Chapter 3 - Room 12 Goes Dark
Lily moved faster than fear.
She stepped in front of Caleb’s bed and pulled the privacy curtain halfway closed just as the door opened.
Trevor Blake walked in wearing a smile that had no warmth in it.
“Everything okay in here?”
Evelyn bent over her mop bucket.
“Cleaning spill.”
“There’s no spill,” Trevor said.
Evelyn looked at the floor.
“Not yet.”
Caleb’s mouth twitched despite the pain.
Trevor’s eyes slid to Lily.
“Dr. Concincaid wants updated vitals.”
“I entered them five minutes ago.”
“Then he wants them again.”
Lily reached for the blood pressure cuff.
Trevor stepped closer to Caleb’s bed.
Too close.
Caleb’s shoulders tightened.
Lily signed quickly.
Do not react.
Trevor noticed.
“What are you telling him?”
“I’m telling my patient what is happening in his room.”
Trevor smiled wider.
“Your patient? That was fast.”
Lily wrapped the cuff around Caleb’s arm.
Trevor glanced at the monitor, then at the covered corner camera.
“Why is that blocked?”
Lily looked at the small dome above the cabinets. Someone had taped a folded washcloth over the lens earlier.
She had assumed Caleb had done it.
Caleb looked at her.
He had assumed she had done it.
Neither of them moved.
Trevor’s smile faded.
“Interesting.”
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the whole room went black.
The monitor shrieked and switched to battery.
In the darkness, Caleb grabbed Lily’s wrist.
Not hard.
Not panicked.
A warning.
Footsteps moved outside the door.
More than one person.
Too quiet for nurses.
Lily’s pulse slammed in her ears.
The backup hallway lights came on, painting everything red.
Trevor whispered, “What the hell?”
Then the door opened behind him.
A man stood in the frame wearing hospital security blue.
But Lily had worked in hospitals long enough to know what belonged and what did not.
His shoes were wrong.
Too polished.
His stance was wrong.
Too balanced.
His eyes went straight to Caleb.
Not the monitor.
Not Trevor.
Caleb.
The man reached into his jacket.
Caleb moved.
Even injured, even half-drugged, even with a tube in his chest, Caleb Ror was still a weapon somebody had failed to unload.
He grabbed the metal water pitcher from the bedside table and hurled it.
It hit the man’s wrist.
Something black clattered to the floor.
Not a gun.
A syringe.
Trevor screamed.
The man lunged.
Lily slammed the rolling IV pole into his knees.
He cursed and fell against the wall. Caleb ripped the call button cord from its clip and looped it around the man’s arm, twisting just enough to pin him.
The chest tube tugged.
Caleb’s face went white.
Lily shouted, “Help! Security! Room 12!”
Trevor backed into the corner, useless and shaking.
The fake guard snarled at Caleb.
“You should have stayed dead in Kandahar.”
Lily’s breath stopped.
Caleb froze.
The man used that second to break free and run.
Lily chased him to the hallway, but the emergency lights flickered again. Nurses spilled from rooms. Patients shouted. Someone yelled about the power.
By the time real security arrived, the man was gone.
Only the syringe remained.
Lily picked it up with a specimen bag.
Trevor stared at her.
“Is that—”
“Evidence,” Lily said.
His face changed at the word.
Concincaid appeared at the end of the hallway in a white coat that looked untouched by chaos.
“What happened?”
Lily held up the bag.
“A man dressed as security entered Caleb’s room with this.”
Concincaid barely glanced at it.
“This is absurd.”
“He said Caleb should have stayed dead in Kandahar.”
For the first time, Concincaid’s mask cracked.
Just slightly.
But Lily saw it.
So did Caleb.
Dr. Patel arrived behind him.
“I want the syringe tested,” she said.
Concincaid turned.
“This is not your unit.”
“It is when my consult patient is attacked during a power outage.”
Mara appeared beside the nurses’ station, pale and silent.
Evelyn stood behind her mop bucket, eyes lowered.
But Lily saw her hand.
Two fingers tapped the handle.
Once.
Twice.
A signal.
Not ASL.
Not military code.
Older.
Simpler.
Camera.
Lily looked up.
The hallway camera above the medication room was still on.
Its tiny green light blinked through the red emergency glow.
Someone had shut down Room 12.
But they had forgotten the hallway.
Caleb signed from the bed, pain making his fingers stiff.
The man is not the secret.
Lily looked at him.
Then what is?
May you like
His eyes moved to Concincaid.
Who opened the door for him.
