Adrian.
The name barely existed inside my head anymore.
There was only panic.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!"
My voice tore through the room with enough force to burn my throat raw.
Nobody listened.
Nobody even looked at me.
The room smelled like antiseptic and cold steel, so clean it made my stomach turn. White fluorescent lights hummed overhead, washing every surface in a sterile glow that felt almost inhuman. Machines surrounded Lila's bed, their steady beeping sounding impossibly calm compared to the storm raging inside my chest.
She lay perfectly still.
Too still.
Her chest rose and fell beneath a thin blanket, but only because a machine beside her insisted it should.
A doctor gently pried open one of her eyelids.
Another held a slim metal instrument.
A needle.
Long.
Thin.
Silver.
My entire body seized as the point drifted toward her exposed eye.
"No…"
The word barely escaped me.
Then the needle slid forward.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!"
