Once, he’d been a father.
Ten years earlier, his daughter Emily had vanished on her way home from school, a case that made local headlines for a week before quietly dissolving into nothing when leads dried up and the wrong people started asking the right questions. Knox learned quickly how easily children could fall through cracks big enough to swallow entire lives, and when the system failed him, he stopped trusting it altogether.
That was how he ended up riding alone through the back roads near the old Hawthorne Research Complex, a place officially listed as decommissioned but still humming faintly at night like a sleeping animal, its fences too well maintained for something supposedly abandoned.
That was where he found Ivy.
She had crawled out of the woods barefoot, collapsing near his bike, her lips blue, her eyes unfocused but startlingly aware, and when he wrapped her in his jacket she’d whispered words no child should know, not scared words, not confused ones, but clinical ones, like she was reciting something drilled into her.
“They said the trial was complete,” she murmured. “They said I wasn’t needed anymore.”
Knox didn’t understand then.
He understood now.
In the hallway outside Trauma Bay Two, the doors burst open without warning.
Three men in dark suits stepped inside, moving with practiced coordination, their badges flashing briefly before disappearing back into their jackets, and the one in front, a silver-haired man with a smile that never touched his eyes, spoke as if he owned the air itself.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he said smoothly. “We’ll take it from here.”
Elaine stepped forward, her heart pounding. “She’s unstable. You can’t move her.”
The man tilted his head slightly. “Nurse Porter, I’d advise you to step aside.”
Elaine stiffened. “You know my name?”
“We know everything,” he replied lightly. “And we’d prefer this remain… uncomplicated.”
Behind the glass, Ivy’s monitor flattened for a terrifying second before spiking back into that same unnatural rhythm, a perfect, even cadence that looked wrong in a way Elaine couldn’t explain, as if the machine were lying.
Knox strained against the zip ties. “You touch her,” he growled, “and you’re going to wish you’d stayed buried.”
Officer Pike hesitated, torn between instinct and authority, and in that hesitation, the silver-haired man’s smile faded.