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The walls of Westbridge hadn't changed. Not their pale tone, not their heavy silence. And especially not the way they whispered to anyone who dared stop and listen. Nora stood alone at the far end of the observation hallway. Beyond the glass, doctors moved like choreographed ghosts around a patient.
Pressed to her chest, she held a file she was never meant to read. Fragments, erased notes, scratched-out names. Nothing complete, but enough to shake the truth loose. She hadn't slept. Once again, it was memory not fatigue that kept her awake.
She knew it was only a matter of time before someone started asking questions. Too many crossed paths. Too many eyes that lingered. The internal medicine floor buzzed with theories like a hive on alert. But Nora stayed cold. She didn't confirm, didn't deny. Silence was her weapon and for now, it worked.
Rowan appeared without a sound, coffee in hand, his expression more curious than concerned. "You're playing a dangerous game, Keane," he said quietly, leaning against the wall. She didn't even turn her head. He stood there, watching her like a puzzle waiting to be solved. "Everyone's watching you. Even him." She shrugged
A sharp beep echoed down the hallway, slicing through the silence. Nora barely flinched. She knew that sound a monitor warning, but not enough for a code. Not yet. Rowan didn't move, but his gaze darkened. "You know this is all going to blow up, right?" She finally turned her head, eyes sharp. "Then let's hope I'm the one holding the match."
There was a suspended moment. A breath of tension between them, invisible but electric. Rowan no longer looked at her like a colleague. He looked at her like a mystery he wasn't sure he wanted solved because once the truth came out, everything would shift. "Why him?" he asked quietly. He meant Brenner. She knew that. And she chose to lie. "I saw his mistakes. I don't tolerate incompetence." It wasn't the whole truth. But it was enough. For now.
A call broke through the intercom. Code Orange. Room 2B. Nora stood immediately, like a machine snapping into motion. Rowan rose too, but his tension was different. His was the reflex of a doctor. Hers was the adrenaline of a woman who never forgot. They walked side by side in silence, their steps echoing in sync down the hallway. In the white light of the hospital, everything looked normal. But inside Nora's head, every second ticked like a countdown.
When they reached the room, the tension had already cracked open. A young woman post-op, unexplained tachycardia, disoriented trembled in the bed. Interns hovered, one of them mumbling numbers that made no sense. Nora stepped in without hesitation. "Push one liter of saline, cardiac monitoring now, and page anesthesia." Rowan watched her, transfixed. Her voice. Her calm. Her precision. There was no fear in her. Just a cold control that somehow burned. It wasn't until she looked at him that he understood she didn't avoid chaos. She belonged to it.
Once the patient was stable and the room quiet again, Nora walked out without a word. Rowan followed, but there was something sharper in his eyes now not just curiosity. Awareness. He'd seen something. Maybe not what she was hiding, but enough to know she wasn't like the others. In the empty hallway, he gently stopped her. "You already knew what was wrong. Before you even saw the monitor." She turned to him slowly, unreadable. "I've seen mistakes like that before. I remember them." He looked at her a moment too long. And in his eyes, there it was that dangerous thing: understanding. The kind that doesn't go away once it takes root.
She should have walked away. Turned on her heel. Let the moment fade into the sterile hallway. But she didn't. She stayed. Just a second too long. Long enough for the silence to shift. Rowan didn't move. He didn't touch her. But his gaze was a hand she could feel on her skin not invasive, just present. Intense. And Nora, for all her control, felt something slip beneath her ribs. Something unscripted. She took half a step back, just enough to reclaim space. "I need to go," she said. But her voice wavered. Slightly. A crack in the armor. Rowan didn't answer. Just nodded once, like he'd just seen something she wasn't ready to admit.