to try Jake's number twice before

ke, what

ut. "I'm okay, Em, I just - I couldn't breathe for a minute, and I got dizzy, and Mrs. Alva

nd the contract and the man across the table shrinking to background noise against th

lady here, she says she's a paramedic, she want

take you, I'm coming,

already moving toward the door when Adrian's voice cut through her rising panic, calm

Car

rn around. "My brother needs

h hos

ed her, one hand a

ral," she s

o calculation - told Emma this wasn't the careful, measured man from ten minutes ago. "It'll get you there faster than a cab in th

he luxury of pride

-

blurred past in smears of red and gold through rain-streaked glass. Adrian didn't try to fill the silence with reassurances she wouldn't have believed a

id, when the hospital's lights finally came

eyes met hers, stead

out of it, running for the ER doors she knew better than her own apartmen

she recognized behind the desk. "My brot

already reaching for a ch

l, just tell me

e lay propped up against pillows, pale but conscious, an oxygen line under his nose and

was the one who owed *her* an apology instead

took his hand, feeling the tremor still in his fingers, the residual fear n

iling, the practiced deflection of someone tired of being the reason his sister worked doubles. "Dr.

d closing around her throat. She'd known the numb

cause that was the job - steady when nothing else was. "I already fou

tightened on her hand, sharper no

to let him see the fear underneath the certainty. "It matters that

find Adrian standing just outside the gap in the fabric, close enough to h

t?" Jake as

onversation that didn't sound insane out lou

who'd learned not to question his sister's choices too hard, because questioning them meant admitting how much she

sentence available to her. "I'll explain everything, I promise. Right

d, and his voice carried none of the polished distance Emma had heard in the lawyer's office. "Your sister saved my life three nights ago without knowing my

ho'd watched his sister get taken advantage of by landlords, employers, a system that n

, held there a beat longer

gain from it," he said. "I've met very few people lik

rying to name it when her phone buzzed again - not Jake's contact this time, but an unknown number, a text th

w who y

-

f Chap