Without a word, Sheen and I hopped into my car. It went agonizingly slow, the autodrive following the traffic laws, going exactly as fast as it could with the other auto traffic. But it wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t fast enough for me, for my father. I didn’t know what was wrong exactly, but instinctively, I knew that time was important. There was so much I had left to say to my father, so much I was afraid to form aloud into words. I twisted my fingers around the seat belt, crunching the fabric in my palms, crushing it again and again.

Finally, we’d arrived at the urgent center. Through the glass, a figure paced back and forth across the room. As we jogged closer, I could see it was Cerise. She was making her rounds about the waiting area, a worried look on her face and her fingernail in her mouth, gnawing. I felt my stomach flip over, again, for perhaps the twelfth time since I’d gotten her WaComm call.

She looked up when we walked in, the door chiming our arrival. Wordless, she half ran, half walked, up to me, her arms open. I embraced her, her hair impeccably done, even now. It tickled my chin, as she only came up just past my shoulder.

I cleared my throat, and she separated from me. “What is going on? What happened?” I managed to croak out.

She sniffled. “Ralen, he – oh god, I don’t really know. The doctors haven’t been back out.”

“Where is he?”

“In surgery,” she answered. “He had just… collapsed, back at the house. I called the ambulance. And now they won’t even let me back there to know what’s happening.” Her eyes were distant, her voice monotone. She was clearly in shock, the whole chain of events barely processing for her.

I could sympathize.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, rubbing her shoulder. “The doctors will come out soon, and you know they’ll do everything they can for him. Medical science has come a long way, you know.”

She smiled the smallest of smiles at that, a heartless chuckle leaving her lips. “I suppose there’s not much we can do but wait.” She looked up to me and Sheen, as if noticing he was here for the first time. Maybe that was accurate.

“…How about I go get us some coffees, yeah?” Sheen suggested. “It looks like this will probably be a long night.”

We nodded, and he hurried away, probably just eager to leave the tension of the waiting room and the uncertainty. I wished I could go with him, but I knew there was no way I was leaving Cerise to sit here by herself, even more.

I led Cerise to a nearby chair; a wallscreen droned on about something I couldn’t focus on, the background noise a small comfort in this strange situation. We sat, saying nothing, waiting for Sheen to return, for the doctors to come out and give us any news, for the planet to explode, anything. But nothing happened.

After about thirty minutes, Sheen returned with caffeine, which we gratefully took and sipped. The warm liquid did its best to comfort me, but there wasn’t much it could do unless it could tell me what was going on in the OR. And unfortunately, the coffee had no visions on its surface, no reflections depicting the future, no matter how hard I looked.

More time passed. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours, hell, it could’ve been days at the way things were going. The waiting room was like a strange sect of the universe where time did not exist. There were the same fluorescent lights, reminiscent of daylight, but at the same time, so far removed from it that it was as if we were on a different planet. The receptionist scrolling on her WaComm, bored, her feet resting on the desk, the slow trickle of patients that came in, waited, and left. They left all of us behind, their needs having been met, and then returned. I couldn’t see the sun from here and wondered if it was even still up. Was it nighttime now? Or had it only been a few minutes.

My eyes were dry and puffy from sitting there, busying myself by half listening to the wallscreen and simultaneously. The wallscreen was set to the local channels, which was currently displaying local news. The stories of feel good fluff pieces barely held my attention, the happy stories of local businesses doing well, of citizens who had recently achieved something, or whatever. I could barely focus, but it was als the only thing I could distract myself with.

Then, it changed to news for the city at large, which of course was focused on the [cabinet murders[. They listed the victims names, a growing list, and paid respect to their families and friends. The list was entirely of nobility by some way or another, but they all varied in physical appearance and habits. This serial killer, as it must be, was clearly motivated politically, theorized the reporters. The killer had only targeted [lords], that being the only connecting characteristic between the victims. A detective was being interviewed next, and they said what we all had known for the last several months this had been happening, which was that the police had little to no idea who was behind all of this.

Apparently, this killer was pretty sophisticated, and very good at what they do, which didn’t bode well for the nobility if they continued at this frenetic pace. The detective anticipated a hopeful upturn in evidence with the new stop and search law, though, assuming that somebody somewhere had to know something. That logic made sense, but I couldn’t help but think about Mea and her concern. She felt that the Nari’e were surely going to be taken advantage of, but could’t she understand that we were dying here? The innocent wouldn’t be harmed, and so what was the issue here, really? We needed to catch this killer, this fiend, and our safety depended on it happening sooner rather than later. Who knew when they would strike again?

I sighed, the detective's voice droning on about his hopes for the stop and search law, that they already have secured several criminals with warrants already, even though it’s only been a short time. They hadn’t been connected to the [cabinet killer], of course, but a few more criminals off the street was definitely a good thing. I remembered the strings I had to pull to get Pa’ani, the child of Ha’ana, out of jail, and wondered if any of the others had been so lucky. Somehow, I doubted it. They were probably in jail, serving their time as I sat here, serving mine.

A doctor entered the waiting room, his head turning this way and that, looking for someone. Immediately, he had our attention; Cerise’s eyes were glued to him, anticipating something, anything.

“Montgomery?” he finally said, his gaze settling on us.

At this point, there were only a few in the waiting room aside from us, and our name was a well known one. If the doctor didn't recognize the name, he was being polite and not assuming. I glanced around; we were much better dressed, even in casual wear, than the other few occupants.

“That’s us,” I said finally, standing up on stiff knees. My body ached from the uncomfortable seat we had been stuck in; you would think a room designed for waiting would be more comfortable, but we weren’t so lucky. The chair was hard plastic, covered in a harsh, cheap upholstery, underneath it a thin layer of foam pretending to be a cushion.

The doctor gestured to us come closer; however long it had been sitting in this room had stunted our speed, and we ambled over to him as quickly as we could. The doctor led us to a hallway out of earshot of the regular patients, which I hoped was good news. I would take whatever I could get at this point. I just needed to know.

We stood, our breaths held. The doctor looked both bored and grim at the same time. I guess this was something he did every day – a normal evening, for him.

“Ralen has survived his surgery.”

We all sighed in relief, but the doctor still looked grim. Was it perhaps just his face?

“He’s asleep for now, but he’s in recovery. You’ll be allowed to see him soon. But it’s a rough road ahead.”

I had never gotten the full story of what had happened, only small sentences from Cerise’s shocked brain. “Doctor, what happened?”

He looked me sharply in the eyes. “He had a heart attack. Your mother discovered him, but it was too late. We had to perform coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Fortunately, he survived it.”

I flicked my eyes to Cerise, who was staring down at her fingers, entwined within themselves, twisting them every which way. How long had he laid there, suffering, before she noticed? Was it an unfortunate mistake, a lapse in judgment where she had left him alone for too long, or was it something more…nefarious?

I remembered our conversation when she had effectively advised me to keep an open mind to Alyss. She had reminded me that we all must make sacrifices in life, alluding to the fact that she had made sacrifices in hers. Was being married to my father really so awful that she just let him nearly die? Was this her fault?

“Before you go visit him, remember, everything from here on out must be low stress. I emphasize, low stress. Do not antagonize him. His heart simply is on its last legs.” The doctor began to walk away, and grabbed a nurse, pointing him towards us.

The nurse approached, his scrubs a cheerful yellow. “Follow me, everyone,” he said, a smile pasted on his face.

Like ducks behind their mother, we followed to what must be my father’s room. I didn’t know what I would find there, but I knew there was one thing that I had to do. I had to keep my secret, because if he found out that I’d turned down AUT for some girl, he would be dead for sure.