Page 123 of Inevitable Endings
“No,” he whispers, his voice barely a breath, as if the word itself is being torn from him. “Not again…”
His body jerks, involuntarily. The terror is palpable.
‘‘Don’t fucking touch me!’’ Aslanov’s voice erupts, raw, filled with a pain that cuts deep. His body lurches away from them, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and for a moment, it’s as if he’s slipping into a different time.
But they don’t stop. They drag him, with cold efficiency, to his room. The door swings open, and Sawyer wastes no time. He moves to grab the hospital restraints, straps meant to bind patients to the bed, to ensure they don’t harm themselves or others.
Without even realizing what I’m doing, I rush after them, my heart pounding, my feet moving before my mind can catch up.
“No!” I scream, my voice cutting through the air like a blade. “Don’t touch him! Don’t restrain him!”
I’m standing in the middle of the trashed room, between them and Aslanov. My hands are raised, pleading, shaking with the intensity of the moment. Aslanov is behind me now, in the corner of the room. Sawyer wants to move closer again.
“Stop!” I shout, the word breaking from my chest with a force I don’t even recognize. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
Sawyer stops, his eyes flicking between me and Aslanov, uncertain. For a second, the room goes deathly quiet, and I see it. The conflict in his gaze. He’s worried about Aslanov. But he’s also afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t restrain him. He’s afraid of what Aslanov could do, what he might do.
“Get the fuck out,” I hiss, my voice low and dangerous, a command more than a plea. My entire body is trembling, not just from the adrenaline, but from the raw emotion burning in my chest. The panic, the love, the fear.
For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them moves. Sawyer glances at Dominik, and I see it—the hesitation. The fear. They’re both scared. Scared to leave me alone with Aslanov. Scared to leave me alone with him after everything that’shappened. After everything they think they know.
Eventually, they back away, slowly, reluctantly. The door clicks shut behind them, but they don’t leave. I know they’re waiting just outside, ready to intervene if things go wrong.
I turn around, and the room feels even more suffocating, even more charged than before. Aslanov is still in the corner, slumped against the wall, his breathing shallow, his body tense with the aftershocks of the panic attack that’s still gripping him. His eyes are wide, his face drawn with the strain of too many emotions. Too much time.
And then I see it, the tears, glistening at the corners of his eyes.
I swallow hard, my own tears welling up in my eyes, blurring my vision. Too much pain, too much heartache.
“What have they done to you…” I whisper, my voice trembling like a leaf in a storm. It’s a question I don’t know if I can bear the answers to.
He doesn’t say anything at first.
Then, in a voice so hoarse, so broken, that it barely reaches my ears, he whispers, “Please… don’t be scared of me.”
Chapter 54
What the Silence Didn’t Save
Isabella
I watch them through the glass. I don’t go inside.
Aslanov lies motionless under the sterile sheets, IVs snaking out of both arms, his chest rising in that slow, medicated rhythm. I count the breaths. I memorize them. I imagine how it would feel if they stopped.
Outside the observation window, I feel like an intruder—frozen in place while the others do what I couldn’t bring myself to do.
His body lies stretched across the fresh linens, clean and quiet now, almost too quiet. His face is slack with sedation, sweat drying at his brow. There’s a tremor in his leg, his fingers twitch every now and then as though clenching against phantoms. His breathing is shallow but even. They’ve stabilized him, finally.
I couldn’t be the one to treat him. Not after what I saw.
Dissociation. The kind of feral, blind violence that doesn’t recognize mercy.
He weakened just as suddenly. Collapsed mid-strike, his body crumpling like a marionette with the strings cut. The adrenaline burned off in a flash and left behind something half-dead and shaking. That’s when they got the sedatives in. That’s when the tests began.
Dr. Hsu arrived at dawn, called in under the radar as always. He’s not officially affiliated with us—not on paper, not in any record that can be traced back. He doesn’t wear a badge. He doesn’t ask questions he shouldn’t. Just shows up when we call. Always voluntary, always precise. He’s been here before, when we had cases that didn’t fit clean diagnoses. When someone needed a second opinion the law wouldn’t approve of. The clinic knows his face, but no one speaks his name outside the building. He won’t tell a soul. Not about this. Not about him.
He stands beside me now, flipping through his notes. His black hair is tied neatly at the base of his neck, streaked with silver. Wire-thin glasses rest on the bridge of his nose. He wears black. Always black. His posture is calm, practiced. He keeps his voice low, and his hands clean. Everything about him is deliberate, like he’s constantly aware of how real silence can get when things go wrong.
