All Chapters of Exhale: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

By the time Naomi left the cafe, she had almost convinced herself that she was reading too much into Aiden's answer. The conversation should have been harmless. Aelion was supplying hospitals with Ox-Co units, the rollout had expanded quickly, and someone had to make sure everything was delivered and working. There was nothing suspicious about that. Except Naomi couldn't stop thinking about the tiny pause before he'd answered her. She had spent too many years watching patients avoid questions to ignore hesitation when she saw it, even when it came from someone who had been perfectly pleasant five minutes earlier.She headed back toward the emergency department, her Ox-Co resting comfortably against her face as she walked. Leonard was still in pathology when she found him, sitting behind his desk with his glasses low on his nose and a report open on his monitor. He looked up when she walked in and gave her a tired smile."Back again?""I have a question.""That sounds worse."Naomi pul

Naomi found Aiden a little after lunch.She had spent most of the morning trying to convince herself she didn't need to. His comment from earlier had been bothering her, though, and the more she tried to ignore it, the more her mind returned to it. She knew what he had said. She knew how it had sounded. What she didn't know was whether there had actually been something behind it or whether her brain was simply doing what it had been doing since the crisis began—turning every strange detail into something worth investigating.She spotted him near the logistics area, standing beside a cart stacked with Ox-Co cartridges while talking to one of the hospital technicians. His sleeves were pushed up slightly, and a clipboard rested beneath one arm. He looked like he'd been there for hours. Aiden noticed Naomi approaching and finished his conversation before turning toward her. His expression was relaxed at first, but the moment he saw her face, his eyebrows drew together."Everything okay?""

Naomi and Emma left Sofia's office together, neither of them saying much as they made their way back toward the emergency department. The hallway was busy with the usual morning traffic, nurses moving from one room to another, orderlies steering carts around people who refused to move out of the way, and the occasional call coming from somewhere behind a closed door. Normally, Naomi would have been paying attention to all of it without thinking, but her mind was somewhere else.A gas.Not just something that lowered oxygen levels in the atmosphere. Something that could somehow enter the human body and interfere with the cells' ability to use the oxygen already there.She kept turning Leonard's words over in her head.If oxygen was getting into their blood, why couldn't their cells use it?And if the gas was responsible, how had it gotten into them?Was it being inhaled?Was it already in the air?Was that why people were becoming sick?Then another thought followed.If it was in the ai

Naomi stared at the message until the words began to blur.Missed me?She almost threw the phone onto the other side of the bed.Almost.Instead, she tightened her grip around it and stared at the number again.Same number.The one that had sent her that first message telling her to stop looking at the dead and start looking at the trees. The same number that had appeared afterward with pieces of information that had been impossible to explain and even harder to ignore.And now, apparently, whoever was behind it had decided they were ready to have an actual conversation.Naomi swallowed.Her first instinct was to block the number.Her second was to ask a hundred questions.Her third, unfortunately, won.You finally decided to talk to me?The reply came quickly.You kept asking.Naomi stared at the screen.There was something about the simplicity of the answer that bothered her more than a long explanation would have.She typed.I've been asking because you keep sending me strange messa

Naomi didn't take her eyes off the screen.Her father's name was still there.Thomas Sinclair.Environmental Biologist.Former Research Scientist at Aelion Industries.She read each line again, hoping that somehow she'd misread it the first time. Maybe there was another Thomas Sinclair. Maybe the photograph was attached to the wrong file. Maybe there was some perfectly ordinary explanation for why her father's face was sitting on an Aelion database at nearly midnight.But the photograph was unmistakable.So was the name.Naomi clicked on his personnel file.A longer profile opened.Education. Employment history. Research affiliations. Awards. More than twenty projects were listed beneath his name.Emma leaned over her shoulder."That's a lot."Naomi barely heard her.She scrolled slowly.Her father had been the lead scientist on project after project. Environmental studies. Atmospheric composition. Air quality. Pollutant interaction. Several projects Naomi had never heard him mention.