We didn't touch the food.
Silence thickened like fog. Hours, maybe. The air sat heavy. I curled up against the cold wall, knees to chest, watching Jason.
My body pulsed with pain—deep and rhythmic, like a wound remembering it's still open. My side throbbed where the bullet had torn through me. The cold floor beneath me wasn't helping. I curled tighter, teeth clenched. Breathing felt like swallowing glass.
Jason hadn't moved in a while, just sat with his back to the wall, jaw tight, fury simmering in his eyes.
Then—the locks shifted.
The door creaked open.
I tensed, every nerve flaring. Jason stood, a hand out slightly, guarding me instinctively.
The doctor walked in first. Calm. Mechanical. Behind him came a man dressed in black, mask smooth and blank, as if even a face was too generous for us.
"She's due for a check," the doctor said flatly.
Jason growled low in his throat. "She's barely healing and you bring a thug to what—intimidate her?"
The masked man said nothing.
The doctor knelt beside me. I flinched. His gloved fingers pressed gently around the wound area. I gasped.
"She's fevered," he said without emotion. "Infection may be setting in."
Jason moved closer, fists clenched.
"Touch her again and I swear—"
He didn't finish.
The masked man struck.
A blur—Jason against the wall. A sound like thunder in a small room. I screamed, tried to move, and cried out when the pain lanced through me again.
Jason fought back.
Even with fists raining down on him, even as blood ran from his nose—he surged up, grabbed at the man's mask.
Fingers caught the edge.
The man jerked back just in time, but not fast enough.
The mask shifted. Just a little.
Enough to catch a glimpse—a scar, jagged across the cheekbone. Dark skin. Cold eyes.
Jason shouted, "I know you!"
The man didn't flinch.
But his next punch knocked Jason flat to the ground.
The doctor gave a slight sigh, like someone tired of bad behavior at a dinner table. "You just made things worse," he muttered before nodding at the masked man, who adjusted the mask back into place.
The doctor didn't even blink.
Jason fought back. He landed a blow, hard—but they outmatched him. They beat him, swift and brutal, until he dropped to his knees.
"Stop!" I croaked.
The masked man leaned close to Jason's ear and said, calm and low, "Peterson sends his regards."
My stomach turned to ice.
Peterson.
My boss.
Jason spat blood to the side, his glare full of fire even as he swayed.
But my world was spinning. Fever humming. That name—the one tied to too many buried things—echoed through me.
The doctor placed a syringe on the floor beside me. "Take it or don't. Your call," he said before they left.
The door slammed shut.
Jason groaned and crawled toward me.
I tried to keep my eyes open, but they were too heavy.
Still, one thought throbbed louder than the pain, louder than the name Peterson, louder
than everything.
The journal…
It had answers.
And we were running out of time.