CHAPTER 6

For three seconds, nobody moved.

The monitors in the security room went black, all of them at once, like someone had reached through the hospital and pinched the electricity between two fingers.

Frank cursed under his breath.

Nicole grabbed my arm.

Dr. Han didn’t make a sound, but her hand went tight around the tablet like she was one bad decision away from throwing it through a wall.

Then the emergency lights kicked on.

Red washed over everything.

The room looked wrong in that light. Frank’s security desk. The dead monitors. The stale coffee cup beside the keyboard. Nicole’s crooked visitor badge. My reflection in one blank screen, eyes too wide, brown skin warmed by the ugly red glow, wrist burning beneath my sleeve like it had a heartbeat of its own.

Frank hit keys hard enough to make the keyboard rattle. “Come on. Come on.”

Nothing.

“Did the whole system crash?” I asked.

He swallowed. “No.”

Nicole leaned over his shoulder. “That is not a comforting answer, Frank.”

“It’s not the whole system,” he said. “Just security.”

Dr. Han stepped closer. “Can you restore the footage?”

“I can try.”

The screens flickered.

For half a second, I saw the hallway outside the ICU again. Empty. Too clean. Too normal.

Then the image snapped back into static.

When it cleared, the access log was open.

The line with my name was gone.

So was everything between 2:58 and 3:24.

Frank sat back slowly. “That wasn’t me.”

“No shit,” Nicole said.

Dr. Han’s face went colder. “Print the logs.”

Frank clicked.

The printer beside him coughed, beeped, then spat out one blank page.

Nicole laughed once, sharp and mean. “Oh, that’s cute.”

My phone buzzed in my hand again.

Unknown number.

I almost didn’t look.

Almost.

There was no picture this time.

Just a message.

Stop looking.

I stared at it until the words blurred.

Nicole read it over my shoulder, and whatever color had been in her cheeks drained away. Her mouth tightened into a line I knew too well.

That was her “someone is about to get hurt” face.

Dr. Han took the phone from my hand without asking. She snapped a picture of the message with her own phone, then handed mine back.

“Forward it to me,” she said.

I tried.

The message vanished before my thumb hit send.

One second it was there.

The next, my screen showed nothing but an empty thread.

Nicole whispered, “I hate this haunted tech bullshit.”

Frank looked at me like I might explode.

Fair.

I kind of felt like I might.

Dr. Han lowered her voice. “Deena, you need to leave.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Not forever. Not because you did anything wrong. But right now, your badge has been used in a falsified log, your name is tied to a missing patient, and someone is manipulating hospital systems in real time.” Her eyes cut toward the dead monitors. “Until I know who else has access, you are not safe here.”

“I have patients downstairs.”

“You have Melissa downstairs.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” she said. “But Melissa is not currently being stalked by people who can erase security footage.”

Nicole lifted one finger. “Actually, I vote with the doctor.”

I turned on her. “You always vote against me when danger is involved.”

“Because you have a hero complex and a paycheck.”

“I do not have a hero complex.”

“You signed legal paperwork for a dying stranger with your own blood.”

“That was an accident.”

“The blood part, maybe.”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Damn it.

Dr. Han’s expression softened by a fraction. “I’ll speak with Melissa. I’ll say you’re being sent home until IT clears the badge issue.”

“That makes me sound guilty.”

“It makes you sound protected.”

I hated that word.

Protected.

People used it when they meant controlled, hidden, removed, handled. Wrapped up neatly and placed somewhere convenient while other people decided what happened next.

But the truth was, my wrist was burning, my patient was gone, and someone had just texted me from nowhere to stop looking.

So I nodded.

Barely.

“Fine.”

Nicole grabbed my bag like she had been waiting for that single syllable. “Great. We’re leaving.”

I looked at Dr. Han. “If you find anything—”

“I’ll call you from a landline,” she said. “Apparently we’re in 1997 now.”

That almost made me smile.

Almost.

Getting out of Mercy General felt like walking through a place pretending not to be a crime scene. The ER was loud again. Normally loud. A woman arguing about wait times. A kid crying. Someone vomiting in a basin behind curtain three.

Life kept going, even when yours had decided to fall apart in public.

Melissa caught me by the nurses’ station.

“What the hell did you do now?” she demanded.

I pointed at myself. “Why do you assume I did something?”

“Because trouble finds you and asks for directions.”

Nicole appeared at my side. “She is being sent home due to hospital fuckery.”

Melissa looked at Nicole. “Who are you?”

“The responsible adult.”

Melissa’s eyes moved between us. “That’s terrifying.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered.

Melissa’s annoyance cracked just enough for concern to show. “Go home, Williams. Answer your phone. And if admin asks, I told you nothing because I like my job and my blood pressure.”

“Love you too.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

Outside, the black SUV from earlier was gone.

That should have helped.

It did not.

Nicole drove like every car behind us had personally insulted her mother. She made three unnecessary turns, circled a block twice, then pulled into my apartment parking lot from the back entrance.

I stared at her. “Have you done this before?”

“I told you. True crime.”

“That is not training.”

“It is awareness with commercials.”

My apartment looked exactly how I had left it.

Small. Warm. Too many plants for someone who forgot to water them. A blanket over the couch. My nursing shoes kicked near the door. Dishes in the sink because yesterday I had believed in future me, and future me was apparently a dumbass.

Nicole locked the door, checked the window, then carried Jeffrey the bat into the living room like a sacred object.

I dropped my bag on the floor and leaned against the kitchen counter.

For the first time all morning, I let myself breathe.

It didn’t help.

My wrist was still warm.

I pushed up my sleeve.

The marks were darker than they had been yesterday, five shadowed impressions against my brown skin. They didn’t look like bruises anymore. They looked deliberate.

Nicole came up beside me.

Neither of us spoke for a minute.

Then she said, “We should go to my place.”

“No.”

“A hotel.”

“No.”

“A church?”

I looked at her.

“What?” she said. “I’m brainstorming.”

“I am not running blind from my own apartment because some mystery asshole knows how to send creepy texts.”

“Deena.”

“I need answers.”

“And I need you alive long enough to get them.”

The knock came before I could respond.

Three firm hits.

Not loud.

Not impatient.

Controlled.

Nicole and I froze.

The apartment went so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming.

Another knock.

Same rhythm.

My hand went automatically toward the drawer where I kept the good kitchen knife.

Nicole grabbed Jeffrey.

I mouthed, Wait.

She mouthed back something that looked a lot like Fuck that.

I moved to the door slowly and looked through the peephole.

A man stood in the hallway.

A very large man.

Not just tall. Built. Broad shoulders, straight posture, black coat, short dark hair. He had the kind of stillness that made the empty hallway feel smaller around him. His brown eyes were fixed directly on the door, like he knew I was looking.

My stomach tightened.

He was not the man from room 412.

But he came from the same world.

I knew it before he said a word.

Nicole whispered, “Who is it?”

“If bad news had a gym membership.”

“Open it?”

“Not all the way.”

I slid the chain into place and opened the door two inches.

The man looked down at me.

And I do mean down. I was used to being short. I had made peace with it. I could climb counters and intimidate interns from below. But this man made my doorway look like it had been built for children.

“Deena Williams,” he said.

Not a question.

A statement.

My fingers tightened around the door. “Depends who’s asking.”

“Mace Calder.”

I waited.

He offered nothing else.

I raised my eyebrows. “Was that supposed to mean something to me?”

“No.”

At least he was honest.

Nicole appeared behind me with the bat propped on her shoulder. “Then this has been a thrilling introduction. Goodbye.”

Mace’s eyes shifted to her.

Most men made the mistake of underestimating Nicole because she was blonde, pretty, and usually smiling right before she ruined someone’s day.

Mace did not underestimate her.

His gaze took in the bat, her stance, the angle of her shoulders.

Then he looked back at me.

“I’m here on behalf of Xavier Evers.”

The letters hit me first.

E-V.

The broken chart field.

The missing name.

My throat tightened. “Xavier.”

“The man you knew as John Doe.”

Nicole’s grip on the bat changed. “The missing patient has a name. Fantastic. Does he also have a hobby? Maybe evidence tampering?”

Mace ignored her.

That was his first mistake.

I opened the door another inch, chain still hooked. “Where is he?”

“Alive.”

“I asked where.”

“Safe.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one I’m giving in the hallway.”

Nicole snorted. “Oh, he’s fun.”

Mace’s jaw flexed once. “Xavier Evers requires your presence.”

The apartment went still again.

I stared at him.

Then I laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because if I didn’t laugh, I might have started screaming, and my neighbors were already nosy enough.

“Requires?” I repeated. “That’s a bold word from a man speaking through a door chain.”

Mace’s expression did not change. “You need to come with me.”

“No, I need coffee, answers, and for men I don’t know to stop acting like my schedule belongs to them.”

“Your hospital is compromised.”

“I noticed.”

“Your name has been placed in records that should not exist.”

“Also noticed.”

“People are looking for you.”

“People like you?”

His eyes darkened. “No.”

Something in the way he said it made the back of my neck prickle.

Nicole stepped closer, voice sweet enough to poison. “Let me make this simple, Mace Calder. She is not going anywhere with you.”

“I was instructed to bring her to Xavier.”

“And I was instructed by common sense not to hand my best friend to the first giant man who shows up at her door saying some rich dick requires her presence.”

For the first time, Mace looked directly at Nicole for longer than a second.

“I am not here to harm her.”

“Men who plan to harm women rarely lead with that.”

His mouth tightened.

I almost respected him for not arguing.

Almost.

I folded my arms. “Why can’t Xavier come here himself?”

“He is recovering.”

“He walked out of an ICU after major trauma.”

“He was removed.”

That stopped me.

“By who?”

Mace’s eyes moved over my face like he was deciding how much truth I could handle.

I hated that too.

“By his people,” he said finally. “Before the wrong people found him.”

“The wrong people found me just fine.”

“Yes.”

One word.

Heavy as a body bag.

Nicole went quiet beside me.

I did not like when Nicole went quiet.

Mace leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice. “Miss Williams, you signed something you do not understand. With blood. That act has consequences in circles you have never seen and with people who will not care that you are human, innocent, or unprepared.”

Human.

There it was again.

That word.

The way Xavier had said it without saying it.

The way Mace said it like it belonged in a category beside fragile and temporary.

My temper sparked hot.

“You keep saying human like it’s supposed to hurt my feelings,” I said. “I work twelve-hour shifts with surgeons who think coffee is a food group. You’ll have to try harder.”

Something moved in his expression.

Not a smile.

Maybe the ghost of one that got strangled at birth.

Nicole pointed the bat at him. “And if she goes, I go.”

“No,” Mace said.

Nicole smiled.

That was worse than if she had cursed him out.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “Wrong answer.”

Mace’s shoulders squared. “This matter concerns Deena Williams and Xavier Evers.”

“This matter concerns my family.”

“You are not blood.”

“Lucky for her. Blood seems to be causing all the problems.”

His gaze sharpened.

I saw it.

Nicole saw it too.

She lowered the bat just slightly. “What?”

Mace said nothing.

I stepped closer to the crack in the door. “What did she just say that mattered?”

“You need to leave now.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“No. It was a warning.”

A sound came from down the hallway.

The elevator.

Soft chime.

Ordinary. Everyday. Completely harmless.

Except Mace went still in a way that made every nerve in my body wake up.

Not polite-still.

Weapon-still.

Nicole noticed too. “Friend of yours?”

Mace’s hand moved beneath his coat.

“No.”

The elevator doors opened at the end of the hall.

Three men stepped out.

Dark suits. Empty hands. Calm faces.

The one in front looked straight at me and smiled like he had been waiting his whole life to see my blood hit the floor.

Mace said one word.

“Run.”