For half a second, Knox didn’t move.
His arms tightened, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped along his cheek, and Elaine saw something flicker across his face that had nothing to do with aggression and everything to do with terror, the kind that comes from knowing you might already be too late.
“She can’t die,” he said hoarsely. “She can’t.”
“I won’t help her if you don’t let go,” Elaine replied softly, locking eyes with him.
Something in her tone broke through.
Knox lowered the girl onto the gurney with a care that seemed almost reverent, his hands lingering for a fraction of a second as if he were afraid she might disappear if he let go completely, and when the nurses rushed her away through swinging doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, he staggered backward like the weight had been ripped out of him, slumping into a plastic chair against the wall, his massive shoulders shaking once before going still.
“Name?” the intake clerk asked, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Knox stared at his hands, still wet with rain and blood that wasn’t his. “Her name’s… Ivy,” he said finally.
“Last name?”
“I don’t know.”
