ADRIAN'S POV
The hospital air was too thin, too clean. It tasted of failure, not mine, but the institutions. Hospitals were temples to the illusion that systems worked, that people could be saved by rules, procedures, and good intentions. I had spent most of my life proving otherwise.
I sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit Izzy had delivered an hour ago. The fabric still carried the faint scent of the tailor's shop, cedar and pressed wool. My reflection in the darkened television screen looked exactly as it should: composed, uninjured, immaculate.
