Chapter 217

• Third person pov
• The night bled slowly into dawn, but for the Carrington family, time had lost meaning. The sterile brightness of the hospital hallways mixed with the quiet rush of footsteps and the beeping monitors, all pulling everyone deeper into a world where every second seemed borrowed. Outside, the engines of the waiting air ambulance hummed faintly, a promise of transfer, of homecoming, of one final chance to rest where it all began.
• Elizabeth Carrington lay pale and fragile on the hospital bed, her chest rising in shallow breaths as nurses made their final checks. Around her, grief clung thick in the air like smoke. Claire stood near her bedside, fingers gripping the rails so tightly that her knuckles whitened. She wanted to be strong—God knew she wanted to—but the sight of her mother’s frail body, hooked up to lines and tubes, broke down every wall she had tried to build.