The loading dock is bathed in harsh bright light, those typical hospital lights that make everything look corpse-pale and clinical. A metal door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sits closed, but there's a window beside it, large enough to see through.
Large enough to photograph through.
Roxy moves toward it immediately, her camera already raised.
"Careful," I murmur, keeping watch on the access road.
She doesn't respond as she's already lost in it, the need to capture this space where death is processed like inventory. Corpses are dealt with like a daily monotony, no real care or interest in whole these people were and what they lived. But that’s humans for you, they become desensitized with routine exposure. Empathy leaves the fucking building.
I have a peek through the window, and I can see stainless steel tables. Gurneys. Equipment I don't want to identify. The room is empty right now, but the aftermath of what happens here is everywhere. In the clinical cleaning smell that seeps through the door seams, from the industrial drains built into the floor. Even in the way the fluorescent lights hum with a frequency that feels wrong.
Roxy's camera clicks. Once. Twice. Three times.
"That's enough," I say quietly.
"Just a few more."
"Roxy."
She ignores me, adjusting her angle to capture the far corner of the room. I notice her breathing has changed, becoming faster and shallower. The way it always gets when she's seeing something that calls to her inner dark.
Click. Click. Click.
The smell of formaldehyde drifts out from somewhere, mixing with the bleach. It's chemical and wrong and it makes my stomach turn, but Roxy leans closer to the window like she's trying to breathe it in.
"This is where they prepare them," she whispers. "Before the families see. This is where the emptiness lives."
"I know. But we need to…"
A door opens somewhere inside the building. Footsteps. Heavy, and they’re getting closer.
"Roxy.Now."
I grab her arm and pull her away from the window. She stumbles, her camera swinging on its strap, but I don't let go. I'm already moving, dragging her with me toward the shadows behind the dumpsters.
"I didn't get the wide shot!"
"I don't fucking care."
We press against the concrete wall just as a security guard rounds the corner. An older guy, maybe sixty, with a flashlight and a radio clipped to his belt. He's doing his rounds, checking the perimeter. He stops at the loading dock before taking a quick look around. His flashlight beam sweeps across the area where we were standing thirty seconds ago.
Roxy's breathing hard against my shoulder and I can feel her pulse racing through her jacket.
The guard lingers for another twenty seconds, then he moves on, disappearing around the far side of the building.
We wait two full minutes before moving. When we finally make it back to the car, I'm shaking. Not from adrenaline, but from anger at how careless she was.
"Get in," I say, my voice tight.
Roxy climbs into the passenger seat without arguing. She knows. She can hear it in my tone.
I drive three blocks before pulling into an empty parking lot behind a closed grocery store. Then I kill the engine and turn to face her.
"Someone almost saw you."
"I know, I’m sorry."
"We can't afford that. Not now. Not ever."
