Page 111 of Vital Signs
"Front," I decided. "Less time to waste."
"Move your ass, Misha," Xander called, already halfway out of the van. "That patient has minutes, not hours."
I shoved my phone into my pocket. The van door slid open, winter air rushing in like an ambush. I stepped into the night, boots crunching on frozen grass. The neighborhood stretched silently around us. No witnesses, no backup. Just three of us against whatever waited in that house.
War reached the front door first, testing the handle. Locked. He stepped aside, and Xander moved forward with his lock picks. Thirty seconds later, we were inside.
Inside, an elegant and sterile entry hall greeted us. The heat felt obscene after the winter air, wrapping around me like silk. Framed diplomas lined the walls, Wright's accomplishments displayed like trophies. A bitter taste filled my mouth. Roche had displayed their photography awards the same way.
"Split up," War directed, voice barely above a whisper. "Xander, check upstairs. I'll take the main floor. Misha, find the basement. That's where he'd have a lab."
"If you find Wright?" I asked.
War's eyes met mine, cold and certain. "Secure him. Don't eliminate unless absolutely necessary. We need him talking."
Xander checked his watch. "Five minutes to search, then regroup. No heroics."
I nodded, already moving toward the back of the house. My hand rested on the knife in my pocket, the weight comforting against my palm. If Wright got in my way...
No. Focus on the patient first. Vengeance later.
The basement door wasn't hard to find. The heavy wooden door sat beneath the staircase, secured with a deadbolt. Another thirty seconds with Xander's picks, and I was through.
Darkness greeted me on the other side. I found a light switch, and fluorescent bulbs flickered to life overhead.
The basement had been converted into a makeshift laboratory. Medical equipment lined the walls, creating a narrow path to three examination tables. Storage cabinets stood against the far wall, with record-keeping equipment in an alcove. The stairs behind me offered the only exit.
The smell hit me in layers: antiseptic cleaners at the top, formaldehyde in the middle, and beneath it all, the copper-penny stench of old blood ingrained in the concrete floor. This room had seen death before.
My lungs seized, throat closing as memories tried to drown me.
Examination tables stood in the center, complete with restraints that sent ice through my veins. Roche's studio flashed in my mind—different restraints, same helplessness. My pulse spiked as my body remembered being strapped down, photographed, violated.
But this time I wasn't the victim. I could fight back.
The revelation steadied me. For years, those memories had been poison in my veins. Now they were fuel. Every patient freed would be a blow against every predator who'd used power to hurt the vulnerable. Every cut of the restraints would cut myself free from Roche's legacy.
I wasn't the beautiful broken thing in the photographs anymore. I was the one with the knife.
Three figures lay on gurneys, hooked to IVs and monitors. The three patients were all unconscious. A woman, maybe early thirties, the patient we’d seen collapse, and another young man who was a little older.
I checked the first patient's pulse. Weak but present. Blood crusted around his nostrils, lips tinged blue. His face—gaunt with hollow cheeks and dark circles—mirrored Tyler's with such exactness that my chest constricted painfully. The same desperate thinness. The same evidence of a life spent on society's edges.
My fingers brushed his cold skin, and rage surged through me so violently my vision flashed white. Another disposable person. Another victim whose death would be filed away as a statistic. My throat closed as memories of cleaning Tyler's body superimposed themselves over this stranger. This could have been prevented. Thisshouldhave been prevented.
His breathing came in ragged gasps. The IV in his arm was connected to a bag labeled only with a code number. No standard medical markings.
Wright wasn't just pushing boundaries at his clinic. He was running a full underground trial in his basement. Testing drugs that would never pass ethical review boards on people who couldn't fight back.
I reached for my phone to call War, but stopped when I heard voices from upstairs. Not War's. Not Xander's. New voices. Multiple people moved through the house above me.
I checked my phone. No signal. Dammit.
"Primary package secure," a man's voice said, professional and cold. "Moving to secondary objective."
Another voice answered. "Clock starts now. Full sanitization protocol."
The metallic tang of fear coated my tongue. Sweat prickled across my scalp while my stomach twisted into a hard knot. My father had used those same terms when describing cleanup operations for the Russian mob. Primary package could mean anything. Wright? Another patient? Both? Something else entirely? Whoever these people were, they'd arrived with a mission. And "secondary objective" usually meant only one thing in these operations: eliminating evidence.
