Chapter 5

Aster:

Aster sat in the recliner where her gaggle of nurses had taken turns spending the night over the past nine months and watched Declan sleep. He lay where he fell, legs dangling off the bed. She tried to move him on the bed, but it was impossible to shift the solid block of a man. All she could do was cover him with a blanket and hope he was comfortable.

Earlier, she had snuck through the empty mansion to the kitchen. She was hungry in a way she hadn’t been for months. The last few weeks were especially bad, and eating had become mostly mechanical – and since everything she ate tasted like dust, everyone had to force her to eat.

Now she sat with a tray of food next to her – mostly items that were ‘grab and run’ food, as her father called it: cheese, fruit, crackers, cold cuts. Everything tasted delicious, and she had to stop herself from tearing into the food like an animal.

The mansion was quiet and empty. Presumably, her father