Chapter 2 - Thirty SecondsAlexander looked from the old badge to Dr. Mercer.
“What warning letter?”
Mercer stepped forward.
“This is absurd. That woman was terminated for misconduct.”
The boy’s face tightened.
“She was my mother.”
The ballroom changed.
No one moved.
Alexander remembered the letter now.
Maya Reed had written six weeks after Lily’s accident.
Mr. Cole, please get an independent second opinion before authorizing long-term immobilization.
Alexander had never met her.
Mercer’s office told him she was a disgruntled employee.
Alexander had believed them.
The boy looked at Lily again.
“My name is Noah.”
Lily whispered, “I’m Lily.”
“I know.”
Alexander hated that answer.
“How?”
Noah looked at Mercer.
“My mom talked about you.”
Mercer snapped, “Enough.”
Alexander lifted one hand.
Mercer stopped.
Noah took one careful step closer.
“Thirty seconds.”
Alexander stared at him.
“What?”
“Give me thirty seconds with her. She stays in the chair. I won’t pull her up.”
Lily looked over her shoulder.
“Please, Dad.”
Alexander wanted to say no.
Every instinct in him screamed no.
For eighteen months, he had watched his daughter wake up crying because her legs would not obey her.
He had paid for surgeries, private therapy, specialists, equipment.
He had carried her upstairs when she was too tired to use the lift.
He had learned how hope could become cruelty when people promised too much.
But Lily was still looking at Noah’s hand.
Not like a billionaire’s daughter.
Like a child who wanted one person to stop being afraid for her.
Alexander exhaled.
“Thirty seconds.”
Mercer stepped forward.
“Alexander—”
“Stay where you are.”
Noah knelt in front of Lily.
He did not touch her legs.
He tapped a rhythm against his own knee.
“Can you hear the music?”
Lily nodded.
“Don’t move your whole leg. Just your right big toe.”
Mercer laughed once.
Then Lily’s silver shoe moved.
Barely.
Alexander stopped breathing.
Noah changed the rhythm.
“Again.”
The toe moved.
Then her ankle.
Lily gasped.
“I felt that.”
Mercer’s face went white.
Alexander looked at him.
“You told me she had no useful voluntary movement below the knee.”
Mercer answered too quickly.
“She has reflex activity.”
Noah stood.
“No.”
He pointed at Lily.
“She moved when I asked.”
Then he pulled a small notebook from inside his shirt.
“My mom wrote down what happened during Lily’s last hospital evaluation.”
Alexander held out his hand.
Noah did not give it to him.
“Not in front of him.”
May you like
He looked directly at Mercer.
“Mom said if anything ever happened to her, don’t let Dr. Mercer get this notebook.”
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