer, lowering her voice as if she was revealing some heartbreaking secret.
