blow,
Hear the wind blow, love
Hear the wind blow,
Down in the valley . . ."
She started to cry. She was angry with herself—she usually managed to stay bright and cheerful and professional when she was around her patients, but her patients weren't usually seven years old. She knew the little boy's doctor was out talking with his parents right then, telling them that the life support that was keeping air in his lungs was never going to make him better, and that they ought to prepare themselves for the worst.
"It isn't fair," she whispered. She sniffled and wiped her tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her scrub jacket.
"So few things are."
Dayne stiffened. Dr. Mhya Jezick had come in while she was singing, and had managed to do it so quietly that Dayne hadn't even suspected someone else was in the room.
"Leave, please," she told the doctor. "There is nothing here you need to see."
"No. There isn't. I've seen this sort of thing forever, it seems. It is never any more fair or right than this." The doctor smiled at Dayne, a sly smile that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. "I didn't come in here to watch you work, however. I came in here to talk to you about something very important."
Dayne went back to giving her patient a bath. "This isn't a good time. I prefer to spend my time with my patients actually paying attention to them."
"He can't hear you sing. You might as well talk to me."
"I don't know that he can't hear me. I prefer to keep in mind the possibility that he can."
"Trust me. There's nothing left of him but the body—and not an awful lot of that." Jezick didn't leave. Instead she settled into the recliner that sat next to the window, leaned back and crossed her legs. "A group of interested persons has been watching your boyfriend."
"Adam?"
"Is that what he's calling himself? Very amusing."
"I'm not interested in hearing you bad-mouth Adam."
"You will be. Don't you think it at all strange that he appeared on the day of the Unchaining? Haven't you thought it strange that he was so charismatic, so attractive? Doesn't it seem strange to you that he managed to lure you into bed o