EMMA
Three Weeks Later
The sun filtered through the high windows in quiet gold, casting long shadows across the room as if trying to wake the man who refused to stir.
Ian lay still, his chest rising and falling slowly, his skin warm but pale, like the blood beneath it was working too hard just to keep him tethered to this world. I sat beside him, my hand gently curled around his, my fingers tracing circles into his skin that he couldn't feel. Not while his mind was lost in whatever darkness had claimed him.
The room was too quiet, too heavy with silence that no one dared to break. Blake and Theo came and went, and sometimes my little girl would curl up in the corner, refusing to leave her dad's side, but for the most part, it was just me and Ian.
Every day, I told myself he would wake. I whispered stories in his ear, stories of Olivia's drawings, of the wind brushing through the trees, of how peaceful the pack had become again.
