Hospitals lie best when they pretend they're telling the truth. That's what Nora had learned early truth in a hospital was less about facts and more about who controlled the file, or who had the power to erase it before it was ever reviewed.
That morning, Westbridge wasn't quiet. It was alert. Listening. The kind of silence that trembles under tension, where everyone pretends they're not watching you while secretly adjusting their stethoscope to hear better. Nora walked through it with the same steady pace she always carried, but something in the rhythm had shifted. Whispers followed her down the corridor like echoes, never direct, never loud just sharp enough to cut.
"Ice Scalpel," someone muttered near radiology. "She made Brenner look like a first-year." Another voice, half-laughed behind a surgical mask, said, "She's digging for something. You can see it in her posture." She didn't respond, didn't slow, didn't flinch. But inside, she noted each word. Because every rumor was a ripple. And she knew all too well what ripples became when they went unchecked.
The staff lounge was no better. The air felt like it had been exhaled but never replaced stale, heavy, and pulsing with things left unsaid. Coffee cups steamed and cooled without being touched. A junior doctor jolted upright at the sight of her, knocking over a tray and muttering a sharp curse. Conversations died too suddenly. Eyes flicked away too quickly. She knew the signs. The tension wasn't about what she had done. It was about what they feared she might do next.
Rowan was already inside, leaning against the counter with a file in hand. He didn't smile. He didn't offer pleasantries. He handed her the folder, and his brows were drawn in a way that told her this wasn't going to be casual.
"You were in the archives again last night." His voice was quiet but deliberate, like a scalpel slicing through skin not to hurt, but to reveal.
She accepted the folder without looking at it. "I like to understand the system's pressure points."
"That's not all you're doing," he said. "You're not just tracing mistakes, Nora. You're tracing someone's steps."
She met his eyes then calm, steady, unreadable. She didn't answer. Because what could she say? That he was right? That she'd been chasing a ghost that used to wear a name tag and hold her sister's life in his hands?
Outside the ICU, the stares continued. Two nurses paused their conversation when she walked past. One of them, Ramirez, shifted her weight and looked away. "She gives me chills," the other whispered. "Yeah, but she saved 304. Cut before the chief even scrubbed in."
Praise meant nothing. Attention did. And it was everywhere now crawling over her skin like static. She needed silence again, the kind that wasn't just absence of sound, but the absence of being seen. Of being targeted. But silence had become scarce. Control, even more so.
Back in the file room, she tried to breathe. The lights above buzzed softly. The terminal booted with its usual hum. She slid her ID badge into the reader and typed: Case B-17.
No results.
She tried again: Lily Keane.
Nothing.
Her hands didn't tremble. Her breath didn't quicken. But there was something inside her that stilled something that knew this wasn't a coincidence.
She typed one more word: Brenner.
The system processed the request, blinked once, and returned a single result. Then Access Denied. A lock icon flashed across the screen. Recently applied. Not protocol. And definitely not random.
Nora leaned back in her chair, eyes fixed on the screen as if it might change its mind. It didn't. Someone had closed the gate. Locked the name. Sealed the truth.
Without warning, the air shifted. A scent. A feeling. A memory.
Lily.
She saw her sister again, not clearly, not like a dream. More like a memory that refused to fade. Lily, curled under a thin blanket on a hospital bed. A hoodie slipping from her shoulder. A bracelet loose around her wrist. The way she'd smiled when she didn't want Nora to worry. The kind of smile meant to protect someone else from your pain. That memory always came uninvited. And it always left her colder.
Then, footsteps. Nora turned.
Elias stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, face half-shadowed, gaze direct. There was something different about his presence this time not curiosity. Not even control. But awareness. Wariness.
"Looking for ghosts again, Keane?" His voice was soft. Not mocking. Not sharp. Almost careful.
She exited the screen and stood, smoothing her coat like it hadn't just betrayed something. "Just following data trends."
He took a step into the room. "The system says someone tried to access that file this morning."
She didn't reply.
"Wasn't you. Wasn't me." His eyes locked on hers. "And yet, someone wants that file buried again."
Nora didn't blink. Didn't look away. But she didn't respond either. Because if she spoke, something might crack. And she couldn't afford that. Not in front of him.
"I know you're looking for something," Elias said finally. "But be careful. There are things buried in this place for a reason. Dig too deep, and it's not just the dirt that swallows you."
"I don't mind getting my hands dirty," she said, her voice low.
He studied her for a long beat. "I believe that."
Then he walked away.
She waited until the door clicked shut before she moved again. Her heart wasn't racing. But it was aware. Aware that for the first time, someone else might be seeing what she was doing. And someone else didn't want her to succeed.
She couldn't sleep that night. She didn't try. Instead, she returned to the one place that still felt honest the back corridors of the hospital, the ones that curved behind the labs and storage wings, where voices echoed when they shouldn't.
That's where she heard them.
Two figures. One male, one female. Talking in hushed tones near the equipment closet.
"She's getting close," one said.
"We need to move the file again. Wipe the sub-records too."
"She's already linked it to him."
"We told legal this would happen."
Nora stepped back before they could see her. She didn't recognize the voices. But the fear in them was enough. She wasn't chasing shadows anymore.
She was chasing something real.
Back in her apartment, she pulled the photo of Lily from her coat pocket. Her fingers were steady now. Her mind clear.
They had erased her once.
They would not do it again.