Chapter 16 #2
“Pick a side, June.”
The phrase echoed once.
Then twice.
Then again and again until it stopped being words and turned into a buzzing, blinding noise inside my skull.
Pick a side.
Pick a side.
Pick a side.
A flash—
White.
Burning.
A bang.
I jolted awake, lungs seizing.
My lungs clawed for air.
My chest rose and fell in violent, uneven jerks. The room was dark and silent, but the nightmare clung to me like wet cloth—heavy, suffocating.
Kai’s warmth still clung to my skin.
So did the smell of his blood.
The echo of him.
His ghost.
Tremors ran through my hands. I groped for my cell, the screen lighting up with a harsh glow that stabbed straight into my eyes.
2:35 a.m.
I hesitated for a second.
Then typed anyway:
Any update on Dannie? Please.
My thumb hesitated, then tapped send.
Nurse Anu hadn’t replied to my last message. She’d promised to keep me updated—to tell me the moment anything changed.
Instead, I’d gotten silence.
I told myself I hadn’t forgotten about Dannie.
But maybe I had.
Or maybe I’d shoved him into a dark corner of my mind just to survive the whiplash of everything happening around me. Letting thoughts of him sink beneath the monstrous weight of Kai.
The guilt twisted low in my stomach—thick, acidic, relentless.
I’d come here thinking I could help—be useful, contribute anything meaningful. But all I’d done since arriving was sit around and take up space.
A fragile ornament in a room full of moving parts.
A vase placed on a battlefield.
A distraction.
Worse—my presence out in public could detonate the whole plan.
I stared at the screen, at the lonely little unread message icon like it might miraculously turn bold, like news would appear if I longed fiercely enough for it.
Had Dannie’s fever gone down?
Had the infection spread?
Was he awake?
Was he scared?
Was he angry at me for leaving without a word?
The questions circled like vultures, sharper and more vicious each time they swooped back in.
Far away, thousands of miles away, he was fighting a different kind of battle—and I couldn’t even reach him.
I pressed the phone to my chest as if the blue halo of the screen could warm the empty place where answers should have been.
The light stung my eyelids. A tight knot clawed up my throat.
Lincoln’s words—“grow up”—looped in my head like a broken record, but they felt less like an insult now and more like a dare.
All my life I’d wanted to prove I wasn’t a spoiled pretty thing paraded around at dim sum tables.
That’s why I became a doctor: to earn it, to be useful.
Somewhere along the way, I’d let usefulness get blurry.
I’d been useful in the abstract—talking, planning, buying a hospital at midnight—but useless where it mattered: where hands and timing and medical decisions could keep someone alive.
Okay. Think.
I sat up straighter and began to make a list in my head, the way I always did when panic tried to own me—a surgeon’s checklist in civilian clothes.
First: medical intel.
I texted Stephanie, swallowing my pride and asking for help.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard longer than I wanted to admit. We had history, sure. But I didn’t even like her that much—half our university memories involved her disappearing behind the anatomy lab to make out with whatever half-decent guy who wandered past.
But really… was what I was doing now any different?
For someone who hated being ditched, I’d done more than my fair share of it.
And Dannie…
God, Dannie had been the one to suffer the most from that particular cruelty. I’d walked away from him again and again—always with an excuse ready to go, always too busy, too overwhelmed, too afraid of what acknowledging him might mean.
Stephanie replied faster than expected.
Sure. I’ll check on him. Heading into morning rounds anyway. I’ll update you.
Just like that. No hesitation.
Relief rippled through me, loosening a tight, painful knot around my ribs. For once, I’d actually done something—not just existed in the corner while everyone else moved the world without me.
Of course, she didn’t miss her chance to pry.
Who is this Dannie guy?
She texted again.
Typical Stephanie. Her nosiness was a weapon she wielded with surgical precision.
I tried brushing her off.
Just someone from work.
Delete.
A colleague.
Delete.
There was no point lying. Not to her. She’d smell it from space.
So I told her the truth—or at least the truth I could bear to admit.
He’s someone important to me.
I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
It wasn’t a lie. If anything, it was embarrassingly honest.
After that, I just sat there, staring at my mobile, watching my own faint reflection warp across the black screen.
A heavy throb pounded at the base of my throat.
Dannie.
Just the thought of his name felt like a bruise blooming in my ribs—tender, aching, impossible to push aside.
He’d always been there for me—steady, reliable, endlessly selfless in ways I never deserved. When everything else in my life cracked right down the middle, he stayed. He kept the pieces together with quiet, steady hands and never once asked for anything in return.
And when he pulled out that ring—the stupid little souvenir from our stupid little charade, back when we’d play-pretended our way through a borrowed life as husband and wife—it nearly broke something inside me.
The way he cradled it, like it still mattered.
The way his voice quivered, like the memory still hurt him.
For a split second, I wanted to say yes.
Yes to the ring.
Yes to the pretend marriage.
Yes to him.
To everything.
But then—just one mention of Kai.
One whisper of his name.
One small, unintentional reminder of him—and my entire body turned traitor.
My pulse took off. A vise tightened around my ribs, squeezing the air and the logic straight out of me. Every rational thought I tried to cling to slipped straight through my fingers.
I despised it.
I resented him deeply for it.
It terrified me that Kai still had the power to pull me apart with nothing more than his name.
It scared me how deeply he’d carved himself into the deepest parts of me so thoroughly that even now—after everything—my heart twisted instantly toward him.
It infuriated me that no matter how far I ran or how carefully I tried to rebuild myself, some part of me was still tethered to him.
I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
And maybe that was the part that terrified me most.
“Red scarf!”
The shout detonated through the apartment—sudden, explosive. Every muscle snapped to attention before my brain even caught up. For a second, I wasn’t sure where the voice came from; all I knew was adrenaline surged fast and hard through my veins.
“What is it?” I called out, already moving.
I bolted out of the guest room, feet slapping against the cold marble as I sprinted down the hallway toward the sound.
“Red scarf!” Dave called again—closer now, urgent, electric.
I rounded the corner to find him at the floor-to-ceiling window, arm extended, finger stabbing toward the glowing cityscape.
“Lucy’s apartment,” he said, a clipped breath. “She hung the scarf by the window.”