Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Zac
When he said that name, Elizabeth Weston, I knew this wasn’t going to end well.
“I thought we could sit,” I offer, gesturing to the two plastic chairs near the sink.
No response. His eyes dart across the room, memorizing it. Every corner. Every shadow. Almost as if he’s waiting for someone to jump out at him.
“Just sit and talk. No pressure. No judgment.”
Still nothing. Just more pacing, tighter now, he’s stuck within a memory and doesn’t know how to step out of it.
I keep my hands visible. I’m not holding anything. And I’m not trying anything. I’m just here. With him.
“I get that you’re angry, Alex,” I say. “And you have every right to be. Losing someone—especially suddenly—rips something out of you. It changes how you see the world. How you see people.”
His shoulders tense. His fingers flex around the vest strap.
“She was all I had,” he croaks.
I nod slowly.
“She raised me by herself,” he adds. “Two jobs. No help. Everything she had, she gave to me. And I—I left her.”
“You were there for her,” I reassure him. “You called an ambulance. You stayed with her.”
“I left to get coffee,” he snaps, voice cracking. “I was gone for five minutes.”
“And that doesn’t make it your fault.”
The knife wobbles in his grip. He paces a short arc, back and forth, like a dog on a chain, wearing a trench into the linoleum.
“She was fine when I left.” His voice rises, uneven. “They said she was stable. I asked the nurse at the desk, and she smiled at me. Said she was fine.”
His eyes meet mine briefly. It’s not only grief, but shame and fury, too. He doesn’t know what to do with it all, so he’s turned it into this—this moment, with wires and a knife and the weight of what-ifs stitched into his skin.
I let the silence stretch between us.
“She was scared,” he mutters. “She said she couldn’t breathe, and they left her in a fucking corridor.”
I don’t move.
“She died alone,” he cries.
I remember. I remember her. Elizabeth was short of breath, stable at first, but spiraled fast. I started compressions. Felt her ribs break under the pressure of my hands. Knew, even as I tried to save her, that we were too late.
“I remember her. She was brave. She didn’t want to be here, but she came anyway. For you.”
He stares. A long beat.
“Don’t try to make her sound noble. You don’t get to change the story.”
“I’m not,” I urge, drawing in a slow breath through my nose, willing him to hear me. “I’m telling you what I saw and what we briefly talked about.”
Alex’s head drops.
I take a cautious step toward one of the chairs.
“We can sit,” I offer again. “You’ve been on your feet a long time. You look exhausted.”
He doesn’t move.
“Just a seat,” I add. “Not surrender. A chance to rest. I want to hear about her.”
He walks toward the chair—two slow steps—and then stops.
“Why?” he mumbles.
“Because you matter,” I say. “I want to hear everything. I want to hear what you loved about her. What you miss. What you’re angry about. All of it.”
His lips part like he might respond—but then his face shifts. He starts pacing again. Faster. The knife taps his thigh. Each turn sharper. Tighter.
“She loved lavender,” he tells me. “Planted them on the balcony, even though the building manager complained about the smell. She said the world didn’t need more rules, it needed beauty.”
I nod, heart thudding. This is the grief cracking open. The raw center.
“Last week, she told me she was tired,” he goes on. “I didn’t listen.”
He’s not really talking to me anymore. He’s talking to the empty space beside him.
“I should’ve made her come in sooner.”
“You did what you could,” I say.
He ignores that. “You ever watch someone disappear right in front of you?”
Every goddamn night.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I have.”
He stops moving again. His face is pale, drawn tight over bone.
“She was all I had,” he breathes. “And now she’s gone. And no one cared.”
“I care.”
He flinches like I struck him.
His pain is spilling out in fragments now, and I let it. I don’t interrupt. I’ve learned that logic doesn’t work in moments like this. You can’t throw reason at someone whose world has shattered. It won’t stick.
You have to meet them inside the collapse.
I step a little closer. “You’re right to miss her. That kind of pain doesn’t just disappear.”
And I feel it again. My own grief, rising like a phantom in the room.
The heartbreak in his voice sounds exactly like mine did that night in the OR.
And I get it.
The fury. The helplessness. The desperation to blame someone, because if you don’t, the grief will swallow you whole.
I don’t want to be the person he blames. But I understand why he needs someone.
“She couldn’t stand hospitals. Said they made her feel like she was already dead.”
Another turn. Another pass of the room.
“She was scared to come in. I told her it’d be quick. That they’d fix her up and she’d be back home by morning.” His voice breaks on the last word.
“That’s not your fault,” I say, firmly. “None of this is your fault.”
He spins to face me suddenly, eyes wide.
“Then whose is it?!”
He’s breathing rapidly now, his whole body tight with energy. He doesn’t raise the knife, but his fingers tremble around the handle.
“Someone let her die,” he cries. “They said she was fine. And then they left her.”
I keep my voice even, but I don’t take a step closer this time. “She wasn’t left.”
“She was. No one called me. They bagged her up and rolled her out like trash.”
“I’m sorry. Truly. We tried to contact you, but it wasn’t quick enough. It never is. No one should lose someone like that.”
He takes a step back, rattled, like he doesn’t know what to do with the information.
And then I see it again.
Movement at the edge of the curtain. Subtle. Peripheral. But unmistakable.
Chloe.
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache.
The first time I saw her, I nearly barked her name across the room. Came this close to blowing everything. But I swallowed it down. Let it slide. Told myself she got the message.
Clearly, I was wrong.
She stayed.
Goddammit, she stayed.
I told her to leave in the on-call room. Begged her to. And now she’s feet away from a man with a knife and probably enough explosives to level the department.
I don’t react. Not visibly. But my heart stumbles like a misfiring valve.
I’m not failing someone I care about again. I won’t.
I want to yell. I want to lunge across the room and pull her out by her scrubs.
But I can’t.
What if Alex sees her? What if he thinks she’s hiding something? What if he panics and lashes out?
My mind starts racing.
She’s not behind a wall or behind glass. There’s no shield. Just a flimsy curtain and a whole lot of good intentions.
She’s going to get herself killed, and I won’t be able to stop it.
And worse—I should have known.
Because this is exactly who Chloe is.
She’s brilliant, but stubborn. She’s probably trying to find a way to help. Or worse—try to be the help. She’ll wait for a break in the tension and then jump in. I can feel it, like static in the air.
Which is why I can’t let her stay in the shadows and pretend she’s invisible. I know what she’s thinking. I know she’s creeping closer, waiting for a moment—any moment—to do something.
Something brave.
And probably something catastrophically stupid.
Alex is still pacing, trapped in his spiral of grief—he hasn’t noticed her yet.
That’s the only thing keeping this room from detonating.
I can’t afford to be distracted.
I can’t afford for her to become the distraction.
If I don’t control the narrative now—if I let Alex discover Chloe—it could all fall apart.
“Dr. Monroe,” I announce, loudly enough to cut through the air.
The pacing stops. Alex tenses. “Is there someone else here?”
I pivot slightly, placing myself between him and the curtain where I saw her move. “She’s not a threat,” I inform him. “She stayed because she was worried. That’s all.”
He doesn’t answer, but his breathing picks up again.
“Dr. Monroe,” I repeat, “please come out.”
A heartbeat of silence.
Then, soft footsteps.
She emerges slowly, chin high, eyes focused. Her scrubs are wrinkled, hair unraveling, skin pale as bone. Defiant. Brave. Stupidly brave.
And I could kill her. I could take her into my arms and shake her. I could yell at her. Because the second she stepped back through those ER doors, she put herself in the blast zone.
She stops just behind me. One pace back, not quite beside me.
“Chloe,” I grit. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m not leaving you,” she states simply. And that’s it. No argument or bravado.
Only stating a fact.
Jesus Christ, this woman.
Alex eyes her, wary. “You a doctor?”
She nods. “Intern.”
“You stayed?”
“You’re not the only one who’s lost someone.” She shrugs.
His eyes flicker. “What do you mean?”
But she doesn’t answer. Just glances at me. Broken and blistering honesty in her face.
I turn to Alex again.
“I didn’t want her here,” I tell him. “But she came anyway. Because that’s who she is.”
He doesn’t respond.
I push forward.
“Alex, if you could get the truth about what happened to your mom—no bullshit, no spin—would you want it?”
Alex swallows. He doesn’t say yes, but his posture shifts. His grip on the knife loosens a fraction.
“She was stable when she came,” I report. “She deteriorated faster than anyone expected. We tried to reach you after she passed, but… obviously we didn’t try hard enough. And for that, I’m truly sorry.”
He remains silent.
“I accessed your mom’s file. I can confirm that,” Chloe adds.
Alex’s eyes narrow. “You want me to trust you?”
“I want you to trust yourself. To hear the truth. To choose what you do with it,” she tells him.
Chloe steps forward. Voice clear and clinical.
“Your mother’s name was Elizabeth R. Weston.
Admitted two nights ago at 10.15 p.m. for COPD exacerbation.
She was triaged as stable but decompensated suddenly in the corridor.
Resuscitation was attempted. Time of death recorded at 10.
42 p.m. Attempted call was made to the next of kin, Alexander Weston. ”
He’s frozen.
Then his voice drops. “Who was her doctor?”
She swallows hard. “Attending physician…” Her voice trails for a beat before she finishes, quieter now, “Dr. Zachery Bennett.”
He stares at me. And for a second, I think this is it.
The tipping point.
Every second that ticks by might be the one that snaps whatever thread he’s holding on to.
I don’t move.
Neither does Chloe.
The words hang in the air between us like smoke.
“You?” he asks. His voice is soft, dangerous in its stillness.
I nod.
“She died alone, because of you?”
“I was with her. She wasn’t alone.”
“You didn’t save her.”
“I know.”
He backs away a step. Then another.
My hands stay raised. I don’t chase the silence. I hold still. Say nothing. There’s nothing I can say that won’t be a spark.
Behind me, Chloe is deathly still.
Alex’s eyes flicker between us.
A vein throbs in his neck. Sweat beads above his brow.
Then he mutters something I barely catch. “Of course it was you.”
And I brace.
Because I can’t tell if what’s coming next is a breakdown… or a bang.