“Again.”
“Sebastian—”
“Again.”
I changed the angle and pressed.
A faint movement.
He gripped the edge of the table.
For twenty years, doctors had told him his legs were silent.
Now one foot had answered.
He turned his face away.
I pretended not to notice the emotion he was fighting.
“Movement doesn’t mean you’ll walk,” I said carefully.
“I know.”
“It could be a reflex.”
“I know.”
“We need proper tests. A full neurological workup by someone independent.”
“I said I know.”
His voice cracked on the final word.
I stepped back.
For a while, neither of us moved.
Then Sebastian said, “When Oliver is ill, do you tell him the truth?”
The question surprised me.
“As much as he can understand.”
“Even when it frightens him?”
“Especially then. Fear gets worse in empty spaces.”
He looked down at his foot.
“My father never told me the truth about the accident.”
“What did he hide?”
“I don’t know.”
I waited.
Sebastian’s eyes remained fixed on his legs.
“The police report said I lost control in the rain. But I remember another car.”
“A collision?”
“No. Headlights behind me. Too close. Following every turn.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“My father.”
“And?”
“He said I was confused from the injury.”
The door opened, and Gabriel entered.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
Sebastian’s expression sealed itself shut.
“What kind?”
Gabriel glanced at me.
“The kind we shouldn’t discuss here.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
Sebastian nodded, but as Gabriel moved to escort me, I noticed something on the examination table.
A small glass vial.
Dr. Vale must have left it behind.
The label bore Sebastian’s name and a medication I did not recognize. Beneath it was a dosage schedule: nightly injection.
I picked it up.
“What is this?”
Gabriel stopped.
Sebastian looked at the vial.
“Medication for muscle spasms.”
“How long have you used it?”
“Years.”
“Does Dr. Vale administer it?”
“A nurse does.”
I turned the vial beneath the light. The drug name was printed in small blue letters: Neraval.
Something about it bothered me.
“May I photograph the label?”
“No,” Gabriel said immediately.
Sebastian ignored him. “Why?”
“I want to check for contraindications.”
“Vale prescribed it.”
“And Vale said your movement was impossible.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
Sebastian held out his hand.
For a moment, I thought he wanted the vial back.
Instead, he said, “Take it.”
The problem Gabriel had mentioned followed us outside.
Someone had been watching the building.
No chase. No gunfire. Just a gray sedan parked across the street that disappeared before Gabriel’s men could identify the driver.
It should have reassured me that the danger remained distant.
It did not.
During the ride home, I kept thinking about the vial in my bag.
Gabriel sat across from me.
“You shouldn’t have challenged Dr. Vale.”
“Why?”
“He’s been with the family a long time.”
“That doesn’t make him right.”
“It makes accusations complicated.”
“I didn’t accuse him.”
“Not yet.”
The blindfold prevented me from seeing his expression, but his voice carried unease.
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“I trust Mr. Lombardi.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “It wasn’t.”
When I reached home, Oliver was at the kitchen table drawing.
Mrs. Alvarez had made soup. The apartment smelled of chicken broth, thyme, and warm bread.
Oliver held up his paper.
It showed two figures standing on a hill. One was small and wore a red cape. The other was much taller.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“You.”
“I’m taller than that.”
“No, you’re the one with the cape.”
I looked at the second figure. “Then who is he?”
“The person you helped.”
My hand tightened around my bag.
“He’s standing,” Oliver said.
I forced a smile.
“That’s optimistic.”
“What’s optimistic?”
“Believing something good might happen.”
He considered this seriously.
“Is that bad?”
“No,” I said. “Just difficult sometimes.”
After dinner, I helped him with homework, listened to him read two chapters from a book about planets, and checked his breathing levels.
Only when he was asleep did I take out the vial.
I searched medical databases from my old laptop. Neraval was a powerful muscle relaxant generally used in rare cases of severe spasticity. Side effects included weakness, reduced reflex response, fatigue, and temporary suppression of voluntary movement.
My pulse quickened.
The drug could not cause paralysis.
But in someone with an incomplete spinal injury, a high enough dose might conceal small gains. It could make emerging movement seem absent. It could keep weak muscles quiet.
I searched the manufacturer.
Lydian Therapeutics.
The name was familiar.
I opened the kitchen cabinet where I kept Oliver’s medications and checked each bottle.
His respiratory medicine came from a different company. So did the anti-inflammatory drug and vitamin supplement.
Then I reached for a small amber bottle prescribed six months earlier for nighttime muscle tightness.
My hand stopped.
The label read:
Manufactured for Lydian Therapeutics.
I placed Oliver’s bottle beside Sebastian’s vial.
Different medications.
Same company.
That alone meant little. Pharmaceutical companies produced thousands of drugs.