Chapter 27

I stopped immediately. “How is Emily?”

“She’s the same. No change.”

My jaw tightened.

“But she isn’t getting worse,” Reed added quickly. “That’s good. Very good.”

No worse. I could survive that. Barely.

“I tried to reach you every hour during the night,” Reed continued. “But the mind link wouldn’t go through.”

“Keep updating me,” I snapped, cutting the link. I needed a shower, clean clothes, and a way to stop imagining Emily falling.

Two hours later, I was in the car with my father and Liam. My father said very little, and Liam kept glancing at me like he was afraid I might jump out of the moving vehicle and run back to the clinic. He wasn’t wrong.

During the five-hour drive to Crystal Waters pack, Doctor Reed contacted me five times. Every hour, exactly as ordered. Each update was the same—no change, no worse, still unconscious. Every report carved another piece out of me. By the time we arrived, my contro