Chapter 60

Half an hour. The time tightened around her like a clockwork collar. It was enough to panic, if you were someone who panicked. Sloane didn’t panic. She planned. She slid the phone into her pocket and felt the wolf under her ribs lift, subtle as a cat’s ear twitch: alert, hungry for action. The animal in her liked deadlines. Deadlines were clean. They defined purpose. She wiped her hands on a towel, checked Mr. Brown’s monitor with a quick, professional glance, steady. She had three errands now: save a book, retrieve a piece of her past, and face a man whose power had once blinded her. Outside the ward, the hospital still smelled of ozone and damp concrete, aftershocks of the night’s chaos. Staff moved with the careful, exhausted choreography of people who’d been through an alarm and come out alive. Somewhere beyond those fluorescent lights waited Damon, and the half-hour he’d allotted pulsed like a fuse. Sloane stood, jaw set. She didn’t like the role of beggar. She didn’t like bargain