The ward held its silence.
Two sets of breathing occupied it, Thomas's deep and uncomplicated, Maya's slower, drawn under by the gravity of a body that had endured too much in too short a span.
The monitors kept their count.
Outside the hospital, Silver Ridge continued its slow surrender to the night.
Inside, in the quiet and the dark, the war that was being planned in whispers had found its way into dreams, and in dreams it moved without the constraints of patience or timing or the careful performance of loyalty, taking on the shapes that daylight required it to suppress.
