POV: Amber Hayes
I threw myself against the door, slamming the deadbolt home just as the doorknob stopped rattling.
Silence.
My heart hammered so hard I thought my ribs would crack. I pressed my ear against the door, barely breathing, listening for footsteps or voices or anything that would tell me who was out there.
Nothing.
Then, after thirty seconds that felt like thirty years, footsteps. Slow. Casual. Walking away down the hallway like whoever it was had all the time in the world.
I stayed frozen against the door for another five minutes before my legs gave out and I slid to the floor. My phone was still dead. My apartment was still dark. And I was still alone with the terrifying knowledge that someone had tried to get into my apartment right after I'd heard those voices.
Coincidence? Maybe.
Or maybe I was already in deeper trouble than I understood.
When my phone finally powered back on—building maintenance must have fixed whatever caused the outage—it was 6:00 AM. I hadn't slept. I'd sat against that door all night, jumping at every sound, convinced someone would come back.
But the first text that loaded made me forget about mysterious voices and rattling doorknobs.
LILY: Coming to visit today? Miss you.
My sister. The hospital. Reality crashing back like a sledgehammer.
I texted back immediately: Be there by 10. Love you, bug.
I showered in three minutes, threw on jeans and a sweater that had seen better days, and caught the bus to Mission General. Every person who looked at me felt like a threat. Every shadow felt like it was following me.
I was losing it. Completely, utterly losing it.
The hospital smelled like antiseptic and sadness. I signed in at the oncology ward, and the receptionist gave me a look that made my stomach clench. That pitying look that said she knew exactly how much money I didn't have.
"Ms. Hayes?" A voice behind me. "Could I speak with you for a moment?"
I turned to find Dr. Morrison, Lily's primary oncologist, standing with a clipboard and an expression that meant bad news.
"How is she?" I asked immediately.
"Let's talk in my office."
Those four words drained the blood from my face. Nothing good ever came from "let's talk in my office."
Dr. Morrison's office was small and cluttered with medical journals. She gestured to a chair, but I remained standing. If I sat down, I might not be able to get back up.
"Lily's condition is stable," she said, and I released a breath I didn't know I was holding. "But we need to discuss your account balance."
And there it was.
"You're three payments behind," Dr. Morrison continued, her tone professional but not unkind. "That's eight thousand dollars. Hospital policy requires payment within fourteen days, or we'll have to suspend treatment and transfer Lily to county care."
County care. Where they'd keep her alive but wouldn't give her the experimental treatment that was actually working. Where she'd be one of fifty patients instead of one of twelve. Where she'd die slower but just as surely.
"Two weeks," I heard myself say. "I just need two weeks."
"I understand this is difficult—"
"Do you?" The words came out sharper than I intended. "Do you understand what it's like to watch your baby sister die because you can't afford to save her? Because you destroyed your own career so badly that no one will hire you? Because—"
I stopped. Yelling at Dr. Morrison wouldn't help. She wasn't the enemy. The system was the enemy. My past mistakes were the enemy. My complete failure as a human being was the enemy.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I'll figure it out."
Dr. Morrison's expression softened slightly. "There are payment plans, financial assistance programs—"
"I've applied to all of them. I make too much for assistance but not enough to actually live." I laughed, and it sounded slightly unhinged. "Apparently fifty dollars per article puts me above the poverty line."
"Two weeks," Dr. Morrison repeated. "I'm sorry, Amber. I wish I could do more."
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and left before I could break down completely.
Lily's room was at the end of the hall. I stood outside her door for a full minute, forcing my face into something that wouldn't scare her. Smile. Be strong. Be the superhero she thinks you are.
I pushed open the door.
"Amber!" Lily's face lit up, and for a moment, she looked like the healthy, vibrant kid she used to be. Then she tried to sit up and had to catch her breath, and reality crushed me all over again.
She'd lost more weight. Her cheekbones were too sharp, her arms too thin. The IV in her hand looked obscene against her pale skin. But her eyes—her eyes still sparkled with that stubborn hope that made her so much braver than me.
"Hey, bug," I said, moving to her bedside and taking her hand carefully. "How are you feeling?"
"Like a truck hit me, but I'm still here." She grinned. "That's what counts, right?"
"That's what counts," I agreed, my throat tight.
"Did you eat breakfast?" Lily asked, studying my face with those too-knowing eyes. "You look skinny. Skinnier than me, and that's saying something."
"I ate." Another lie. I was getting good at those.
"Liar." She squeezed my hand with what little strength she had. "You're terrible at taking care of yourself. Good thing you have me to remind you."
Tears burned behind my eyes. "Good thing."
We talked for an hour—about her nurses, about the terrible hospital food, about the show she was watching on the tablet I'd bought her back when I had money. Normal things. Sister things. Things that let me pretend for sixty beautiful minutes that our world wasn't falling apart.
Then Lily yawned, and I could see the exhaustion pulling at her.
"Get some rest," I said, standing. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"Promise?" Her voice was small, and suddenly she looked exactly like she had at six years old, asking me to promise I'd never leave her after Mom died.
"Promise," I said firmly. "Nothing could keep me away."
I kissed her forehead and left before she could see me cry.
The bus ride home took forty-five minutes. I spent all of them staring at my bank account and doing impossible math. $127 plus $150 from today's articles equals $277. Minus rent ($800 due in six days) equals negative $523. Plus the $8,000 I owed the hospital equals...
Hopeless. The equation equaled hopeless.
Back in my shoebox apartment, I opened my laptop—the screen still cracked from when I'd slammed it shut yesterday—and pulled up the photos I couldn't make myself delete.
Brandon. My ex-fiancé, with his perfect smile and expensive suits. We'd been engaged for eight months before my world exploded. He'd left me exactly three days after the scandal broke, claiming my "instability" and "poor judgment" made me a liability.
He'd married Chloe two months later.
Chloe. My best friend since college. The person I'd told everything, trusted with everything. She'd held me while I cried about my failing career and my sick sister. She'd promised to always be there.
Then she'd married my ex-fiancé and blocked my number.
I clicked through more photos. My Pulitzer nomination certificate. My press badge from the San Francisco Chronicle. Articles I'd written that actually mattered, actually helped people, actually meant something.
All of it gone because I'd trusted the wrong source, written the wrong story, destroyed the wrong man.
Dante Cross's face stared at me from one of the photos—a screenshot of a news article about him. "Prosecutor Under Investigation for Evidence Fabrication." My article. My words. My complete and utter destruction of an innocent man's reputation.
I slammed the laptop shut again, but gentler this time. I couldn't afford to break it completely.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
UNKNOWN: Stop asking questions about Marcus Chen.
My blood turned to ice.
Another text appeared.
UNKNOWN: Forget what you heard. Forget everything. Or your sister's treatment won't be the only thing you lose.
My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the phone.
A third text.
UNKNOWN: We know where you live. We know where Lily is. We know everything. Stay quiet, stay safe. Talk, and you both die.
The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.
They knew. Whoever was planning to kill Marcus Chen knew that I'd heard them. And they were threatening Lily.
My baby sister. Sick, helpless, hooked up to machines in a hospital room. The only person in the world who still loved me.
I picked up my phone with shaking hands and stared at the messages. Every instinct screamed at me to delete them, pretend I'd never heard the voices, never looked up Marcus Chen, never gotten involved.
The smart choice. The safe choice.
Then my phone buzzed again. But this time, it wasn't a text.
It was a photo.
Of Lily.
Asleep in her hospital bed. Taken from inside her room. Taken today, maybe an hour ago, while I'd been sitting right there next to her.
Someone had been in her room. Watching her. Photographing her.
And I hadn't known. Hadn't protected her. Hadn't even noticed.
The message beneath the photo was simple:
UNKNOWN: Choose wisely.
I dropped the phone again and ran to my bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I threw up. Nothing came out but bile and coffee because I hadn't eaten anything real in two days.
When I finished, I sat on the cold tile floor and stared at nothing.
They could get to Lily. Anytime they wanted. She was helpless, alone, vulnerable.
Because of me. Because I'd heard something I shouldn't have and hadn't stayed silent fast enough.
I had two choices: stay quiet and let Marcus Chen die, or try to help him and risk Lily being hurt—or killed.
My sister's life versus a stranger's life.
It shouldn't even be a choice.
But as I sat there on my bathroom floor, Lily's voice echoed in my head: You're like a superhero or something.
And I knew, with sickening certainty, that I was going to make the wrong choice again.
Because that's what heroes do, apparently. They save everyone except the people they love most.
My phone buzzed one more time.
I crawled back to retrieve it, dreading what I'd see.
But this message was different. From a different unknown number.
UNKNOWN: Marcus Chen is real. The threat is real. If you want to save him and your sister, meet me tomorrow. 3 PM. Golden Gate Park, north entrance. Come alone. Tell no one. I can help you. —DC
DC.
Dante Cross.
The man I'd destroyed was offering to help me.
The question was: would he actually help, or was this his chance for revenge?