And I moved, once, with the only violence of that entire night, and it was not an attack but a defense: as his hand jerked toward the port, I reached up from beneath the blanket and caught his wrist, and held it, and turned it away from me, so that whatever was in that syringe would not enter my body.

That was all.

I did not beat him.

I did not, whatever satisfaction the thought might have offered, execute him.

I stopped the needle, and I held his arm still, and I looked up at the doctor I had once trusted enough to give ten million dollars, and I said, in a low voice, “I’ve been conscious for five days, Doctor.

I heard every word.”