CHAPTER 13 The Nurse Who Never Worked There
CHAPTER 13
The Nurse Who Never Worked There
The syringe caught the light for only a second.
A clear liquid shimmered inside.
Lucy stared at it.
Her pulse instantly accelerated.
The woman standing beside her was wearing a nurse's uniform.
Hospital badge.
Blue scrubs.
Latex gloves.
Everything looked normal.
Everything...
Except her smile.
It carried no warmth.
No reassurance.
Only certainty.
"They've finally found you."
Lucy instinctively pulled herself backward against the hospital bed.
"W... who are you?"
The woman tilted her head.
"My name doesn't matter."
She removed the last bit of air from the syringe.
Click.
"You won't remember it."
Outside the ICU...
Alex heard the heart monitor spike.
He looked through the glass.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The nurse wasn't checking Lucy's IV.
She was standing too close.
Too still.
Alex's firefighter instincts screamed.
He rushed toward the door.
It wouldn't open.
The electronic lock had engaged during the Code Black lockdown.
He slammed his shoulder into it.
BANG!
Nothing.
Again.
BANG!
The reinforced door barely moved.
"Security!"
Alex shouted.
"Open this door!"
Inside...
The fake nurse calmly walked toward Lucy.
"No one is coming."
Lucy glanced desperately around the room.
No doctors.
No real nurses.
Everyone had rushed into the hallway after the security alert.
She was alone.
The woman smiled.
"You've always been difficult to kill."
Lucy frowned.
"What?"
The woman stopped beside the bed.
"When you were a baby..."
"You survived."
"When you were twelve..."
"You disappeared."
"When you got married..."
"You became invisible again."
She gently raised the syringe.
"But today..."
"...your luck finally ends."
Across the hall...
Ethan heard Alex shouting.
He ran toward the ICU.
One look through the glass told him everything.
"Move!"
Alex stepped aside.
Ethan grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher.
He swung it with all his strength.
CRASH!
The safety glass exploded inward.
Alex climbed through the broken window without hesitation.
The fake nurse didn't panic.
She smiled.
Almost as if she had expected him.
"You finally chose your wife."
Alex charged.
The woman spun sideways with incredible speed.
His tackle hit only empty air.
She drove her elbow into his ribs.
Alex staggered.
She wasn't just fast.
She was trained.
Very trained.
Lucy reached for the emergency call button.
The woman kicked it off the wall before Lucy's fingers touched it.
Plastic shattered across the floor.
Alex attacked again.
This time he caught her wrist.
The syringe trembled between them.
Neither would let go.
The woman leaned close enough for only Alex to hear.
"You've always been predictable, Lieutenant."
Alex's eyes narrowed.
"You know me?"
She laughed softly.
"You trained with Raven for six weeks."
Alex froze.
"What?"
The woman smiled wider.
"You just don't remember."
For one split second...
Alex loosened his grip.
That was all she needed.
She twisted free.
The syringe flew across the room.
It struck the wall and shattered.
Clear liquid dripped onto the floor.
Almost immediately...
The vinyl flooring began to bubble.
Smoke rose into the air.
Ethan stared in disbelief.
"What the..."
The fake nurse looked amused.
"Not medicine."
"Acid."
Lucy felt cold spread through her body.
"If that had gone into me..."
The woman answered calmly.
"There wouldn't have been enough left to identify."
Hospital security finally stormed into the room.
Weapons drawn.
"Don't move!"
The woman slowly raised her hands.
Everyone relaxed for one fatal second.
She suddenly smiled.
"You should've checked my left hand."
Alex looked down.
A tiny black button rested between her fingers.
His eyes widened.
"No!"
She pressed it.
BOOM!
A flash grenade exploded.
The room erupted into blinding white light.
Alex instinctively covered Lucy with his own body.
His ears rang violently.
For several seconds...
He couldn't hear anything.
Only a high-pitched whine.
When his vision returned...
The woman was gone.
Again.
The only thing she left behind...
Was her hospital ID badge.
Detective Rachel Morgan picked it up minutes later.
She scanned the barcode.
The computer searched the employee database.
NO RECORD FOUND
Rachel frowned.
"Fake identity."
The IT technician shook his head.
"No."
Rachel looked up.
"What?"
The technician turned the monitor toward her.
"The badge is real."
"It belonged to one of our ICU nurses."
Rachel's stomach tightened.
"Where is she now?"
The technician's fingers froze over the keyboard.
"...She clocked in this morning."
"But..."
"But what?"
He swallowed hard.
"She never made it to work."
An hour later...
Police searched the hospital parking garage.
Hidden inside the trunk of an abandoned sedan...
They found the missing nurse.
She was alive.
Barely.
Drugged.
Bound.
Her uniform had been stolen.
Rachel looked at the unconscious woman.
Then at the evidence collected from the car.
A burner phone.
A fake passport.
And one folded photograph.
The picture showed Lucy...
Standing outside a neighborhood café three weeks before the elevator incident.
Someone had written a message across it in black ink.
TARGET CONFIRMED
Rachel's blood ran cold.
This had never been a random elevator accident.
Someone had been following Lucy for weeks.
Maybe months.
Maybe years.
At that exact moment, Special Agent Daniel Cross received an encrypted message on his secure phone.
Only four words.
THE OTHER SISTER MOVED.
Cross's face lost all color.
Rachel noticed immediately.
"What happened?"
Cross slowly lowered the phone.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"If that message is real..."
He looked toward Lucy's ICU.
"...then Raven didn't come here for Lucy."
Rachel frowned.
"Then who?"
Cross answered with one sentence that changed everything.
"They came..."
May you like
"...to make sure her twin sister never finds her first."
End of Chapter 13
