“Thank you, Rachel,” I managed. “I’m just… so tired.”

“Of course you are. Dr. Stevens prescribed a sedative to help you rest. You need to sleep to heal.”

She injected something into my IV port. It didn’t feel like the warm flush of typical pain relief. It felt cold, a liquid lead traveling up my vein.

“Just close your eyes,” she whispered.

I fell into a darkness that wasn’t sleep. It was a coma-like void. When I woke, hours had passed. The sun had moved across the sky. My head felt stuffed with cotton, my limbs heavy and unresponsive.

Another nurse was in the room, holding Thomas. “Oh, you’re up,” she said. “We were worried. You slept through two feedings.”

“The medicine…” I slurred. “It was too strong.”