Chapter 26 The Ache Of Clarity

• Alone in the humming silence of the isolation tent, Alexander Sterling was drowning.
• It wasn't the neurostorm that threatened to pull him under now. The Diazepam had seen to that, leaving his body a leaden, useless thing. No, this was a different kind of drowning. A psychological flood, and every memory, every dismissed detail, every cruel assumption was a wave crashing over him, holding him under.
• His gaze was fixed on the empty IV stand where the bag of her blood had hung. The machine was silent now, its work done. But he could still feel it. A phantom warmth in his veins that had nothing to do with fever. *Her* warmth. Her life, forced into him for the second time.