It terrified me.
My eyes finally focused, and the fluorescent lights above me were the specific blue-white of an operating theater. Not overhead kitchen lights. Not industrial fixtures. OR lights, positioned to eliminate shadows during surgery, angled to illuminate a surgical field.
I was the surgical field.
The realization landed like a physical blow. I started cataloging details with horrifying precision. Surgical table beneath me, not a hospital bed. Restraints positioned to prevent patient movement during procedures. The steady beep of the cardiac monitor confirming my heart rate, elevated but strong. Functional.
An IV line ran into my left arm. I followed the tubing up to a bag of saline. Standard protocol for keeping a patient hydrated,for maintaining vein access, for flushing anesthetic from the system. Sevoflurane, I remembered. Sweet chemical smell, fast-acting. They'd used it in the van.
They needed me conscious for something.
Testing, probably. Final compatibility work. Blood typing, tissue matching, the careful assessments that preceded any transplant surgery. They'd want to verify I was the universal match the bounty had claimed. Make sure the merchandise was as advertised before they started cutting.
I tried to scream, but my throat was raw, shredded from earlier—from screaming Frank's name, from the sounds I'd made as they dragged me into the van. What came out was barely a croak.
The gown I wore was hospital-standard. Thin cotton that did nothing against the table's cold. When I managed to lift my head—the only movement my restraints allowed—I could see my own body laid out beneath the lights.
And I saw them.
Black lines. Surgical marker. Traced across my abdomen in patterns I recognized because I'd drawn them myself, on other patients, in other operating rooms.
Organ mapping.
Someone had drawn incision points on my skin while I was unconscious. Neat, precise marks indicating where to cut to access my liver. My kidneys. The careful notation of anatomical landmarks, the kind of surgical planning I'd done hundreds of times before I opened someone up.
Except this time, I was the one being planned.
I pulled against the restraints with everything I had. My muscles burned with the effort. The padded cuffs held, designed specifically for this—for patients who woke up and fought, who realized what was about to happen and tried to escape. The cardiac monitor beeped faster, tracking my panic in real time.
They'd done this before. The setup was too professional, too practiced. This wasn't a makeshift operation—it was infrastructure. A harvesting facility that had processed people before me and would process people after.
Frank's face flashed in my mind. The way he'd looked at me in that last moment, confused, trusting, not understanding why this was happening. He'd died because I'd walked out of safety. Because I'd been so certain I knew better than Kostya, so determined to prove that my compassion wasn't weakness.
My compassion had killed a twenty-one-year-old kid and delivered me to a surgical table.
Kostya would be looking for me by now. Would have woken to empty sheets and understood immediately. Would be tearing the city apart, calling in every resource, hunting with the single-minded focus of a man who'd promised to protect me.
But he didn't know where to look. I'd left my phone behind specifically so he couldn't track me. Had congratulated myself on my cleverness, on thinking three steps ahead, on being smart enough to evade his protective surveillance.
Smart enough to get myself captured with no way for anyone to find me.
The markers on my skin seemed to pulse under the lights. I counted the incision points involuntarily—medical habit, the automatic assessment of surgical complexity. Primary access point for liver retrieval. Secondary access for kidney extraction. The markings were textbook perfect, drawn by someone with extensive surgical training.
Someone who knew exactly how to take me apart piece by piece.
I screamed then. Really screamed, throat be damned, raw and primal and desperate. The sound bounced off sterile walls, echoed through what I now recognized as a proper surgical suite. Tiled floors. Drain in the center for easy cleaning. Equipmenttrays positioned within arm's reach of the table, covered with sterile cloths but clearly ready.
Everything ready. Everything prepared. Just waiting for the surgeon to arrive and begin.
The door opened, and I didn't know how long I'd been screaming.
Minutes, probably. Long enough for my throat to shred itself completely, for my voice to become a ragged whisper, for the cardiac monitor to alarm twice at my heart rate before I'd forced myself to calm down through sheer will. The steady beep had become my enemy and my anchor—proof I was still alive, countdown to when I wouldn't be.
The man who entered was older than I remembered. There were new lines there, and silver hair swept back from a distinguished face. The kind of face that belonged on hospital fundraising brochures, on medical journal covers, on the wall of the surgical department where promising residents came to learn their craft.
I knew that face.
He wore surgical scrubs with the ease of someone who'd lived in them for decades. Moved through the sterile space like it was his living room, comfortable and unhurried. When he saw me awake, strapped down and wild-eyed on his table, he smiled.
