Chapter: CHAPTER FIVE "What Marcus Knows"I'd slept maybe four hours.I knew because I'd watched the ceiling go from dark to slightly less dark to the specific grey that meant morning had decided to show up whether I was ready for it or not. At five I stopped pretending and got up. Cold water on my face. Coffee from the small machine in the corner of my temporary quarters that made it badly but made it hot. The mechanical routine of getting dressed, of making my expression do what I needed it to do, of becoming Dr. Venn again after a night of being too many other things.By six-thirty I was ready.By eight-fifteen I was standing in the formal conference room across from the council liaison with my documentation open on the table between us, and whatever the night had done to me was not visible in any way that mattered.His name was Aldric Senn. Mid-fifties, methodical, the kind of man who initialed every page and meant it. He went through my findings section by section without rushing, asked the right questions in the right o
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
Chapter: CHAPTER FOUR "Voss"I drove back in two hours and nine minutes.I know because I checked the time when I passed through the Graves boundary and I checked it again when I pulled into the Voss facility's east lot, and the math was something I didn't let myself think too hard about because thinking about it meant thinking about why I'd been driving like that, and I wasn't ready to do that yet.The supply review justification had taken me four minutes to write up and route through the administrative system the night before. It was legitimate enough - two pending inventory sign-offs that genuinely needed my physical signature. I'd just moved them to the front of the queue in a way I wouldn't normally move them, at a time I wouldn't normally choose, for a reason I wasn't putting in writing anywhere.Marcus had seen my departure request. Of course he had. I'd sent a message through official channels, kept the language clean, confirmed I'd be back in Graves territory within twenty-four hours. His reply had been
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
Chapter: CHAPTER THREE "What's In The Blood"The facility got quiet around four in the morning.Not silent - there was always the low hum of the medical equipment, the occasional soft footstep of the night staff doing their rounds, the distant sound of a door somewhere closing with too much care. But quiet enough. The kind of quiet where you could actually think without half your brain monitoring the room for things to manage.I'd figured that out on day one and shifted my schedule around it.Seventy-two hours in. Ten critical cases now - we'd added one overnight, a woman in her late thirties whose bloodwork had gone sideways faster than the others. I'd been at the display for two hours already, the results from all active cases arranged in columns, my notes spread beside me, coffee gone cold somewhere to my left.The pattern wasn't making sense.That was the thing. That was the thing that had been sitting at the edge of my awareness since the first day, not quite loud enough to name, and now at four in the morning with the corr
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
Chapter: CHAPTER TWO "Graves"The boundary gate came up on my left and I didn't turn my head to look at it.I felt it though. The way you feel a place you used to know - not in your mind exactly, more in the back of your throat, this low recognition that your body holds onto even when your brain has done everything right to let go. Five years. And still my shoulders pulled in slightly as we passed through, like they were trying to make me smaller than I was.Marcus was driving. He did most things the way he did this - steady, unhurried, aware of everything and showing you almost none of it. We'd made the two hours with maybe fifteen minutes of total conversation, which was fine. I'd used the time to go through the case files again and to make sure my face had finished deciding what it was going to do.It had decided on nothing useful, so I'd settled for neutral.Professional. Competent. Dr. Venn, Voss Medical Division, cross-territory consultation, here to do a job. That was all this was. That was all I was going
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE "Dr. Venn"The Harmon file was the last one on my desk and I was almost done with it.Mild inflammation, shoulder joint, same pattern I'd seen three times this month. I wrote up the treatment notes without really thinking about it - the kind of task your hands do while your brain is already halfway out the door. It was six-fourteen. Eli's bedtime was seven. I had forty-six minutes if the traffic on the east corridor was clear."Same time Thursday," I told Harmon, without looking up. "And actually do the exercises this time. I'll know if you haven't."He made a sound that was probably agreement and let himself out.I capped my pen. Rolled my neck once. Reached for my bag.That's when Petra knocked.She had that specific knock - three times, slightly apologetic, which meant she had something that couldn't wait until morning but she felt bad about it. I'd learned to read her knuckles over three years of working together. I set my bag back down."Come in."She pushed the door open just enough to sli
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
LOGIN
