Chapter 20 · Keys on the Marble

The sedative smelled like rotten almonds.

I already had two fingers in the spill before my brain caught up. Old nurse habit. Checking texture, checking visc.

Willa buried her face so hard into my ribs I thought she was trying to drill straight through to my spine. Her little hands were knotted in my scrub top, shaking.

Above us, Owen Hale didn't move. He stood over the smashed silver tray, jaw locked so tight the cords in his neck looked like wire cables under tension.

Nobody in that kitchen dared to breathe.

"Nobody leaves this floor," he said.

He didn't yell. Quiet was ten times worse.

I lifted my wet fingers. Blackened amber syrup ran down my knuckles, thick and foul, dripping onto the white grout by my boot.

"That’s not the prescribed dose," I said.

Owen’s eyes dropped to mine. Cold. Stripped bare. Waiting.

"Six drops," I said, voice flat. "Every night at eight. Six drops in apple juice, and she’s out by page three of her storybook. What’s on this floor? That’s thirty drops minimum. Maybe forty."

"You counted."

"I count everything." I shifted Willa’s weight to my left hip.