Evelyn’s POV
The room was a storm of panic.
Staff darted back and forth. Phones rang. Security guards whispered urgently into walkie-talkies. But everything faded into white noise as Louis stood behind the desk, his jaw tight, his eyes dark with fury. The moment they pulled up the security footage, the chaos screeched to a halt.
There he was.
A man in a black hoodie and a white surgical mask, wheeling my mother silently down the hallway. Her head lolled gently to the side, completely unaware. Sedated. Vulnerable. A nurse’s uniform hung off his shoulder, but even through the grainy footage, I knew.
It was him.
The masked monster behind everything.
The one who had been texting me.
The one I helped.
My stomach turned violently.
Louis leaned in, knuckles pressed hard against the table as he squinted at the screen. “Can you zoom in on his face?” he demanded.
The guard shook his head. “The mask’s covering everything. We’ll run it through facial recognition anyway.”
But none of it mattered.
