Chapter 5-
The cruiser door opened with a hard pop of metal, and heat slapped him in the face. "Out," said the voice, like there was some other possible move.
Michael stepped down onto the cracked asphalt, blinking at the glare.
The parking lot was mostly empty. Two civilian cars sat near the far curb, sun faded and dusty. No one walked past on the sidewalk.
This morning there were clouds. Owen wanted to finish up the outside demo first so they could do the interior without being bothered by the storm.
Owen.
The name landed heavy in his chest. Michael saw the moment again. He tried to shove the memory down, but it kept floating back up, uninvited.
Luis was already out on the other side, one of the officers had an arm under his shoulder. A hospital. that's where Michael had thought they were being taken before they got here. This definitely didn't look like any hospital he'd ever seen.
The air smelled faintly of burnt grease and something sharper underneath, cleaning chemicals maybe. The building meanwhile, sat low and wide with a slanted roofline. The front windows were big and open, spilling sunlight in. A faded mural of tomatoes and peppers clung to one wall in the parking lot
It should have been welcoming, contrasting to the armed guards out front. Almost like a joke.
Inside, a pair of men in dark uniforms leaned against the far wall. Helmets with face masks were clipped to their belts next to rifles hanging low but not loose. They weren't smiling.
Michael didn't know why they were here. Nobody had said. It didn't make sense. He knew how the shroud worked, or at least well enough. His sister had been touched, and he'd watched her go. It wasn't something you caught from just being in the same building as someone.
he didn't suppose it mattered anyway, here he was.
The air changed the second they crossed the threshold. Thick, but in a different way. Not the oppressive heat of the outside, but cool. A soft hum came from somewhere overhead, not quite loud enough to drown out the scuff of boots on tile. The space felt wrong. too much open floor.
When the man who'd hauled Luis out of the cruiser steered him toward a row of metal chairs. Michael started to follow out of instinct. He didn't make it two steps before the second officer shifted to block his path, palm out in a gesture that seemed automatic, almost mechanical. Michael's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Luis caught his eye and gave the smallest shake of his head. Don't worry about me. It's fine.
Michael glanced at Luis. The older man gave the smallest shake of his head. 'don't worry about me, it's fine'
Michael swallowed hard and moved where he was told. His shoes squeaked faintly on the tile, the sound was too loud in the open space. He could feel eyes on him. The guards, the woman at the desk, the camera bubble in the corner.
Every instinct told him to ask questions, but the open rifles in the room kept his mouth shut.
Michael moved the way they wanted, each step sounding too sharp against the floor. He passed a closed door with a small wired glass window. Something flickered inside, but before he could see what it might have been they moved on.
Another hallway branched off to his left, lined with numbered doors, all shut. Somewhere down there, someone coughed. It was a wet sound, muffled, but amplified through the empty hallway. In such a way that he really couldn't tell if it was one person or more.
Without his gloves, his hands felt naked, outside he hadn't noticed but now the skin felt too exposed in the cool air.
Every camera bubble, every uniform he passed felt like it was clocking him, weighing him up.
He kept thinking about Owen. About the way the scaffolding had buckled and the heat had drained from his face before he'd even hit the ground.
Here he was, walking deeper into this place.
Michaels breath caught in his chest. He couldn't catch it no matter how deep he tried to breath. his heart was racing. The lights overhead seemed to get brighter.
A rough shove came from behind him and the world seemed to rush forward back into focus. His hand went up against the wall to catch himself from falling.
"Inside."
The man behind him was pointing into a door that he had opened at some point. Michael nodded, with his hand on his chest trying to slow down his heart rate just for a moment.
The room was square, no bigger than a storage closet, and empty except for a single chair bolted to the floor and a table that looked like it had been dragged in from somewhere else. The walls were pale, almost white, with no windows. The air smelled stale.
The door shut with a solid click.
Michael sat, more because his legs were starting to shake than anything else.
He kept telling himself to slow his breathing, all the while feeling his pulse hammering in his throat.
The silence was the worst part.
no voices, no footsteps, no more ghostly coughs from the hallway, not even the sound of electricity that would normally sound from the walls.
Minutes slid by. Or maybe longer. Time felt strange without anything to mark it. His stomach ached in that low, sick way it got when he was running on nerves and nothing else.
He thought about Luis.
whether he was in a room like this, whether he'd wind up as a weird old man with a cane or a walker or something. He thought about Owen again, but that made his chest hurt more, so finally he managed to shove it down.
The door opened without warning, and a man in a pale blue coat stepped inside. He had a clipboard and a badge with a name Michael didn't catch.
"We're going to run a few quick tests," the man said. His voice was calm, even.
Michael nodded.
They started with his temperature, then a swab from inside his cheek.
A cuff on his arm to check blood pressure. The man took notes without comment, then set a small, clear vial on the table and filled it with blood from Michael's arm. The needle stung more than he expected, and he realized he'd been holding his breath.
"All right," the man said, collecting the vials and packing them into a hard-sided case. "Stay here until someone comes to get you."
And then he was gone.
The click of the lock sounded louder this time.
Michael rubbed at the inside of his elbow where the needle had been, staring at the spot of gauze taped over it. He tried to listen for anything beyond the walls, but it was just that same nothing, steady and empty. He didn't know what they were looking for, or how long it would take to find it, but the waiting made it worse. Every time he thought a minute had passed, it felt like it had been ten.