Chapter 25 —

Madeline closed the door the way someone closes curtains in a storm — precise, final, a courtesy that felt like warning. The room changed when she shut it: smaller, sharper, as if the hospital had finally leaned forward to listen. The fluorescent light in the corner hummed late, like the rest of the world running a beat behind the music, and Nicole thought of how everything around her answered a second slow these days — a city that never rushed unless someone was pushing a ...