Page 114 of The Quiet Witness

“So comfortable.” The last words she whispered as she interlaced her slender fingers with him. Assuring herself he would stay.

“I’ll be with you until the morning, sweetheart.” And after his vigil, he had to take care of other… matters. But he felt it, as sure as he knew the sun would come up in the morning.

This woman would be the death of him.

Chapter 47

A Socket, a Plug

Asteady woosh filled the sanitized room, again and again. Each time ending with a sigh, almost as if Isabel herself heaved it. But she didn’t, never would breathe in the sharp tang of disinfection. Would never feel the sun on her face again, or go out with her friends. Laughing freely had not been a given to her in this life.

Her heartbeat beeped on the machine, the steady rhythm still worked like clockwork, keeping her blood flowing, but it was her brain that had irreparably gone off to shadowed corners.

“So, that’s it?”

Lucien lifted his chin. The clogs that had been nervously shifting over the linoleum flooring behind him stilled.

“There is nothing more we can do, sir, she was doing very well given the circumstances. We had never anticipated brain damage to occur, much less at this level. And certainly not after this amount of time.”

“So what do you call this, then?” He jerked his chin to Isabel. “Should I call it a gross ignorance? Or chalk it up to one big, massive mistake?”

The young girl was as pale as the sheets that covered her up to her shoulders. Blue veins stuck out of the deathly pallor that clung to her skin.

She looks like she’s dead already.

Lucien stepped forward and felt for the pulse that was beating along with the whirring machines. Still warm to the touch.

The doctor behind him piped up. “An unfortunate event, t-to which we have n-no—” The man hung his head. “No explanation.” He shivered like a man in front of the butcher’s block, keeping his eyes averted from Lucien’s. The hospital might as well be in front of said block, waiting to have its head chopped off.

“An unfortunate event.” Lucien tasted the words on his tongue. He did his best to push down the anger that was impatiently waiting to erupt, to fling his sharp words into the room, and watch the white-coated docter cower beneath it. It would make no use.

What’s done is done. And Isabel for all her signs of life, was gone. And yet, it wouldn’t make what he had to do next any easier.

“What are the options?” Lucien asked the man behind him while he drew up a chair, keeping a tight eye on Isabel as he let the legs scratch loudly over the floor. The man behind him flinched, Isabel, did not. Not even a flutter of her dark brown eyelashes.

“We can keep her intubated.”

Ah yes, intubated.

The hollow plastic tube that was currently held in its place by tape, running from one cheek to the other ashen cheek. Pulling slightly on Isabel’s colorless lips, jammed right in between them, the only thing keeping her from sure death.

“Isabel.”

“What?” The doctor asked, perplexed.

“Her name is Isabel.”

Is, was. He lifted his head to the Dr standing off to his side, taking in his slack-jawed expression. Why did he even bother, medical staff weren’t notorious for their empathy toward people’s losses.

Neither are you. He shook his head clear of the little voice inside him piping up, way too high pitched for his liking. And too right on, for that matter. But at the very least he knew the names of his victims.

“The other options?” Lucien held a hand to his temple, forcing back the growing and pulsating headache behind it. Kate was safe where he left her in his house amidst the mountains, but he wanted, no needed, this to be over with. So he could return, and find solutions for all the other problems he had left to fix.

“The only other option left is… allowing Isabel to pass on. Withdrawal of life support.” The Dr clarified.

To stop the fight. Let her go.

He looked at Isabel once more, looking for any sign of movement, recognition, any proof of actual life left within her. But her eyes were pressed shut, her fingers hadn’t twitched once, not even when he squeezed her hand upon entering.