Vance hadn't left. He stood near the curtained entrance, his back to the fabric wall, a broad, dark silhouette blocking out the noise and light from the hallway. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at a point on the opposite wall, his posture rigid.

The wand pressed against me, cold and foreign. On the screen, a blurry, shifting landscape of greys and blacks appeared. I didn't know what I was looking at. I didn't know what any of it meant. My heart was a frantic bird trapped in my ribs, beating against the cage of my bones. *Please*, I thought, a wordless, desperate prayer to nothing and everything....