I pulled my knees to my chest, making myself small against the wall, and let the cheerful Australian accents wash over me. This episode was about Bluey and Bingo playing hospitals, their dad pretending to be a patient with increasingly ridiculous ailments. The animated dog children were so certain they could fix everything, so confident in their plastic stethoscopes and crayon prescriptions.
Without conscious thought, my thumb found its way between my lips.
The familiar comfort was immediate—pressure and warmth and something to focus on besides the impossible equations of survival. My body curled tighter, smaller, like I could disappear into the cartoon world where problems were solved in seven minutes and everyone was safe and loved and held.
I knew what this was. Regression. Age regression, specifically, a trauma response where the psyche retreated to a developmental stage before the world became dangerous. I'd read the literature, understood the psychology. Some people regressed to teenagers, some to children, some even younger. For me, it was somewhere around four or five—old enough to understand but young enough to believe in safety.
My thumb pressed against the roof of my mouth, and I felt myself sliding deeper into that soft space. Little Maya, who didn't have to make impossible choices. Little Maya, who could trust adults to handle the scary things. Little Maya, who just wanted someone to tell her it would be okay, even if it was a lie.
On screen, Bluey's dad was teaching them about taking care of others, about being gentle with people who were hurting. The animated dog father was impossibly patient, impossibly kind, the kind of parent who existed only in fiction and the memories we edited to survive.
I sucked harder on my thumb, a tiny sound escaping that might have been contentment or might have been grief. Here in the dark, with only the iPad's glow and the sounds of animated dogs, I could pretend. Pretend I wasn't twenty-six and alone and holding information that could save lives or end mine.
For fifteen minutes, I let myself drift in that space. Little and soft and not responsible for anything except staying quiet and small. My thumb between my lips, my body curled into the smallest possible ball, the cheerful chaos of Australian dogs telling me stories about families that loved each other and problems that could be solved with imagination and kindness.
For fifteen minutes, I didn't have to be Dr. Maya Cross. Didn't have to be brave or brilliant or broken.
I could just be little. Just be held by the flickering light of a children's show and the comfort of my own thumb and the lie that somewhere, somehow, someone would make it better.
Reality crashed back like cold water on burned skin. I ripped my thumb from my mouth so violently I scraped it against my teeth, leaving the taste of blood mixing with shame. The iPad clattered to the floor as I scrambled upright, Bluey's cheerful voice still chirping about feelings and family and all the things I'd never have.
What was I doing? What the fuck was I doing?
I was twenty-six years old with a medical degree from Johns Hopkins, hiding in a basement with evidence of organ trafficking, and I was sucking my thumb like a toddler. Like a baby. Like someone who couldn't handle reality without retreating into fantasy and animated dogs and the pathetic comfort of my own mouth.
The self-loathing hit with physical force, making me double over. This was exactly why I was here, wasn't it? Because I was weak. Because when things got hard, when pressure mounted, I retreated into childishness instead of fighting back. If I'd been stronger, tougher, more clinical, maybe I would have seen Brand's trap before it closed. Maybe I would have documented everything properly the first time. Maybe that patient wouldn't have died on Brand's table while I was barred from the building, screaming truth no one wanted to hear.
But no. I was the kind of person who sucked her thumb and watched cartoons while people were being harvested for parts. Pathetic. Disgusting. Exactly as worthless as Brand had made me out to be.
The memory surfaced unbidden, sharp as surgical steel. My ex, Marlon's apartment, two years ago, after a particularly brutalthirty-six-hour shift. I'd been so exhausted I could barely stand, and he'd found me on his couch, thumb in my mouth, half-asleep with Tangled playing on his laptop. He'd been so gentle at first, pulling me against his chest, calling it cute. "My brilliant girlfriend with her adorable little secret," he'd said, like it was something special between us.
Six months later, we were both up for the same cardiac surgery fellowship—the prestigious one at Cleveland Clinic that only took one resident per year. The competition was brutal. Every evaluation mattered. Every attending's opinion counted.
The review board meeting had been private, supposedly confidential. But Marlon's friend Jake had been there, had heard the whole thing. Marlon had been so casual about it, Jake said. Just dropped it into conversation when they'd asked about stress management techniques.
"Maya's brilliant," Marlon had said, "but she has some concerning coping mechanisms. Childish stuff. Regression behaviors. I found her sucking her thumb once after a difficult surgery. I worry about her ability to handle the pressure of advanced cardiac work."
Just like that. Casual. Like he was discussing my surgical technique, not exposing the most vulnerable part of me to a room full of people who'd decide my future. The board had thanked him for his honesty. Said it showed real concern for patient safety, bringing up such a delicate issue.
I didn't get the fellowship.
Marlon did.
Later, when I'd confronted him with tears streaming down my face, he'd had the audacity to look confused. "I was just being honest," he'd said. "They asked about our readiness for pressure. Don't you think that's relevant? It's not personal, Maya. It's about what's best for the program."
Not personal. He'd taken the softest, most hidden part of me and used it as a weapon, then acted like I was being unreasonable for bleeding.
That's when I'd learned: your vulnerabilities become ammunition in other people's hands. Always. Without exception.
I pushed myself off the mattress, stumbling to the utility sink. The water was ice cold, but that was what I needed. I splashed it on my face repeatedly, shocking my system back to the present. Back to the basement. Back to the evidence that needed handling and the enforcer who'd be here in hours and the complete impossibility of trusting anyone with any of it.
When I looked in the cracked mirror above the sink, Dr. Maya Cross stared back. Not Little Maya with her thumb and her cartoons and her pathetic need for comfort. The doctor. The surgeon. The woman who'd survived six months alone and would survive six more, six years, six decades if necessary.
I went back to the mattress, but this time with my laptop and a fresh legal pad. If I couldn't trust anyone else, I'd have to build an airtight case myself. Document everything. Gather physical evidence. Create a paper trail so clear that even corrupted law enforcement couldn't ignore it.
First step: photographs of Kateryna's surgical sites, with her permission. Medical documentation of the missing kidney. Her testimony, recorded and transcribed.
Second: more patients. Irina's flash drive had six recent cases. I could track them down, examine them, document the evidence of their missing organs. Build a pattern that couldn't be dismissed as coincidence.
