Javier Mendoza hadn't slept since Friday morning, by his body's count, and for the last twelve hours the waiting room chairs at Verano General had been teaching him things about his spine he would have preferred not to learn.
He wrote anyway. That was the deal he'd made with himself on the transport. Write it down before it went soft. Before his brain did the thing brains did after trauma, which was sand the edges off and hand you back something you could live with.
The notebook was green under the scorch marks. Forty-one pages used since Friday. Two pens clipped to his collar, one dead, one dying.
At 2:14 a nurse leaned into the waiting room and said Monroe was awake, and Fox and Love were through the door before she finished the sentence. Fox didn't look back. She'd promised to tell him when Monroe woke up. Technically, she had.
Javier sat for a full minute. Then he stood, because sitting had stopped being neutral.
