The hospital wing is quiet, save for the soft beeping of the machines that monitor her fragile state.there she lies—his sister, pale and fragile, the only person who ever truly mattered to him.

Tom stands just outside the door. He has never been one to shy away from anything—power, darkness, his own cold ambitions—but this? This is different. The thought of seeing her like that, lifeless in a hospital bed, is unbearable.

*How could she do this? How could she-the one person who ever saw past his armor, who made him feel something other than cold detachment—do something so final? It was always the two of them against the world, a world that never understood them. He was the mastermind, the one with all the plans, and she was the only one who ever challenged him, who ever saw the cracks in his carefully constructed persona.

But he never noticed the cracks in hers.

*Tom’s hand hovers over the door handle. He could walk in now, sit by her side, say something—anything—to fill the void between them. But the idea of seeing her broken, of witnessing the evidence of his failure as a brother, is too much.

He’s heard the nurses talk about her—how she’s healing physically, but emotionally, it’s a different story. They don’t know her like he does. They don’t know that she’s stronger than they think.

Tom’s breath catches in his throat as he finally makes a decision. He opens the door.