Chapter 96 Broken Trust And Empty Safes

• Rachel POV
• The hospital’s waiting area was a blur of fluorescent lights and muted voices, the air heavy with the scent of antiseptic and stale coffee. I sat on a hard plastic chair, my knees drawn up, my arms wrapped around them as if I could hold myself together through sheer will. Bonnie was stable, awake, surrounded by Gabriel and her parents, their laughter a distant echo of hope that should have lifted me but didn’t. Exhaustion weighed on me, a bone-deep fatigue that made my eyes burn and my thoughts sluggish, but leaving her felt like abandoning her, like betraying the friend who’d nearly died because of our reckless pursuit of Celine’s secrets.
• Jeremy sat beside me, his hand resting on my knee, his presence a steady anchor in the storm of my emotions, but even he couldn’t erase the ache of the past days. “Rachel,” he said, his voice low, gentle, but insistent, “you need to go home. Just for a bit. Take a shower, eat something hot, sleep in a real bed. Bonnie’s okay now, and you’re no good to her if you collapse.”