The walls of Westbridge hadn't changed.
Same pale shades that passed for comfort. Same sterile silence stretched too tightly over steel and secrets. But Nora knew better than anyone. These walls listened. And worse, they remembered.
She stood alone at the far end of the observation hallway, one hand pressed lightly to a folder she was never meant to hold. Inside: fragments, clipped pages, initials half-scratched out, annotations written in too many different pens to feel clean. It wasn't a full story yet, but it was enough to rattle the truth free.
Beyond the glass, doctors moved like shadows around a patient, speaking in coded urgency. Gloved hands passed instruments. A monitor blinked. Life hung by a thread, and still, everything felt rehearsed. Controlled.
Except her.
She hadn't slept. Not out of exhaustion, but out of instinct. Sleep belonged to the safe. Nora Keane wasn't safe. And now that she knew Brenner was here, breathing the same air, infecting the same spaces, she didn't have the luxury of peace.
Too many paths had crossed. Too many glances had lingered. The staff had started to buzz, soft at first, like static. Now rising like a swarm. Someone always knew. Someone always talked. But Nora remained silent. Impeccably so.
It wasn't just her weapon.
It was her armor.
A breath beside her.
"Dangerous game, Keane."
Rowan Hayes. Calm voice, coffee in hand. That slight smile that tried to be harmless but never quite pulled it off. He leaned against the wall beside her, like they were just two interns taking a break. But his eyes betrayed him. Curious. Sharp. Watching.
Nora didn't turn. Didn't flinch.
"Everyone's watching you," he said. "Even him."
Her fingers tightened slightly on the file. A single muscle in her jaw moved. Still, she kept her voice level. "Let them watch."
A sharp beep broke through the hallway. A monitor alarm. Minor, not urgent. Not yet.
Rowan didn't move. But something in his face darkened, like he was seeing a page turn before it was written.
"You know this all blows up eventually," he said quietly.
Nora turned to him then. Slowly. Her eyes were flat, flint-dark.
"Then let's hope I'm the one holding the match."
A tension settled between them. Not loud. Not spoken. Just there quiet and electric, like the second before a scalpel meets skin.
Rowan didn't blink. "Why him?" he asked, voice low, careful. "Why Brenner?"
Nora knew the question was coming. She had seen it building behind his eyes for days. She had a hundred truths she could have thrown. But none that she was ready to give.
"I've seen his work. I don't tolerate incompetence."
It wasn't the full truth. But it was enough.
Rowan didn't challenge it. Not directly. But the silence he left behind was heavier than anything he could have said. She could feel it clinging to her like residue.
Then the intercom cracked to life.
Code Orange. Room 2B.
Nora didn't hesitate. Her body moved before thought. Reflex. Precision. She was already halfway down the hallway when she heard Rowan fall in step beside her. His urgency wasn't like hers. His was the response of a doctor. Hers was something else. Something deeper. Wired into memory.
The hallway blurred.
When they entered the room, chaos was already blooming.
A young woman. Post-op. Disoriented. Heart racing far too fast. The interns hovered around her like frightened birds, their voices cluttered, their commands contradicting. One of them was muttering vitals like he didn't understand what he was saying.
Nora didn't raise her voice.
She didn't need to.
"One liter of saline. Cardiac monitoring now. Page anesthesia."
She said it calmly, like the room wasn't spinning. Like the girl in the bed wasn't fighting against her own pulse.
People moved.
Rowan watched her. Not just the way she worked, but the way her presence cut through noise. She didn't rush. She didn't flinch. She stepped into the storm like it was home. Controlled it. Redirected it. Brought it back from the edge.
And when the patient finally began to settle, when the numbers on the monitor started to dip from red back to yellow, Nora stepped back, stripped off her gloves, and walked out without a word.
Rowan followed.
But this time, his gaze wasn't curious. It was steady. Focused. A little too still.
In the quiet of the hallway, he stopped her.
"You knew," he said softly. "Before you even saw the monitor. You knew what was wrong."
Nora didn't answer right away. She turned toward him, eyes unreadable, voice soft but edged with something sharp.
"I've seen mistakes like that before. I remember them."
He looked at her. Longer than he should have.
And in that look, she saw it the flicker of something she feared more than suspicion.
Understanding.
The kind that doesn't go away once it finds a place to settle.
She should have walked away.
Turned on her heel. Let the moment fade into the sterile white of the hallway. That was the rule she had written for herself. Never linger. Never give space to softness. Control, not connection.
But she didn't move.
She stayed.
Just a second too long.
Rowan didn't speak. He didn't reach for her. But his gaze held her like a question. Not invasive. Just present. Still. Like hands that weren't touching her skin but somehow knew how close they were allowed to get.
And Nora, for all her practiced distance, felt something shift beneath her ribs.
Not weakness.
Recognition.
He was seeing her. Not the credentials. Not the calm. But the fire underneath. And worse he wasn't afraid of it.
She took half a step back. Just enough to breathe.
"I need to go," she said.
But her voice wasn't sharp this time. It cracked slightly, barely there, like a note that missed its mark by a breath.
Rowan didn't stop her. Didn't call after her.
He just nodded. Once. Like he had just witnessed something she didn't yet have the language to name.
She left.
But the space she'd stood in didn't feel empty.
It felt changed.