“Busy place,” he went on. “Lotta people comin’ in and out.”
I swallowed slowly, trying to push down the knot of fear that was edging up my throat.
“Yes.”
He watched me a second longer.
“Must be hard keepin’ track of who’s who.”
“I manage.” I held his gaze this time.
His smile shifted slightly. Like that was the answer he’d been looking for. His eyes were cold. Blue. Very light blue, like they’d been bleached by too much sun. He was bald, but one side of his head was completely covered in tattoos. In the middle of them all was the number twenty-eight, bold and black.
“Reckon you do.”
The silence stretched, neither one of us moving. Behind me, the sound of voices bled through from reception. Feet on linoleum padded up and down the corridor. But right now, it felt like I was stood in a bubble, with just him.
“You local?” he asked, his voice a low growl in the charged air around us.
“Why?”
“Thought maybe I’d seen you ‘round.”
My fingers curled into my palm.
“You haven’t.”
A heartbeat. A breath. Then his gaze sharpened, just slightly.
“Maybe not,” he said. “But I got a good memory for faces. You look like someone I would remember. Sophie isn’t it?”
My breath hitched. Just for a second. But it was enough. Because something in his expression shifted. Not surprise. Recognition.
“How do you know that?” I breathed, the words sitting on a whisper.
“Heard your nurse, just now. Small world.” he continued, voice dropping just a fraction. “Girl like you, don’t seem the type to mix with men in cuts.”
A pause. His eyes studied my face again, slow, deliberate.
“But then…” My chest tightened. “Guess you never really know what people get up to behind closed doors.”
My fingernails cut into my palm. Tiny pricks of pain burning in my hand.
“Saw you out late the other night,” he added, almost absently. “Didn’t peg you for the type.”
Pressure grabbed at my ribs. Too tight. Air catching halfway in. I stepped back again, my heel catching on the floor.
“I…I need to…”
The words wouldn’t come. My lungs wouldn’t work. The corridor tilted, the edges of my vision blurring as that familiar, creeping numbness started in my fingers.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
“You alright there?” he asked, voice closer now. Too close.
