Adrien's POV
The 'Medical Supplies' door clicked shut behind him with a soft, definitive sound, sealing him in near-darkness. The air was cool and smelled strongly of bleach, plastic wrappers, and the sterile, powdery scent of gauze. Shelves stacked with boxes and supplies created narrow canyons in the small room. Before his eyes could adjust, a hand closed around his wrist.
He tensed, his body automatically preparing to break the grip, spin, and disable the threat. But the hand was small. A woman's hand. It was trembling.
"Keep your voice down," she whispered, pulling him deeper into the shadows between tall shelves of IV bags. "The walls are thin."
He let himself be led. In the faint light from under the door, he could make out her face. Sarah, the nurse from earlier. Her eyes, wide and fierce, scanned his face, looking for something. Trustworthiness, perhaps. Or maybe just proof he wasn't already broken.
"You're Harper's father," she stated, her voice a low, urgent hum. "I was in the ER when they brought her in. I helped clean her up." Her jaw tightened. "It wasn't a fall."
The words, spoken aloud by someone in this place, were a key turning in a heavy lock. "Tell me," Adrien said, his own voice a gravelly whisper.
"The injuries weren't right," she said, her words coming fast, as if she'd been holding them back too long. "Defensive wounds on her forearms. Bruising on her back in clear, patterned clusters. Not from hitting steps. From being held down. From knees." She swallowed hard. "I started to document it properly. My charge nurse took my notes. Shredded them right in front of me. Told me the 'official report' was already filed. Told me to forget what I saw, for the family's sake."
For the family's sake. The same phrase Miller had used. But they meant a different family. The powerful one.
"Who gave the order?" Adrien asked, the soldier needing a target.
Sarah shook her head, a quick, frightened motion. "It came from administration. But the call… I think it came from outside. The police chief was here before the ambulance even unloaded. He wasn't investigating. He was… directing. He spoke to the ER director. Then the story became 'fall and accident.'" She looked at the door, paranoid. "They're scrubbing it from the records. By shift change, the computer will only show what they want it to show."
A cold, calculating fury settled over Adrien's grief. This wasn't just a lie; it was an eradication. They were trying to delete what happened to Harper, to make her pain a clerical error. His mind began to map the enemy: unknown admin, compromised hospital director, Chief Miller as field commander. Protecting who? The answer felt close, a shape looming in the fog.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, studying her face. "You could lose your job."
Sarah's eyes glinted in the gloom. There was no pity in them, only a shared, righteous anger. "I was a combat medic. Two tours. I know what it looks like when someone tries to hide the facts on the ground. I see it here, in my hospital, and it makes me sick." She hesitated, then plunged her hand into the deep pocket of her scrubs. She pulled out a small, cheap, disposable phone a burner. "This was in the bag with her clothes. Her personal effects. I was supposed to log it into security. I didn't."
She pressed the cool, plastic device into his palm. It felt inert, insignificant. But her gesture made it feel like a live grenade. "I think it's the only copy of the truth left. Don't look at it here. Don't look at it where they can see you."
He curled his fingers around the phone. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me," she whispered harshly. "Just find them." She pointed to a second door at the back of the closet. "Go. That leads to the laundry chute access hall. Take the service elevator down. Don't be seen coming out of here."
He nodded, a soldier acknowledging intel from a local asset. He turned for the door.
"Adrien," she said, stopping him. He looked back. Her face was pale but set. "They're powerful. And they're scared. That makes them dangerous."
He held her gaze for a second longer. "So am I," he said, and slipped out the back door.
The service hallway was deserted, lit by flickering fluorescent lights, echoing with the distant rumble of industrial dryers. He took the stairs down two flights and exited through a loading dock into the chill afternoon air. He walked for blocks, his mind racing, the burner phone a searing brand in his pocket.
He needed a place to see. Somewhere anonymous, enclosed, private. A public restroom. He ducked into a small, grimy bathroom at a gas station on the edge of town. It stank of stale urine and cheap cleaner. He locked the stall door and leaned back against it, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He stared at the phone in his hand. This is the truth. The un-varnished, un-erased truth. Are you ready to see what they did to your little girl? He had witnessed horrors. He had caused horrors. But this was Harper. This was the child he'd read bedtime stories to, whose skinned knees he'd bandaged, whose future he'd dreamed about in lonely outposts. To see her in pain was to have his own soul flayed.
His thumb, trembling slightly, found the power button. The screen glowed to life with a cheap, blue light. The interface was simple. It went straight to a video file. One file. Labeled with today's date.
He took a deep, shuddering breath that did nothing to steady him. He pressed play.
The video was shaky, shot on a phone in a dark backyard. The quality was poor, but the scene was illuminated by the cool, blue glow of underwater pool lights. It gave everything a hellish, surreal tinge.
He saw her first. Harper. Backed against a tall wooden fence. Her posture was defensive, her hands up, palms out. She was saying something, her mouth moving, but the audio was a muddle of music and laughter. Then a figure stepped into the frame. A boy. He shoved her, hard, against the fence. Another boy joined, then another. They formed a loose, taunting circle. Eight of them.
Adrien's blood turned to ice. He watched, helpless, as the nightmare unfolded. A hand shot out, not to hit, but to grab her hair, yanking her head back. It was a gesture of utter contempt. Then the first punch landed, a mean, short jab to her ribs. Harper doubled over, and the laughter grew louder. Another punch, this time to her face. Her head snapped back against the fence.
No. Stop. Please stop. The plea was silent, screamed inside his skull. He was a statue, forced to witness.
It wasn't a frenzied beating. It was methodical, cruel, almost playful. They took turns. They high-fived. One boy filmed it on his own phone, laughing. Harper tried to cover her face, to curl into a ball, but they pulled her arms away. He saw a foot kick out, connecting with her thigh. He saw a hand, weighted with what looked like a heavy class ring, slam into her cheek.
The leader was the clearest. A tall, blond kid with sharp, handsome features twisted into a mask of cruel amusement. He orchestrated it, pointing, laughing, shoving others forward for their turn. Adrien knew that face. He'd seen it in the local newspaper's society pages, smiling beside his father at charity events. Leo. Judge Warren Oliver's only son.
The video ended abruptly, cutting to black as someone presumably stopped the recording.
Adrien stood in the stinking bathroom stall, the silence now a roaring in his ears. The phone was slick in his sweaty palm. The images were burned into his retinas: Harper's terrified face, their laughing ones. Leo's smug, commanding presence.
The grief was still there, a vast, dark ocean. But now, a solid island of purpose rose from its depths. The fog had cleared. He had his targets. Eight of them. And he had their ringleader.
The law wouldn't touch them. The law was the ringleader's father. Justice was not in a courthouse; it was in the cold plastic of this burner phone, and in the fire now blazing in his chest.
He had the evidence. He had the faces. He had the name. The mission was no longer a search. It was a hunt. And Adrien knew, with a calm that was more terrifying than any rage, exactly where it would begin.