The night air had grown thick and heavy, the kind that pressed down on your chest and made breathing feel like work.
Max stood outside the entrance, his feet planted on the concrete like two anchors refusing to let him move. The automatic doors behind him slid open and shut every few seconds as people and orderlies moved in and out, but he didn't turn around.
He couldn't. Somewhere in the dark, Ruby was sitting in a room, smiling at a man she didn't recognize as a stranger, a man who had slid into the empty spaces of her memory as he belonged there.
That thought alone was enough to make Max's hands curl into fists at his sides.
Samuel stood a few feet away, his phone pressed flat against his palm as he scrolled through messages from the team. He had been quiet for the past few minutes, giving Max the silence a man needed when rage was the only thing keeping him upright. But the night was getting old, and quiet could only last so long.
