Chapter 4 - Shadows in the Hallway
A sharp sound broke Dominic's concentration. Down the hall, a nurse pushing a medication cart was heading in his direction, her eyes scanning the room numbers. Dominic slipped backward into a recessed alcove, blending seamlessly into the shadows until she passed.
When he looked back through the glass of Room 412, a doctor had entered and was standing over Leo's bed. Linda was listening intently, her hands clasped so tightly together that her knuckles had turned completely bloodless. Even from a distance, Dominic could read the universal language of despair written across her posture.
He leaned his head back against the cold wall, closing his eyes for a brief moment. In his world, weakness was a death sentence, and emotion was a liability to be excised. Yet, looking at Linda through that reinforced glass window, he didn't see a liability. He saw a mother waging an agonizing, one-woman war against an unforgiving world—entirely alone. And for the first time in a decade, Dominic Gallow felt a foreign, terrifying emotion taking root inside him: guilt.
