Seraphina woke slowly to the muted sound of paper turning. For several quiet seconds, she remained still beneath the blankets, her mind suspended somewhere between exhaustion and awareness. The hospital room stayed dim except for the pale morning light filtering through the windows. Grey clouds still covered the city outside, softening everything beyond the glass into blurred shapes and muted colour.
The ache in her shoulder returned first, then the stiffness in her wrist, then memory, the attempted abduction, the investigation, the hospital division tied to impossible records, and the feeling of losing control again. Her chest tightened faintly before she fully opened her eyes, and then she saw him.
