Chapter 15 Nyx #3
I slid into the back seat behind the passenger side. It gave me a clean line to both doors and a clear view through the windows. It was an old habit, but habits kept you alive, and I refused to apologize for my survival.
The SUV rolled out of Meridian smooth and unhurried. Chicago winter pressed gray through the glass, and snow sat in dirty banks along the curb where plows had shoved it to die. Streets glistened with salt, slush, and thin ice that caught headlights and threw them back.
A corner store sign flickered at an intersection, and men stood outside it with shoulders hunched, breath steaming, laughter sharp. A bus hissed to a stop and doors folded open. The city looked awake, and nobody knew that inside my coat I was counting hours since my sister vanished.
My heat crept low and stubborn. My scent shifted, sweetening just enough to make me want to crawl out of my skin. The timing felt cruel.
Elijah noticed anyway. I saw it in the way his shoulders went tense for a beat, then eased as he forced them down. His control was not effortless. It was chosen, and that was the only reason I didn’t tell him to get out of the car.
“Your suppressant schedule,” he asked quietly. “When was your last dose?”
“Before Meridian,” I said. “Then everything went sideways.”
Kairo’s eyes met mine in the rearview. “That’s gonna make you loud,” he said, casual, but his grip on the wheel tightened a fraction.
“I’m already loud,” I replied.
Kairo let out a quiet sound that might’ve been a laugh if the air wasn’t tight. “Not like this,” he said, and there was something in his tone that wasn’t teasing. It was knowledge. It was the knowledge men used when they wanted you to remember they could handle you.
Elijah’s jaw set. “Windows up,” he told Kairo.
“Already,” Kairo said. “I’m not trying to perfume the entire block.”
The way he said perfume made my stomach twist. It was a joke. It was also a reminder that my scent was information here, and information got traded.
I sat back and kept my hands folded in my lap. I breathed through my nose. I focused on the cold glass against my fingertips when I pressed them briefly to the window, grounding myself in something that didn’t belong to any of them.
We reached Meridian Health South Shore just after ten. The building dressed in fresh paint, blue and white signage and stock-photo smiles that promised safety without ever having to provide it. The parking lot was half full. People moved in and out with heads down, hands shoved into pockets.
My stomach turned. My heat pushed higher.
Elijah walked in beside me, posture contained, expression neutral. He wore authority, quiet enough that people obeyed without knowing why..
Kairo stayed a few paces behind, blending into the flow. His eyes never stopped moving, and his body positioned itself behind me to feel protective if I didn’t know protection was how men justified ownership.
At the front desk, a young woman smiled. “Good morning. How can we help you today?”
Elijah slid a card across the counter with a calm motion. The Meridian logo sat above Compliance and Risk in clean print.
The receptionist’s smile changed by half a degree. Her eyes darted to the card, then to Elijah’s face, then away.
“One moment,” she said. “I’ll get my supervisor.”
“Yes,” Elijah replied. “You will.”
She turned her screen away reflexively, and that told me everything. Innocent people didn’t hide screens from compliance. Guilty systems did.
A supervisor appeared within minutes, too fast to be natural. He wore a blazer that didn’t belong in a clinic and a smile that didn’t belong on a face with eyes that calculated.
“Mr. Hayes,” he said to Elijah.
Elijah’s expression didn’t change. “Dr. Fielding.”
The name lit my blood, hot and immediate. Fielding’s gaze flicked to me, and his nostrils flared as he scented me.
My heat answered, low and curling. I kept my face smooth and my posture calm, because if I reacted, he would file me as unstable and use it as cover. Men loved labeling women unstable. It made it easier to lock doors.
Elijah’s voice stayed calm, but something sharpened underneath it. “Do not,” he said.
Fielding lifted both hands slightly. “Of course,” he said. “Let’s not do this at the front desk.”
“No,” Elijah agreed. “We won’t. You’ll take us to your records room now.”
Fielding’s smile held, but it thinned. “This way.”
He led us down a corridor angled away from the waiting room and away from witnesses. My pulse tried to climb. I counted doors anyway and counted cameras, because counting gave my mind something to do besides remember.
Two doors on the left. Three on the right. Camera tucked into a corner where it could see the intersection. Exit sign that looked clean enough to be decorative.
A funnel. A hallway built to isolate. My spine went stiff, and I forced myself to keep walking.
We stopped at a keypad door marked STAFF ONLY. Fielding tapped in a code. The door clicked, and a camera above the frame blinked once.
Kairo shifted behind us. “More eyes than your lobby suggests.”
Fielding’s smile stayed plastered on his face. “Standard security.”
“Then keep it standard,” Elijah said. “No calls. No alerts. No extra staff.”
Inside was a small records office with locked cabinets, a terminal mounted to the wall, and a printer warm like it had been used recently. The smell hit harder in here. Suppressant. Latex. And underneath it, a stale trace of omega scent that made my stomach tighten.
Fielding’s gaze skimmed over me, then past me.
“I asked your front desk for the stabilization schedule,” I said. “Last sixty days. All sites. Something is wrong with your intake. The numbers do not match the exits.”
“You said intake irregularities,” Fielding said, trying to sound bored. “High volume. Paperwork gets delayed.”
I met his eyes calmly. “Paperwork doesn’t delay bodies,” I said.
Fielding’s irritation flashed before he smoothed it away. “And you are?”
“Someone you don’t want paying attention,” I replied, still calm. “So you can either pull up the schedule or keep pretending this is about filing.”
Kairo’s tone stayed light, but his presence sharpened. “Don’t make her talk twice,” he said, and his grin didn’t reach his eyes.
Elijah stepped closer, not touching Fielding, but taking up space. The threat was not in his hands. It was in how steady his shoulders were, and how his voice didn’t need to rise.
“Pull up stabilization appointments,” he said. “Last sixty days. All sites.”
Fielding hesitated. I watched his throat bob as he swallowed, and I watched the way his eyes flicked to the door.
Kairo’s voice stayed calm. “All sites,” he repeated.
Fielding typed. The screen filled with rows of appointments. Not emergencies. Not walk-ins. Scheduled blocks. Same categories. Same times. Repeating patterns that weren’t medical patterns at all.
My chest tightened as understanding landed. It wasn’t care. It was a calendar built to move bodies. It was logistics dressed up as health.
I pointed at a category label. “Protected Designation,” I said. “What does that mean?”
Fielding’s jaw clenched. “Privacy.”
“It means ownership,” I corrected, and my voice stayed flat because anger would only give him an excuse to dismiss me.
A door farther down the hall opened and shut. Footsteps stopped outside our room. A shadow cut across the frosted glass panel and lingered.
My scent thickened on instinct, and my heat pushed higher. I forced my breathing steady and kept my hands still. Panic was a gift I refused to hand over.
Kairo spoke without raising his voice. “We have company.”
Elijah didn’t turn. “Stay,” he said, and it wasn’t clear whether he meant the person outside or whether he meant me.
The footsteps moved on after a long beat. The air in my lungs loosened by a fraction, but the residue of the moment stayed, sticky and sour.
Elijah’s voice stayed calm. “Show me the transfers attached to that category,” he said.
Fielding didn’t move. He stared at the screen.
Kairo stepped in closer. The playful mask slid just enough to show the teeth underneath, and it changed the entire room. Kairo was the man who could smile while he threatened you.
“You want today to stay easy,” he whispered. “You do what he just told you.”
Fielding swallowed. His fingers hit a key.
A new window opened. Transport authorizations. Housing placements. Travel exemptions. Clinic ID codes repeating across state lines.
Illinois. Indiana. Michigan.
My stomach dropped. This was the machine, and I recognized one code. Not from this clinic. From the audit trail I had followed three years ago, the week my sister vanished.
My fingers hovered, shaking once. I forced them steady by planting my palm on the desk hard enough to feel the pressure in my bones. Pain was grounding. Pain was honest.
“Tatum,” I said under my breath.
Elijah’s head turned slightly, catching the sound. The bond pulsed hard, hungry for meaning
“You found something,” he said.
“I found a route,” I replied. “And if it exists, she wasn’t taken by chance.”
The relief came first, sharp enough to hurt, and then the fear followed right behind it.
Because a route meant intention, and intention meant my sister had been seen, chosen, handled.
Tatum had always believed systems were neutral.
Standing there, staring at the code on the screen, I understood how wrong she’d been.
My throat tightened, so I gave myself something to hold on to. “Tatum did not just vanish,” I said, more to the room than to them. “She was processed.”
Elijah’s eyes sharpened. “You’re sure.”
“I am sure,” I said. “Because these codes are a map, and somebody built it on purpose.” I swallowed, then added, quieter, “My sister did not walk into that building and disappear. She got moved through it.”
Kairo’s voice stayed low. “That means we can follow the route and hopefully it leads us right back to her.”