Chapter 21
Liv
The hospital is uncomfortably bright, clean, and normal. It doesn’t match what just happened.
I’ve been standing in the ER’s breakroom, by myself, and scrubbing my hands in the little kitchenette style sink longer than I need to. The water is hot enough that it stings my skin.
One of the ER nurses took one look at me and shuttled me in here as soon as she could. I’m guessing that I looked as shitty as I felt. Scott oversaw the transfer while I was told, “take a moment, honey, before we have an additional patient on our hands.”
That’s probably fair.
Now the stark white walls feel like they’re closing in on me. And the scent of antiseptic clings to everything in a disorienting way, like it can erase what we brought in with us.
It can’t.
Because her voice is still in my head. And the way her hand felt on my wrist. The way she said “I couldn’t move” like it was the worst part. Not the pain or the violence. The stillness.
I shut the water off harder than I mean to. But the silence that follows feels heavier than the noise ever did.
“She’s stable.”
I turn; Alex stands in the doorway.
For a second, I don’t recognize him. Not because he looks different, but because he feels different.
There’s something in his posture. It’s tight and controlled, like he’s holding something back with everything that he’s got.
His jacket is still on, but it hangs open now, like he wanted to be parted from the way he was dressed when the ambulance pulled into the bay.
His sleeves are pushed up just enough to show the tension in his forearms and the faint flex of muscle under skin that’s gone rigid.
“Stable?” I ask.
He steps into the breakroom fully, letting the door swing shut behind him. “Stable enough,” he says. “She made it through intake, kept talking through it. Then it got to be too much for her. They’ve got her sedated.”
Sedated.
My heart hammers against my ribcage.
“She asked for it,” he adds, quieter now. “They didn’t force it. It’s just to help her sleep.”
That helps… a little.
I nod, grabbing a paper towel and drying my hands. For a moment, neither of us speaks. We just stand there; two people who now know something we couldn’t even imagine a few hours ago. Something we can’t unknow now.
“You heard what she said,” I point out finally.
It’s not a question.
His jaw locks. “Yeah.”
I lean back against the counter, crossing my arms. “She wasn’t guessing,” I continue. “That wasn’t confusion or trauma filling in the blanks. She knew exactly what happened to her.”
“I know.” His voice is low, too controlled.
I study him for a second, then push off the counter. “What did the ME find in the last girl?”
His eyes flick to mine, something shifting. This is the part he wasn’t going to say out loud. But now he has to because I already found out the truth from Nadine.
“They flagged a paralytic.”
My stomach drops at his admission. “What kind?” I ask, pretty sure that I already know the answer.
“Succinylcholine.”
The name settles between us like something solid. I exhale slowly, my mind already connecting the dots. “It matches,” I say.
His gaze hones in. “Yeah?”
I nod, the pieces clicking into place whether I want them to or not.
“It’s fast-acting,” I explain slipping into a clinical mind without thinking about it.
“Causes full muscle paralysis. You can’t move, speak, or breathe on your own.
But it’s normally used with a sedative, during something like surgery.
General anesthesia. Without the sedative…
you’d be awake and unable to move or breathe. ” I swallow hard.
“She described it perfectly.” His expression doesn’t change. But something behind his eyes tells me he’d already looked up what Succinylcholine does.
So, I continue, hoping to dig into what he’s figured out already, about the drug and the case itself. “She said she couldn’t breathe,” I add. “That she could feel everything but couldn’t respond. That lines up with Succinylcholine…”
“And the tube?” he asks, testing me.
“That’s standard if someone can’t breathe on their own,” I say. “But not like that. Not without sedation. Like during surgery, it’s part of general anesthesia.”
It’s not a weapon or to be used for control.
“They waited until she was panicked enough,” I say quietly, repeating the words that haven’t stopped echoing in my head.
Alex looks away for a second, like that one hit deep for him too. “They’re controlling the experience. Not just the victim.”
I nod. “They’re deciding when she can move,” I add. “When she can breathe. When she can react.” My chest aches again. “They’re deciding how she feels it.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. Because now, it has a name. Not just what they’re doing but how. And that makes it so much worse than either of us had expected.
“It’s not random,” Alex says after a moment.
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
“It’s practiced.”
“Refined.”
Our voices overlap slightly. We both stop.
He lets out a quiet exhale. “They’ve done this before.”
“More than once.”
My gaze drifts to the floor for a second, my mind replaying everything she said and everything I saw.
The bruises, the patterns, the way she reacted to certain movements.
And it suddenly clicks into place. “This isn’t just trafficking,” I acquiesce slowly.
“This is… something else layered on top of it.”
“Control,” he replies.
I look back up at him.
“Not just physical,” he adds. “Psychological and systematic.”
My stomach turns. “They’re breaking the victims.”
His jaw squares. “Yeah.” The word is quiet, but it hits hard.
“I documented everything she said,” I tell him after a moment. “It’s in the report. Exact wording.”
He nods once. “That’ll help.” It’s not reassurance. It’s a promise.
And I believe him fully. Even knowing everything we’ve seen and heard. And with everything working against us. I believe him.
I let out a hard breath, my shoulders dropping just slightly. “I can’t get her voice out of my head, Alex,” I admit.
His expression shifts, softening a fraction. “Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”
My arms tighten around my chest. “She thought she did everything right. That if she just followed the rules, she’d be okay.”
His jaw clenches. “Following the rules doesn’t always work. That’s just how they keep control. Make them believe they have a choice.”
“But they don’t.”
“No.”
I glance up at him again, really looking at him this time. He’s tired. Not just physically, it’s deeper than that. Like this case has carved out a part of him.
And I’m starting to understand how he feels.
Hearing this story and having to carry it after… hurts me. So fucking much.
How many horrible stories has he heard?
The room feels smaller, and uncomfortably full even though it’s just us in here.
“We’re dealing with something worse than we thought,” I say finally.
He nods. “Yeah.” He pauses. “But we’ll stop it.”
Simple and direct.
I want to believe him, but this feels so huge. Like an elephant sitting on an ant.
Can he? Can we?
Can anyone?