Chapter 5 Harper
HARPER
After a full day of patients, I sat at my desk, reviewing my notes from each visit, making sure everything was airtight. First days mattered. First impressions on paper mattered more. Every chart needed to reflect competence, precision, someone who belonged here.
I clicked through file after file until Knox Blackwood’s name stared back at me. I’d documented everything. There was no way someone could read my medical notes and make any other deduction than the fact that Knox Blackwood had brutally assaulted that man.
I reread the notes twice, then closed the file and went to find Dr. Mercer in her office.
She was packing up for the day, sliding files into a worn leather bag that looked older than I was.
“So, the fight from this morning, is the other patient okay?” I kept my voice steady, but my fingernail found the inside of my thumb, rubbing in small, anxious circles.
“Doyle will live. Needs overnight observation, but Blackwood must’ve held back.” She scribbled notes, her handwriting as chaotic as the last hour had been. “Could’ve been worse. Much worse.”
Held back? If that was restraint, I didn’t want to see him unleashed.
“Come on.” She grabbed her bag and a set of keys. “Help me lock up. I’ll walk you through end-of-shift protocol.”
I followed her into the hallway, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like mechanical insects. The infirmary felt different now that it was empty. Quieter. The kind of quiet that made you aware of your own breathing.
“Hopefully, they’ll send us a new orderly soon,” she mused, checking the lock on a medicine closet.
“An orderly?”
Dr. Mercer’s key paused. “Doyle’s the infirmary orderly. Was, I should say. He won’t be back for a while. Maybe ever, depending on how this shakes out.”
“You don’t seem upset.”
“Between you and me, Doyle was a creep. The kind who’d stand too close when you were charting.
Who’d find reasons to brush past you in doorways.
I caught him once, standing in the corner of the exam room while a nurse was bending over.
Just … watching. Said he was ‘waiting to assist.’ ” She shook her head.
“And the way he looked at women nurses. Not just looked. Studied. Like he was cataloging weaknesses.”
A chill crept down my spine.
“One time, I could’ve sworn I saw him rubbing himself through his pants while watching a nurse bend over to grab supplies.
But he stopped the second I turned around.
Denied it, of course.” She checked her cell phone, shaking her head.
“I asked the warden weeks ago to reassign him. Give me someone else. Anyone else.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He hadn’t technically done anything wrong, so either the prison didn’t have capacity to deal with it or they haven’t gotten to it yet.” She locked another door, her keys jangling in the quiet. “So, no, I won’t be shedding any tears over Doyle’s absence.”
But Doyle was the victim here. Knox was the aggressor. That was the math.
Right?
I thought of Knox’s silver eyes when he’d looked at my scar. The way his voice had dropped, almost gentle, when he asked who gave it to me. The way he’d made himself smaller somehow, less threatening, like he was trying not to spook a wounded animal.
I shook the thought loose before it could settle.
“Anyway, how was treating Blackwood?” Dr. Mercer asked, moving to the second medicine cabinet, this one with a combination lock.
“Fine.” I heard how clipped my voice sounded. Too clipped.
Dr. Mercer glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. “You weren’t scared?”
Hell to the yes I was scared. “No.”
“Good. Wouldn’t have blamed you if you were though.” She said it casually, her attention on the cabinet. “He’s got quite the reputation. Most dangerous inmate at Coldwater, or so the rumors go.”
My stomach dropped. “He’s the most dangerous guy here?”
Her hands froze on the lock. She snapped her eyes to me, and I watched her trip over her own words.
“Sorry. Should’ve given you a rundown before today.
I forget sometimes that not everyone knows the local legends.
” She finished with the cabinet and turned to face me fully.
“For the other inmates, he’s basically the bogeyman.
But he’s never hurt medical staff. If he had a history of violence toward doctors or nurses, I wouldn’t have left you alone with him. ”
“What makes him the most dangerous?” I wondered aloud. “Is he a serial killer?”
She actually laughed at that. “No. At least, not that anyone’s told me.
Story goes, not long after he arrived, he got into some kind of altercation.
I don’t know the details, but whatever happened, it was bad enough to cement his reputation.
After that?” She shrugged. “Nobody messed with Knox Blackwood. And I mean, nobody. Which is probably why the other inmates won’t exactly weep if he makes parole this year. ”
Parole.
“How long is his sentence?”
“Twenty-five years. Has served fourteen so far. Been denied parole before though.”
I filed that away for later. The more pressing headline was that I’d just treated the most dangerous inmate at Coldwater Penitentiary . On my first day. Without backup.
Part of me wanted to be angry. A heads-up would’ve been nice. But another part—a stubborn, defiant part—felt something close to satisfaction. I’d walked into the lion’s den and walked out with all my limbs attached. If I could survive that, maybe I could survive anything.
“Anyway,” Dr. Mercer continued, leading me toward the main door, “any signs of head trauma with Blackwood?”
It didn’t surprise me he was the first (or only) patient she was asking me about. The rest of them were mundane today. Scheduled check-ins. Uneventful. Which was welcome after that explosive morning.
“No concussion symptoms. Pupils responsive, no confusion. He said he felt fine.”
She stopped walking.
Just … stopped. Like I’d told her the vending machine started dispensing gold bars.
“He talked to you?”
“Um … yeah?” Why was she looking at me like I’d grown a second head?
“Huh.”
“Is that bad?”
“No. It’s … unusual.” She started walking again, slower now, like she was chewing on something. “He’s the silent type. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak to a nurse or doctor. Not once.”
“Like, ever?”
“Not in the seven years I’ve been here.”
Seven years. He hadn’t spoken a single word to medical staff in seven years.
“Then how do they tend to his injuries?”
“The best they can with a patient who won’t answer questions. Lot of guesswork. Lot of poking around until you find the problem.”
But Knox hadn’t just answered a question. He’d initiated a conversation. Asked me things. Made borderline jokes.
Why?
“Any idea why he’d talk to me?”
She shrugged, pushing open the main door and holding it for me. “Who knows? Maybe he liked your bedside manner. Maybe he was bored. Maybe—” She stopped, studied me for a moment. “You look rattled.”
My fingernail was going to wear a hole through my thumb.
“I just don’t understand why he’d break years of silence for me.”
“Does it matter?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
Because here was the thing: If Knox Blackwood was the monster his reputation suggested, then why had he felt so …
careful with me? Why lower his voice? Why track my movements like he was making sure he never startled me?
Why look at my scar with something that looked horrifyingly close to anger on my behalf?
Monsters didn’t do that. Did they?
“He’s a convicted killer. That’s the only thing I need to know about him.”
Dr. Mercer locked the infirmary door behind us and pocketed her keys. “You know, you remind me of myself when I first started here.”
I blinked at the subject change. “How so?”
“All that”—she gestured vaguely at me—“black-and-white thinking. Bad guys, good guys. No gray areas.”
My spine stiffened. “There’s nothing wrong with having standards.”
“Didn’t say there was.” She started walking toward the exit, and I fell into step beside her. “But I learned pretty quickly that this place doesn’t operate in black and white. And honestly? Adjusting my perspective made me a better doctor.”
“How?”
“Because when you see someone as a monster, you stop seeing them as a person.” She glanced at me sideways.
“Not consciously maybe. You’d never deny someone treatment because you thought they were scum.
But there’s a difference between going through the motions and actually caring.
And to give the best care, you have to care. ”
I thought of Knox’s knuckles under my hands. The steadiness of my work. The way I’d cleaned every wound with precision, detachment, efficiency.
Had I cared? Or had I just been doing my job?
“But some of these men are dangerous,” I said. “Violent. Bad men who don’t deserve empathy.”
It wasn’t cruelty. It was math. Cause and effect. You hurt people, you pay the price. End of story.
“Some of them, absolutely. Doyle?” She made a face. “There’s darkness in that man. Real darkness. You can see it in his eyes. Nothing there but hunger and entitlement. The kind of person who takes what he wants and feels justified doing it.”
I shuddered.
“But most of them?” She shrugged. “I don’t presume to know why they did what they did.
I take precautions—I’d be an idiot not to—but I’ve learned something in my years here.
Two things can be true at once. A man can be guilty of a terrible crime and still have good in him.
A man can have done something unforgivable and still be a decent human being. ”
My hand drifted to the base of my throat without my permission.
Dr. Mercer stopped at the security checkpoint, turning to face me fully. “Here’s the thing about compassion in a place like this: It’s not about excusing what these men did. It’s not about forgetting or forgiving. It’s about remembering they’re still human.”
“Being human doesn’t excuse—”
“No. It doesn’t. But denying their humanity?
” She held my gaze, and there was weight in her eyes.
Warning. “That’s how you end up as cold as the worst of them.
I’ve seen it happen. Nurses who start seeing monsters instead of men, and eventually…
” She paused. “They become what they claim to hate: coldhearted.”
The security guard buzzed us through, and Dr. Mercer gave him a wave.
“Take Knox, for example,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “He’s never given my medical staff a single problem. Not once in all the years I’ve been here. Never violent toward us. Never verbally abusive. He follows directions. Complies with treatment. He just … doesn’t talk.”
“He’s a convicted killer,” I argued.
“I know.” She pushed open the exterior door, and the evening air hit my face like a slap. “But I don’t know why. And neither do you. Point is, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“What if the cover is a warning label?”
She smiled at that, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Then I guess you’ll have to decide if you’re brave enough to read it anyway.”
She headed toward the parking lot, leaving me standing at the entrance with her words ringing in my ears.
“Two things can be true at once.”
I thought about Knox Blackwood. The most dangerous inmate at Coldwater, evidently. A convicted murderer. The man other prisoners feared so much, they’d probably throw a party if he made parole.
And then I thought about the man in my infirmary.
The one who’d lowered his voice so he wouldn’t startle me.
Who’d held perfectly still while I cleaned his wounds, like he was afraid any sudden movement might scare me off.
Who’d looked at my scar and asked, with something that sounded almost like fury, “Who gave you that?”
If two things could be true at once … then which was the real Knox? Or I guess I should say, the more dominant one?
The apex predator? The convicted killer? The man the entire prison evidently whispered about like he was the monster under the bed?
Or the one who’d taken time to make himself smaller for my sake. Who’d seemed angry—no, protective—at the very idea that someone had hurt me.
I walked to my car on autopilot, my mind churning.
He spoke to me. After years of silence with everyone else in the infirmary, he spoke to me.
Why?
And more importantly, why did some part of me want to find out?