Page 18 of Never Quite Gone

The whiskey burned going down, but it couldn't touch the cold that spread through my chest at Alex's name. “It's nothing,” I lied, each word leaving frost on my tongue.

“Bullshit.” She leaned forward, voice pitched low enough that only I could hear the steel beneath her concern. “You've been walking around like a ghost since the tour. And I saw your face when Vale started questioning your judgment today.”

Frustration bubbled up like blood from a wound I couldn't close. “Sofia, I don't even know how to explain it. It's like...” My fingers traced patterns in the condensation on my glass, drawing symbols I shouldn't recognize. “It's like he sees parts of me I don't even recognize.”

“Maybe he does.” Sofia's expression shifted to something ancient and knowing that made my skin prickle. “Eli, maybe it's time to stop running from the things you can't explain. Not everything fits into your neat little boxes of diagnosis and treatment.”

“I'm not running,” I said, but my hand betrayed me, going to the wedding ring that felt simultaneously too heavy and too much a part of me to remove. “I'm being practical. Professional.”

“You're hiding,” she corrected, the truth in her words sharper than any surgical blade. “Behind your grief, behind those ridiculous hours you work, behind all those walls you built after Michael died. And now something—someone—is threatening those walls, and it scares the shit out of you.”

The truth hit harder than the whiskey burning in my gut. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Simple?” A laugh like broken glass. “Nothing about you has ever been simple, Eli Monroe. Not in all the years I've known you.”

Vale slid into our booth like a shadow made flesh, his suit still perfect despite the late hour. His smile carried the same predatory edge it had in the hospital corridors, but here, away from the fluorescent lights and professional pretense, it looked almost inhuman.

“Doctor Monroe. Doctor Martinez. What a... pleasant surprise.”

The temperature seemed to drop several degrees, and old instincts I didn't understand screamed danger. Sofia's spine straightened like a sword being drawn, her protective energy almost visible in the dim light.

“Doctor Vale. This is unexpected.”

“Is it?” His grey eyes was fixed on me. “I often find the most interesting conversations happen outside hospital walls. Away from professional constraints.”

Something about his presence felt wrong, like a shadow falling across sacred ground. The bar's warm light seemed to dim around him, and memories that couldn't possibly be mine tried to surface.

“If you'll excuse us,” Sofia's voice cut through the fog of unreality, “we were in the middle of a private conversation.”

“Of course.” Vale's smile never wavered, but his eyes held centuries of secrets. “I simply wanted to ensure our Chief of Emergency Medicine was taking proper care of himself. Stress can do such strange things to the mind, can't it? Make us see things that aren't there. Remember things that never happened.”

“I think you should leave.” Sofia said

Vale raised his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes never left mine. “Just looking out for a colleague's wellbeing. After all, wewouldn't want anything to cloud your judgment regarding the development project, would we?”

Vale slithered from the booth with the liquid grace of a cobra, but paused, venom still dripping from his smile. “Oh, and Doctor Monroe? Do be careful with your new associations. Some connections are better left unexplored.”

The crowd seemed to part around him like oil on water as he disappeared into the bar's shadows. My skin crawled where his gaze had lingered. Sofia's hand found mine across the sticky table surface, her warmth cutting through the chill he'd left behind.

“Eli...”

“Don't.” I yanked away, fumbling for my coat like armor. “Just... don't.”

“Mind if I join you?”

That voice.That fucking voice. It hit me like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, and suddenly I couldn't remember how to breathe. Alex stood before our booth, the dim bar lights catching his perfectly tailored suit like he was the star of some impossibly expensive film. He didn't just occupy the space – he owned it, claimed it, made it seem like the whole damn bar had been built around him.

My pulse hammered against my ribs as our eyes met, that same electric current ofknowingcrackling between us like summer lightning. “What are you doing here?” I forced the words past the desert in my throat, grateful for the solid glass under my trembling fingers.

“I was in the neighborhood.” His casual tone was a thin veneer over something deeper, darker, hungrier. “Thought I'd stop by and say hello.”

Sofia's gaze darted between us like she was watching some ancient play unfold. Something shifted in her expression – recognition or resignation, I couldn't tell which. “I'll leave you two to... catch up,” she said, sliding from the booth with deliberate grace. When I shot her my best 'don't you dare leave me' glare, she just smiled like she knew secrets the universe hadn'tlearned yet. “Don't stay out too late, Eli. We both have early rounds.”

The air grew thick as Alex claimed her abandoned seat, moving with that fluid grace that belonged in Renaissance paintings or ancient temples. He settled into the cracked vinyl like it was a throne, and somehow made it look like one. The same presence that had dominated my hospital office now filled the small booth until it was hard to breathe.

“You've been avoiding me,” he said, voice dancing on the edge between playful and accusing.

“I've been busy.” The words came out sharp enough to cut.

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