Her hand was cold.
He squeezed it.
No spark.
No mystical glow. Nothing.
His heart sank.
Ava's fingers remained limp in his grasp, her body still unresponsive, the beeping of the machines the only sign that she was still clinging to life.
Doctor Mary worked swiftly, her hands moving with practiced precision as she stabilized Ava. Every second counted.
She barely blinked, her mind running through an internal catalogue of poisons, toxins, and venoms, each with symptoms so eerily similar, yet so fatally different.
There were thousands and all she had was a guess.
Mary clenched her jaw. She couldn't afford to be wrong. Administering an antidote blindly would be like rolling a dice with Ava's life on the line.
Lucas knelt stiffly at Ava's side. His grip on her hand was firm and desperate. His blue eyes that were usually sharp and unreadable were now dull and exhausted.
He looked broken. The weight of his grief hung in the air and pressed down in the room.
