Ryan pulls over in front of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, steps away from the revolving door. Light bursts from the lobby. “When you’re done, don’t come outside. Wait for me. I’ll see you.”

Shouldn’t be hard. The entire first floor is made of glass. A shot cracks as a bullet pierces the wall. Veiny cracks shoot through the panel like lightning, shattering the structure, until it bursts and a thick avalanche of diamond shards crashes to the pavement. The clinking is deafening. Suffocating. It reverberates inside my chest.

I squeeze my eyes, pinch the bridge of my nose, and focus on the hum of Ryan’s car, the heat from his air vents skimming my neck, and I remind myself it isn’t real.

Ryan wraps his hand around my wrist. “I can take you home.”

His grip steadies me. It slows my racing heart. “I’ll be fine,” I say, trying to convince us both.

I step out of the car, sprint across the ten feet of empty sidewalk, and slam into the spinning door. I don’t breathe until I’m inside.

Hurrying through the halls of Northwestern leading to the ICU, my boots click-clack on the linoleum floor. Everything reeks of bleach, as though trying to mask the underlying odor of people suffering, dying. The putrid florescent lighting tints everything and everyone pale green.

I clutch the foil base of the plant I bought at the gift shop and the name tag I refuse to put on. Because it’s 8:15—fifteen minutes before visiting hours end—the hall is near empty. I pass a man consoling his wife, who wipes at her red-rimmed eyes. A doctor buried in his phone. I keep my head down, hoping no one recognizes me.

My chest is compressed, like I’m wearing a corset crushing my ribs. I hate hospitals. This hospital especially. My sister died here. My dad. Dopney. And even though Adam is still alive, I don’t trust it. Everything bad in my life happens here. There must be hundreds of hospitals in Chicago, hospitals much closer to Adam’s attack. But like Fate mocking me or torturing me, they brought him here.

I turn the corner to the nurses’ station that guards the ICU like a fortress. I’m ready to argue that Adam is practically family, that I must see him.

Instead I find Katie in the waiting room, a stack of sketchbooks open on her lap, a row of colored pencils—definitely not the Crayola kind—fanned across the table beside her. Her dark hair frames her face like curtains. My steps hitch when she doesn’t see me right away.