Monitor stress response.
I curlmy fingers around the edge of the board until it creaks.
They weren’t trying to kill her.
They were trying to keep her.
That’s worse.
The medical bed sits against the far wall. Straps still buckled. Sheets half-peeled back like someone got up – or was dragged away – mid-procedure. The restraints are sized for narrow wrists. Slim ankles.
I don’t need to imagine who.
There’s blood on the rail where someone grabbed it. Not arterial. Not catastrophic. Enough to hurt. Enough to remind you you’re not invincible no matter what they tell you.
I grip the bedframe and for half a second I see her here – jaw set, eyes sharp, refusing to give them what they want even when it costs her. I imagine the sound she’d make. Not screaming. Laughing. Saying something cruel just to prove she still owns herself.
My grip tightens.
Metal groans.
I yank once, hard, and the bed scrapes across the floor with a shriek that echoes down the corridor.
I freeze.
Noise carries.
I breathe it back down, force the violence back into its cage.
Later.
There will be a later.
If she’s still alive.
I check the adjoining storage room. Shelves stripped. Refrigeration units powered down but not defrosted properly. Missing equipment. Someone left fast. Not planned. Not clean.
Interrupted.
That’s the pattern everywhere.
If they moved her, they didn’t do it through the front. Too exposed. I spot the ceiling access panel immediately – scratched edges, recently opened.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
A distant mechanical whine hums through the building, like systems cycling back online after being forced down.
I key my comm once. “Procedure rooms,” I murmur. “They were using her. Monitoring. Looks interrupted.”
No reply yet.
Good. Everyone’s still moving.
I turn back into the corridor – and then I hear it.
Not metal.
Not alarms.
