“Was it you? Were you the one? Were you there?”.

“No”. Tasha’s voice didn’t falter.

“Why is He doing this?”, Shane asked, still flatly.

“I don’t know”.

“Because her number is up?”, Shane’s head snapped up and she glared at Tasha.

Tasha shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.

“What do you want me to say?”, she murmured.

Shane pondered on her words for a while, working her jaw.

“Am I being punished?”, she asked then, huskily.

“You know better than that”, Tasha shrugged slightly, “That’s life. You’re living now. And one day… you’ll be dying”.

Shane didn’t reply. She just listened, absent-mindedly, to the rhythmical beeping sound that filled up the room.

“What’s it like?”, Tasha asked after a while.

Shane glanced at her.

“What?”.

“Warmth”.

“…It’s wonderful”.

Another long silence. Tasha didn’t move a muscle.

“If you’d know this was going to happen… would you have done it?”, she finally asked, quietly.

Shane bowed her head, her chin touching her collarbone.

“I would rather have had one breath of her hair… one kiss of her mouth… one touch of her hand… than an eternity without it…”, she looked up and stared at Tasha, her eyes unreadable.

“One”, she finally added, flatly.

Tasha gave her the ghost of a smirk.

“That’s a pretty good answer, Shane…”, she scoffed, “…See you”.

And she was gone.

Leaned against the doorframe of the room, his arms folded, Dante sighed heavily and watched his own shoes.

“Are you okay?”, he asked, his voice low.

Shane nodded, didn’t look at him.

“Yeah. Did you see her?”.

Dante shook her head, smiling bitterly.

“No. But I figured out that you were talking to one of them”.

“That was Tasha. She was my friend”, Shane stated uselessly.

Dante ran his hand through his short hair.

“Go home, Shane. I’ll stay with her, I promise”.

He walked over, stopping beside Carmen’s bed. The regular beep beep of her heart filled the monitor and the room. She was motionless and pale on the white sheets.

“Go home, Shane…”, Dante repeated, “…You need to rest”.

Shane stood up and took Carmen’s hand into her own.

“No. You go. Alice must be waiting for you”.

“Alice is fine with me staying here helping my friends”, he objected quietly.