The room smelled like antiseptic and old metal, a sterile tang that clung to the nostrils like regret. Lucifer stood at the long steel table, fingers braced against its surface, staring down at nothing. The overhead light washed him in white, turning the sharp planes of his face into carved stone, shadows pooling in the hollows under his eyes. The hum of the air-conditioning was the only sound, a constant drone that mimicked the buzz in his skull.
The building slept.
But his mind did not.
Nera's empty bed was still burned into his vision—the tiny pillow untouched, the blanket folded the way she always folded it when she pretended she was "too grown" for bedtime. Her small drawings scattered on the floor, crayon scribbles of a family that never was. He could still see her little hand clutching that toy rabbit, the one with the missing ear, as she walked toward De Luca's car. Willingly. Without a backward glance.
Gone.
Slipped out of his hands like water.
