I step inside.
The hallway is dark and smells exactly the way every clinic where actual procedures happen smells—of antiseptic. The floor is a dull, low-sheen vinyl. Dim emergency lights line the ceiling, casting everything in a faint sickly glow that makes the walls look bruised.
Talon slips in behind me. Cassian enters last, easing the door shut until the lock catches again with a soft click. We stand in the dark for a moment, listening.
Nothing.
“Where to?” Cassian asks, his voice barely above a breath.
I orient myself. The service entrance puts us in the east wing, ground floor. Ahead, the corridor will split: left toward the patient examination rooms and the pharmacy, right toward administration and records. Below us, accessible by a stairwell at the junction, is the basement level.
That’s where the labs are.
“Down,” I say.
I guide us along the corridor, counting doors. At the third intersection, we pause. A small security camera sits inert in the upper corner, its lens cracked, its housing tilted at an odd angle away from the hallway. Dead, or close to it.
“It’d be smart to check the camera logs after we’re done,” I say.
We pass underneath it and into the main axis of the clinic, find the stairwell, and head down.
Throughout it all, my heart rate stays within normal range, but there’s a heightened quality to my perception. A widening of my internal aperture, as though my mind has shifted into something sharper and more precise. I’ve felt this before. I felt it when I killed Leonard.
An alignment of sorts.
I can only hope I stay inside this mindset until the job is done. I can’t afford to dissociate the way I did at the hospital.
“Here,” I say quietly, stopping by a door markedProcedures 2.
This is the room I chose when designing tonight’s plan. According to the clinic’s internal directory, it has full monitoring capacity, a crash cart, reliable oxygen access, and a manual door lock from the inside. Everything we need.
Talon’s gaze sweeps the hall one more time. “You’re sure no one’s here?”
“As sure as we can be without x-ray eyes and mind-reading powers,” I say.
“Alright,” he murmurs.
Cassian pulls the same trick on the badge scanner as he did out front, and we step inside.
The room looks like any other high-end procedural suite: adjustable table in the center, wall-mounted monitoring systems, cabinets with neatly organized supplies, an anesthesia cart in the corner.
“Yeah, this place is not creepy at all,” Talon mutters, eyeing the table.
“It looks like any hospital,” I reply.
“Well, I’ve never been to one, so …”
Cassian closes the door behind us and engages the manual lock. “You’re about to die and come back,” he says flatly. “How’s that for a first hospital visit?”
Talon swallows. “Peachy.”
I set my bag on the counter and begin to unpack. Syringes laid out in a row. Seals checked, vials inspected. Everything I’d need is already in this room, most of it designed to prevent cardiac arrest, but I’ve learned it’s better to trust my own supplies than whatever’s been sitting in someone else’s drawer for god knows how long.
“Clothes off from the waist up,” I say to Talon. “Shoes as well. Lie on the table.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. His hands shake a little as he pulls his shirt over his head and kicks off his boots. I’m not surprised to see scars all over him.
“Electrodes,” I murmur to myself and attach adhesive pads to Talon’s chest, his ribs, and his left flank. The monitor comes to life with a soft series of beeps. His baseline rhythm appears on the screen, and we’re good to go.
