Chapter 2 Two

She stared at the nurse standing in her doorway, the reflection from the light turning the young woman's skin almost ghostly. "The footage is missing?" Elena repeated, stepping around her desk. "That's not possible. Security footage is archived in real-time. Who authorized the deletion?"

The nurse-Lara-shook her head, biting her lip. "Nobody. That's just it. IT says the entire feed from the ICU wing, from 1pm to 4pm, is gone. Just... static."

Elena's spine stiffened.

"That doesn't make any sense. She was sedated, intubated, and under 24-hour observation. A post-op patient with internal bleeding can't just get up and walk out, and she was sent to her room at 3:30pm. So no one checked on her during this period? Does this mean someone was waiting for her?" Elena asked, her voice growing taut. "Did anyone even see her after we transferred her?"

Lara nodded. "Yes. At 3:55pm., the attending nurse checked her vitals. She was stable, sleeping. But when the night shift came in at seven, she was gone."

Elena turned, grabbing her white coat. "I want to see the room."

The walk to the ICU felt longer than usual. The corridors were quiet, nearly sterile in their stillness, save for the distant echo of a paging announcement. The faint hum of lights overhead seemed to buzz louder with each step.

Inside room 212, the bed was neatly made-too neatly.

The sheets were smoothed, the IV stand unplugged and rolled into the corner, and the monitors powered down. It looked like a patient had never been there.

Elena frowned.

"No blood on the sheets?" she murmured aloud, more to herself than to Lara.

Lara shook her head. "Housekeeping hasn't been through. We haven't touched anything."

"Then who the hell cleaned it?"

Before the nurse could respond, a voice behind them cut through the silence.

"Is this your patient, Dr. Vale?"

Elena turned to find Adrien Cross standing in the doorway, arms crossed. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his jawline too sharp to be anything but infuriatingly smug. Yet there was something unreadable in his expression.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, more sharply than she intended.

He shrugged. "I was on my way to check the labs when I overheard the nurses talking. Thought I might be of use. A missing patient isn't exactly routine."

"I can handle it."

"I'm sure you can," Adrien replied smoothly. "Still, two heads are better than one, aren't they?"

Elena opened her mouth to argue, but Lara stepped in. "I'll give you two a minute," she said quickly, ducking out.

The silence between them stretched thin.

Adrien stepped toward the bed, examining the disconnected monitor leads and coiled wires. "This looks... staged."

"I figured that out duhh" Elena asked.

He gave a noncommittal shrug. "Possibly. Or someone wanted it to look like she was never here."

Elena looked at him. "Why would anyone want that?"

Adrien didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped to the window, looking out over the darkened city. "Have you noticed things have been... off lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean patients missing records. Tests being ordered that no one remembers requesting. Nurses reporting sightings of people who aren't in the system." He turned to face her. "Last week, one of my post-op patients swore she woke up and someone was standing over her-not a doctor or nurse. Just... watching."

Elena's chest tightened.

"You think someone's doing this deliberately?" she gave out a wide smirk. "Go mess around somewhere else."

Adrien looked at her for a long moment. "I think someone is covering something up. And I think it started before I got here."

Elena folded her arms. "Don't make the mistake of thinking your arrival caused all this."

He actually smiled at that, a hint of challenge sparking in his eyes. "Oh, don't worry. I have no illusions about my charm."

Before Elena could reply, her pager buzzed violently at her waist.

CODE BLUE – EAST STAIRWELL

Both their eyes snapped to the alert. Without a word, they bolted down the corridor.

When they reached the east stairwell, chaos had already broken out. A nurse was crouched beside an unconscious security guard, his face pale, pulse faint. Another nurse was calling in a crash cart.

"He was found like this ten minutes ago," someone said. "Said he saw someone trying to take the fire escape. He tried to stop them."

Elena knelt, checking the man's pupils. "They're dilated. But his breathing is shallow."

"Poison?" Adrien suggested, scanning the man's neck for injection marks.

"No signs of trauma," Elena murmured. "But something's definitely wrong."

As the medical team wheeled the guard away, Adrien stood beside her. "We need to find out who he saw."

Elena's gaze drifted toward the emergency exit door. It stood ajar, the latch broken.

Beyond it, the stairwell disappeared into darkness.

Back in her office, Elena sat alone with the patient's chart in front of her.

The woman's name was Celia. Twenty-three. No known relatives. Admitted with blunt force trauma, splenic rupture, and liver laceration. Unconscious on arrival. She hadn't even woken up before surgery.

Elena's eyes scanned her intake form again.

Then stopped.

There was no emergency contact. No insurance data. No ID was found on her at the scene.

Just one line scribbled at the bottom, under "found with patient".

A small silver pendant with a symbol Elena didn't recognize. The note had been marked by the paramedic, but the item itself was never logged in the hospital records.

Her breath hitched.

The only way this was easily done was because there was no guardian to pressure the hospital for her disappearance. She had no relatives to follow it up.

She reached for the hospital's intake photos on the digital records-hoping maybe she could spot the necklace herself.

There were none.

Not a single intake photo existed for Celia Marek.

It was as if she never existed.