KNOX’S POV

Ember sleeps for an hour in the hospital chair beside Maurice’s bed with her hand wrapped around his on the blanket and her face finally, mercifully slack in a way that tells me her body has overruled her brain and forced a shutdown.

I watch her for a while. The rise and fall of her breathing, the way her fingers stay curled around Maurice’s even in sleep, the smudge of dried blood she missed on her jaw.

She sleeps the way she does everything — completely, without half-measures, surrendered to it in a way that makes me want to build a wall around this room and post guards...