Her red-soaked clothes had been cut off and she wore a plastic sheet, with plastic tubes crossed over it. The blood in the tubes, the pumping and pulsing, made it seem like Ayumi’s life had been lifted out of her body and was suspended above her. “They think she might wake up,” Lee said. She sat the closest she was allowed, a slice left clear around the bed for the shuffling of a nurse. Cade dragged a chair and sat next to Lee. “They think she might wake up, but they’re not sure, and even if she does, it could be . . . well, besides the blood she lost, there was the bashed-in skull. So they don’t know what it will be until she wakes up. “Sorry. If. If.” Lee snatched Cade’s hand and gripped it, bone-tight. Cade hadn’t let herself feel how much she’d missed Lee until now. She still wasn’t letting herself feel how much she would miss Ayumi. If. Lee fired out of the chair, all angles and energy. “I have to get back to the control room.” When Cade shot her a soft question of a look, Lee added, “I got better before anybody showed up.”
