At Mistvale, twenty-four hours earlier, after Rowan had been wheeled into the operating room, the doctor stitching his wounds flinched as a weak hand gripped his wrist.
"Doctor…" He swallowed. "I need a favor." Rowan's voice was faint, barely more than a whisper.
The doctor leaned in, straining to hear him. Even as he struggled to utter the words, Rowan forced himself to deliver the plan.
He hesitated at first, unsettled by the risk, but Rowan's desperation and the shadow of a kidnapping inside the hospital pushed him to agree.
He immediately instructed one of the nurses to act, and she picked up a clipboard, straightened her posture, and stepped out of the operating room.
She claimed she needed the family's signature, deliberately spreading false news that Rowan had been severely injured. After the surgery, his condition was officially listed as a coma, and he was transferred to intensive care, where only immediate family were permitted to enter.
Rowan's plan was simple.
