The monitor answered.

The monitor answered.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Winter hardened around the city.

Snow gathered on the window ledges. The lake wind screamed against the hospital walls. The streets below turned silver and black beneath headlights and salt.

Inside room 412, Clara kept reading.

Sometimes she read with calm patience. Sometimes, when exhaustion made her careless, she talked to Nicholas as though he were a friend.

She told him about her mother in Milwaukee, who still called every Sunday to ask if Clara was eating enough. She told him about her student loans, about the landlord raising rent, about the coffee machine in the nurses’ lounge that produced something closer to punishment than caffeine.

“You know,” she said one night while adjusting his blanket, “for a terrifying crime boss, you’re a pretty good listener.”

Nothing changed.

Until the night she reached the chapters about prison.

“Patience and time,” Clara read aloud, “that is how a

She paused.

A bead of sweat had formed near Nicholas’s temple, close to the pale scar left by the bullet graze. Clara took a warm cloth and gently wiped it away.

Her fingers brushed his skin.

His jaw tightened.

It was so small that another nurse might have missed it.

Clara froze.

She stared at him.

“Nicholas?”

The monitor continued its steady rhythm.

She leaned closer, heart pounding.

“Nicholas, can you hear me?” ---