Stella‘s head was pounding. The doctor said that she might have a bad headache for a few days. She‘d said it as if the feeling of a spike being shoved into your cranial wall was no big deal. Of course, the alternative was that she could be dead right now.

Adam was curled up in the bed against her, his thumb in his mouth. He hadn‘t sucked his thumb in ages. She looked at the cast on his left hand, which ran halfway up his arm and then she lightly kissed the scratches on ...