Emery’s POV
The hospital waiting room smells like antiseptic and fear.
I pace until my legs ache, my heels clicking against linoleum worn smooth by a thousand anxious footsteps. Then I sit until the stillness becomes unbearable, the plastic chair cutting into my thighs, my pulse thrumming too loud in my ears. Then I pace again.
Three hours. Maybe four. Time has lost meaning in this fluorescent purgatory.
A child coughs somewhere behind me. A woman weeps quietly into her phone. The vending machine hums its mechanical lullaby while I wear grooves into the floor, replaying the image of Harmony's gray face, her limp fingers, the terrible way her body crumpled against that wall.
When the doctor finally emerges, his expression tells me everything before he speaks.
"Mrs. Remington?"
I stop mid-stride. "How is she?"
He gestures toward a quieter corner, away from the crowded chairs and curious eyes. I follow on legs that feel disconnected from my body.
"Your friend is stable," he begins, consulting his clipboard. "But we found something concerning in her bloodwork."
"What?" My voice comes out sharper than intended. "What did you find?"
"Dangerous levels of sedatives." He meets my eyes with practiced neutrality. "Benzodiazepines, specifically. The kind found in prescription anti-anxiety medication."
The floor tilts beneath me. I reach for the wall to steady myself.
"The concentration suggests either a massive accidental overdose or deliberate ingestion." He pauses, letting the words sink in. "We're treating this as potential self-harm until proven otherwise."
"Self-harm?" The word tastes wrong in my mouth. Bitter. Impossible. "No. That's not—she wouldn't."
"I understand this is difficult to hear."
"You don't understand anything." I push off the wall, my hands trembling. "I know her. She doesn't take medication. She's never mentioned anxiety or depression or anything that would require those kinds of pills."
The doctor's expression softens with something like pity. "Sometimes the people closest to us hide their struggles."
"Not Harmony." My voice cracks, but I force myself to continue. "She faced down my mother-in-law without flinching. She stood up to people who terrify me. She laughs with my daughter and trades gossip with the kitchen staff and she is not fragile. She is not suicidal."
He writes something on his clipboard. "We'll keep her under observation and arrange for a psychiatric evaluation once she's conscious."
"When can I see her?"
"She's sedated—ironic, given the circumstances. But you can sit with her if you'd like. Room 412."
I don't go to her room. Not yet. I need air first. I need to think.
The hospital courtyard is small and colorless, a concrete square with two wooden benches and a single struggling tree. I sink onto the nearest bench and pull out my phone with shaking hands.
Landon answers on the second ring. "Emery? Is she—"
"Alive. Stable." I grip the phone so hard my knuckles ache. "But Landon, they found something in her blood."
"What do you mean?"
"Sedatives. Benzodiazepines. Enough to suggest either a massive overdose or deliberate ingestion." I hear my own voice, flat and controlled, delivering facts like weapons. "They think she tried to hurt herself."
Silence. Long enough to make my chest tighten. Long enough to terrify me.
"Landon?"
"I'm here." His voice is controlled but strained, that careful tone he uses when he's processing something terrible. "What do you think happened?"
"I think she was poisoned." The words come out steady despite the rage building behind them. "Deliberately. Strategically. Because she was my ally. Because she knew too much. Because someone wanted her gone."
More silence. I can almost hear him thinking, weighing possibilities, calculating risks.
"Emery, I need you to listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"Don't do anything yet." His voice carries an edge of urgency. "Don't confront anyone. Don't accuse anyone. Let me handle this."
"Handle it how?"
"I'll investigate. Quietly. Without alerting whoever is responsible." He exhales heavily. "If this was deliberate—and I'm not saying it wasn't—then we need proof. Real proof. Not suspicions."
"And while you investigate quietly, what am I supposed to do?" My voice rises despite my efforts to control it. "Sit by her bedside and pretend this was an accident? Go home and smile at your mother like she didn't just try to eliminate the one person in that house who actually protects my daughter?"
"We don't know it was my mother."
"Who else, Landon? Who else has access to the estate, motive to remove Harmony, and a history of destroying anyone who threatens her control?"
He doesn't answer. He can't.
"My friend is lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life." I stand, pacing the small courtyard. "And my daughter—our daughter—is sitting in the hands of people I do not trust. People who may have just tried to kill someone I love."
"Emery—"
"No." I cut him off. "I will not stand by and do nothing. I will not pretend. I will not wait patiently while you gather evidence and build a case and hope that whoever did this doesn't strike again."
"Please." His voice breaks slightly, the first crack in his composure. "Please just wait. Come home. Let me protect you both. We'll figure this out together, but you have to let me do this my way."
I stare at the struggling tree, its leaves browning at the edges despite the gardener's efforts. Everything in this world fights to survive. Everything beautiful gets poisoned eventually.
"I have to go see her," I say quietly.
"Em, please. Promise me you won't do anything rash."
I hang up without promising anything.
The phone feels heavy in my hand as I walk back into the hospital. Room 412. Fourth floor. My friend is up there, unconscious and accused of something she didn't do, while somewhere across the city my daughter sits in a house full of vipers.
The elevator doors close around me like a cage.
I think about Harmony's sharp eyes, her easy laugh, the way she never backed down from anyone. I think about Professor Peanut and abstract stars and all the hours we spent planning a simple birthday party.
Someone did this to her. Someone watched her drink her morning tea and waited for her to fall.
And when I find out who, there will be no investigation. No quiet gathering of evidence. No waiting. There will only be war.