Chapter 70 Talking About Children

• The curtains were drawn tight. The air smelled faintly of medicine, lingering like a shadow over the room. I didn’t know how long I’d slept—hours, days… time had lost all meaning. The pills dulled my nerves, but they couldn’t reach the hollow ache lodged deep in my chest. Every breath scraped against me like shards of glass.
• Lucy whined softly in my mind, weak and hoarse. “You’re getting weaker, Rae…”
• “I know,” I whispered, my own voice foreign to me.