Then their laughter.
The chemotherapy had stopped working.
The experimental protocol had failed.
The transplant options had collapsed one after another.
Dr.
Yates looked older than he had three weeks earlier.
He removed his glasses.
“We’ve exhausted what they can tolerate.”
The sentence sounded clinical.
Polite.
Almost harmless.
I stared through the glass.
Jonah’s hand rested only inches from Blythe’s.
Even asleep, they had turned toward each other.
“How long?”
Yates hesitated.
“Lawson.”
“How long?”
“If the progression continues at this rate, maybe ten days.”
Something inside me went silent.
I had been shot once in Bucharest when I was twenty nine.
I had survived a plane landing without landing gear outside Denver.
I had watched men threaten me across polished tables while their hands rested beneath their jackets.
Fear had always been a practical thing to me.
You identified it.
You measured it.
You found the source.
Then you
