"Mr. Torres."
I turned. Dr. Park was standing behind me, his expression unreadable.
"Dr. Park. I'm looking for Ava."
Something flickered across his face. Sympathy, maybe. Or pity.
"Let's talk in my office."
I followed him down the hallway, Shane a silent presence at my back. Park's office was small, cluttered with paperwork and medical journals. He closed the door behind us and gestured to the chairs across from his desk.
I didn't sit.
"Where is she?"
He took a breath. "Dr. Rothwell submitted her notice three days ago," Park said. "She's taken a leave of absence, effective immediately."
The words didn't make sense. Ava loved this job. She'd built her entire life around it—the long hours, the impossible cases, the chance to save people when no one else could.
"She said she needs to step away," Park continued. "Until the Lang situation is resolved." He paused. "She didn't tell you."
It wasn't a question.
"No." My voice came out rough. "She didn't."
Park was quiet for a moment. "I've known Ava since her residency. She's one of the best doctors I've ever worked with—and one of the most stubborn." He met my eyes. "She thinks she's protecting people by doing this. Removing herself from the equation."
"She's wrong."
"I know." Park leaned back in his chair. "But she's not going to believe that until the threat is gone. Until it's safe for her to come back."
Ava had quit her job. The job she'd spent fourteen years building, the career she'd sacrificed everything for. She'd walked away from all of it—from the ER, from her patients, from me.
Because she thought it was the only way to keep everyone safe.
"Thank you, Dr. Park."
Park nodded.
I walked out of his office, Shane beside me.
That night, I lay in bed alone, staring at the ceiling.
The sheets still smelled like her. Faintly, fading a little more each day. Soon they wouldn't smell like anything at all, and that thought was somehow worse than the bruised ribs, worse than the marks that were slowly fading from purple to yellow.
I thought about Carmen.
I thought about the way she'd left—half the furniture gone, her face already closed off, the ring in my sock drawer that I'd never get to give her.
I want someone who's going somewhere.
She'd left because I wasn't enough. Because being a firefighter wasn't enough. Because loving her with everything I had wasn't enough to make her stay.
And now Ava.
Except—
Except Ava hadn't left because I wasn't enough. She'd left because she thought she was too much. Too dangerous. Too much of a target. She'd left because she loved me, and she thought loving me meant destroying me.
