Chapter 11 #2
The nurse speaks into the phone with clipped urgency. “Yes, this is ICU. I need immediate verification on patient Kincaid’s personal effects… A necklace with a vial attached… Yes... Priority.”
I don’t relax. I can’t. The room tilts again. Black creeps at the edges of my vision. I sag back against the pillows, barely catching myself before I rip another line free.
The nurse moves quickly, pressing gauze to my arm, adjusting the IV with careful hands. “We’ll find it.”
One of the agents gives a dismissive snort. They mutter to each other as they back toward the door, still watching me like I might break loose and charge. The door shuts behind them with a harder click than necessary.
The nurse who had been monitoring the line finishes checking the bag and steps back from the bed. “I need to grab another kit,” she says before slipping out of the room.
Then the door clicks shut.
I stare at it, my chest rising too fast as I wait for it to swing open again with the only answer that matters. Every muscle in my body stays wound tight. My eyes stay fixed on the handle as seconds drag past. I expect another agent, another round of questions.
Instead, a different nurse steps into the room.
She keeps her eyes lowered and holds a cell phone in one hand.
“You have a call,” she says before setting it on the rolling tray beside my bed.
She turns and walks out without another word. The door closes behind her, leaving the room quiet again.
The screen glows.
Incoming call. No number.
I pick it up. I don’t speak. Silence breathes on the other end for a second.
Then, calm and amused, “Still alive, huh?”
My grip tightens until my knuckles go white.
“Grant.”
A soft exhale. “Well you won’t be alive for long.”
My jaw locks. “Where’s Brooke?”
He gives a slow sigh. “That girl has some fight in her. You should be proud. But if I were you, I would stop worrying about her and start worrying about what is about to happen to you.”
“If you touch her,” I say, each word forced through clenched teeth, “I promise you will regret it.”
His voice dips lower. “Oh, Seth. I’m gonna do more than touch her.”
Something inside my chest tightens hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.
Grant chuckles. “Rest up, Seth. Prison’s not going to be easy for you.”
The line goes dead.
For a second, I just hold the phone to my ear, waiting for the click to reverse. Waiting for anything.
Nothing. The silence presses in.
He has her.
And he's going to hurt her.
My chest tightens so fast I think the sutures have split. My pulse roars in my ears.
The door opens, a federal agent steps inside. He shuts the door behind him and slides his phone into his jacket pocket.
“You.”
He arches a brow. “Me?”
“You set that up,” I snap. “You’re in on it.”
He gives a short chuckle. “In on what?”
“Don’t fucking play dumb,” I trying to shove myself upright. Pain rips through my side. “You know Grant.”
He looks almost amused. “You’re not making your case any better, Kincaid.”
“You’re working with him. You're in on it. Where is Brooke?”
“Fifty people dead,” he steps closer to the bed. “And you’re acting erratic. Not a good sign.”
My hand flies to the IV. Rage surges so fast it feels electric. I grab the line and yank. Pain explodes through my arm. The tape tears. Blood spills warm down my skin and drips onto the sheets.
The nurse rushes in behind him. “Stop,” she demands sharply, already moving toward me.
The agent doesn’t help her. He just watches.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Keep thrashing. It only reinforces what we already suspect.”
“I didn’t do this,” I grind out.
He shrugs. “That’s what they all say.”
The nurse presses gauze to my arm. “You’re going to tear your stitches,” she tries to push me back against the mattress.
I barely hear her.
The room tilts. The fluorescent lights above me flicker, buzzing louder than they should. The agent’s face blurs.
And Luke stands near the foot of my bed. He leans against the wall with his arms folded.
“What are you gonna do?” he asks, head tilting. “You can barely even walk. They just had to take a bullet out of your chest.”
My throat goes dry.
“You’re not real,” I mutter.
Luke smiles. “Face it, Seth. You’re not gonna be able to save her.”
I try to sit up again, but my body refuses to cooperate. The pain pins me down.
“She’s gonna die because of you,” he goes on. “Just like Natalie died because of you.”
My breathing goes uneven.
“And your baby’s gonna die with Brooke too.”
The words hit harder than the bullet ever did.
My fingers tremble. My vision tunnels.
The nurse’s voice sounds far away. “He’s not responding to me.”
Luke steps closer and crouches beside the bed, eye level with me. “You kill everything you touch.”
I see it.
Brooke alone somewhere in the dark. Calling my name and getting nothing back.
I see a tiny heartbeat on a monitor flicker once, twice, and then nothing.
I see a casket lowered into the ground while I stand behind glass, shackled, unable to move.
I see myself rotting in a cell while dirt hits a coffin lid.
My breath hitches and stutters. The rage drains out of me. In its place comes something colder.
Not anger.
Certainty.
Certainty that maybe this is the pattern. That maybe Luke is right. That maybe I am the common denominator.
The nurse’s hands are still on my arm, applying pressure. The agent is saying something about psychiatric evaluation.
The room is there again.
But the future Luke paints doesn’t fade.
I lie back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling, chest rising too fast, feeling the weight of a future where I fail her.
Not fighting.
Not winning.
Just watching everything I love die because I’m not enough to stop it.