Her shoulders drop. Just a little. Just enough to see the cracks.
“Jesus,” she mutters. “Let’s hope they take the bait.”
I nod once. No hesitation.
They will.
“He’s a little more stable,” she says softly. “Vitals have evened out. Symptoms still up, but… the medication’s doing its thing.”
She pauses, the coffee forgotten in her hand.
“He’s healing. Just slower than I’ve hoped. He’s fighting it,” she adds, glancing toward the hallway like she can see through the walls. “Like his body wants to give in but something inside him won’t let it.”
She looks back at me.
“You can check on him, if you want.”
I nod once, eyes steady on hers.
Before I turn, I reach out and gently run my palm across the top of her head. A quiet, wordless gesture. Familiar. A thank you. A“you did good”. She freezes for half a breath, then closes her eyes briefly, leaning just a little into the touch.
When I pull my hand back, I mouth a single word to her.
Sleep.
She huffs out a tired breath. “You’re right. I should.”
I wait until she makes her way over to the couch in the corner of the clinic, curled slightly on her side, one hand still cradling the warm mug. Her eyes shut before her body settles. She’s asleep in less than a minute. Not deep, but it’s something.
Then I turn and walk down the hall. My steps are silent, the old floor creaking under my weight like it resents the peace.
I pause outside the isolation room.
I step inside.
The room is dim, lit only by a single lamp in the corner and the rhythmic green pulse of the heart monitor beside him. The softbeep… beep… beep.
He’s lying in the bed, eyes closed, jaw slack in sleep.
His face is less sunken than before, but the bruises are still fading in slow circles across his skin. Bandages wrap around his side and up over his ribs. The IV drips slow and steady, he is buckled up pretty heavy, even for Aslanov’s terms.
His hands twitch every now and then, like even in unconsciousness, he’s not fully still.
I walk to the chair beside him and sit. Quiet.
He’s restrained; thick straps across both wrists, clipped into the sides of the bed. Isabella said he let her do it. No fight. No protest. That alone tells me how far gone he still is.
Aslanov doesn’t submit easily. Not even to pain. But he trusts her. Enough to let her buckle him down like a man haunted by his own body.
My cousin is inlove. It’s obvious now.
But I could see it way back then.
His eyelids twitch.
A flicker, barely there, then a deeper furrow in his brow as the world tries to claw its way back into him. His breathing picks up, shallow, uneven.
Then his mouth moves. Dry. Cracked.
