Further observation required.
Reported.
The word followed me all the way home.
I slept badly that day.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his hand on my wrist. I heard his voice scraping through the red-lit dark.
Not safe.
When I returned that evening, the entire private wing felt different.
It was still spotless. Still quiet. Still expensive.
But the silence had tightened.
There were new men near the elevators. One stood beside the nurses’ station pretending to read messages on his phone. Another leaned against the wall near the exit stairwell with his hands folded in front of him.
Matteo was outside Vincent’s room.
He looked at me as I approached.
“Nurse Bennett.”
It was the first time he had used my name.
“Matteo.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face, quickly hidden.
“You were here when he responded.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
I held his gaze.
“That’s a medical matter.”
He stepped slightly into my path. Not threatening. Just present.
“Everything about him is a family matter.”
“I’m not family.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You’re not.”
Something in his tone made the words feel less like dismissal and more like warning.
Before I could answer, Dr. Mercer stepped out of the room.
“Claire,” she said. “Come in.”
Matteo moved aside.
Inside, Vincent’s room looked the same, but it no longer felt like a sickroom. It felt like a place where every object might be listening.
Dr. Mercer closed the door behind us.
“He’s shown no further response,” she said softly. “But the scans show increased cortical activity. It’s possible he’s experiencing periods of awareness that he can’t reliably demonstrate.”
“You think locked-in?”
“Not exactly. His injury pattern doesn’t match classic locked-in syndrome. But after this length of unconsciousness, recovery can come in fragments. Sound, emotion, familiar voices—sometimes those reach patients before anything else does.”
Familiar voices.
I looked at Vincent.
His face was still.
Dr. Mercer followed my gaze.
“You’ve been reading to him?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Most nights.”
Her expression softened in a way I didn’t expect.
“Keep doing it.”
I turned back to her.
“That’s your medical instruction?”
“It’s my human one.” She lowered her voice further. “And Claire? Be careful.”
The words moved through me like cold water.
“Because of him?”
Dr. Mercer looked toward the closed door.
“Because of everyone waiting for him to wake up.”
That night, I read poetry.
I don’t know why. Maybe because the novels suddenly felt too full of plots and betrayals, and there were already enough of those pressing against the room. Poetry seemed safer. Smaller. Something that belonged to breath and silence.
At one in the morning, Vincent opened his eyes.
I stopped mid-line.
