The silence in the hospital corridor was more deafening than any scream. Adrian stood between the two most powerful men in his life, yet he had never looked more singular, more alone. The "heavy smoke" of his pain seemed to physically thicken, a suffocating shroud that made the sterile air of the hospital feel impossible to breathe.
"You owe me nothing, Alexander. Don't apologize," Adrian said, his voice terrifyingly level.
He turned his gaze back to the empty Room 412. The sight of the bare mattress was an assault, a physical blow to his chest that he absorbed with a frightening, glassy-eyed stillness. He took a slow, deep breath, the kind a person takes before stepping off a ledge.
He turned back to the two men, his grey eyes void of the spark Alexander loved or the fire Sebastian feared.
"It's been an adventure with you two," Adrian said, the irony cutting through the air like a scalpel. "Can't say it was fun."
