Thewarehousedistrictatfour in the morning was not a nice place to be. A jagged skyline of rusted metal and shattered glass catching moonlight in all the wrong ways. I'd walked twenty minutes from the compound, each step taking medeeper into the industrial wasteland that even desperate people avoided after dark.
Every survival instinct I'd developed over six months of hiding screamed at me to turn around. This was exactly the kind of place where bodies were found. Where screams went unheard.
The warehouse on 4th Street stood out even among its dead neighbors. Three stories of broken windows and graffiti-covered brick, the kind of building that looked like it was actively decomposing. The main entrance was boarded up, plywood sheets nailed over doors that had probably been beautiful once.
I circled the perimeter, staying in shadows. The chain-link fence was mostly intact except for one section where someone had peeled it back, creating a gap just wide enough for a person. The metal was bent outward, not in—someone leaving in a hurry rather than breaking in. Fresh scratches in the rust. Recent.
My hands shook as I squeezed through the gap. The fence caught the jacket, held me for one terrifying second before releasing with a sound like tearing flesh.
The side entrance was a metal door hanging off one hinge, darkness visible through the gap. I stood there for thirty seconds, listening. Wind through broken glass. The distant hum of the city. Something dripping. And underneath it all, so faint I might have imagined it—breathing that wasn't mine.
My hand found a chunk of broken concrete, edges sharp enough to cut. Pathetic weapon against anyone professional, but the weight of it made me feel marginally less helpless.
"Frank?" My voice came out as barely a whisper. I cleared my throat, tried again. "Frank, it's Dr. Cross."
Silence. The kind that felt alive, watchful. My grip on the concrete tightened until the edges bit into my palm. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three—
"Dr. Cross?"
The voice was young, terrified, exactly how Frank sounded when he'd asked about my bruises weeks ago. It came from deeper in the building, past machinery that loomed like sleeping giants in the darkness.
Relief hit me so hard my knees actually buckled.
"Frank, keep talking. Are you hurt? Is anyone with you?"
"Just me." His voice got stronger as I got closer. "I've been here two days. Didn't know where else to go."
I found him huddled behind what looked like an old industrial press, knees drawn to his chest, making himself as small as possible. His face was dirty, clothes rumpled, but his eyes were clear. Alert. Alive.
Kostya had been wrong. This wasn't a trap. This was a terrified kid who'd run when danger came knocking.
"Thank god," I breathed. The concrete chunk fell from my hand, clattering on the floor. "I thought—everyone said—but you're really here."
I dropped to my knees beside him, medical instincts overriding everything else. His pulse was rapid but strong. No visible injuries beyond minor scrapes. Dehydration evident in his dry lips and the way his skin tented when I pinched it gently.
"We're getting you out of here," I said, reaching for the medical kit. "But first, tell me everything."
He leaned back against the machinery, and in the faint moonlight filtering through broken windows, I could see tears tracking through the dirt on his face. "They came to the store two days ago. Three men. They had your picture."
My blood went cold, but I kept my hands steady as I cleaned a cut on his hand.
"They weren't cops," Frank continued. "I could tell. The way they moved, the way they looked at my grandmother like she was nothing. They asked about a shadow doctor working out of a veterinary clinic. Grandma played dumb, but they were gettingdangerous. Then they threatened us both. Said we had two days."
"So you ran."
"After they left. I convinced Grandma the store needed emergency repairs, sent her to stay with my aunt in Flushing. She didn't want to go, but I told her there was a gas leak." His voice cracked. "Only thing that would make her leave."
Forty-eight hours of hiding in this industrial coffin, jumping at every sound, surviving on vending machine food and fear while waiting for someone to save him.
And I'd almost not come.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I never meant for any of this—"
"Stop." His voice was firm, surprising me. "You helped people who had nowhere else to go. You stitched up kids from my neighborhood who would have died otherwise." He met my eyes. "You think I don't know what you risked every time you helped someone?"
The tears came then, hot and sudden.
"I'm going to take you somewhere safe," I said. "A guy I know. He'll understand once he sees you're real."
