Page 3 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter two

Dorian

T he antiseptic burned my nostrils before consciousness fully returned—sharp and chemical, like breathing through gauze soaked in disinfectant.

Somewhere close, machinery hummed: monitors tracking vitals, ventilation systems cycling stale air, and the steady drip of an IV feeding something into my bloodstream.

Pharmaceutical fog wrapped around my thoughts, but I pushed through it. Training had taught me to surface fast and shed the comfortable numbness that made me vulnerable.

Wrapped in the aggressive cleanliness of hospital linens, my body felt like a foreign object. Starched sheets held me like a straitjacket, tucked tight enough to restrict movement. The mattress beneath me was institutional firm, designed for efficiency rather than comfort.

I surveyed the damage to my body with clinical detachment, the way I'd been taught. Bruised ribs—tender but not broken. A dull, hot ache throbbed in my midsection, low and deep, where the bullet had gone in.

The exit wound, if there was one, didn't feel catastrophic. They must've cleaned and packed it. Stiffness radiated down my leg, but nothing arterial. Nothing that would kill me if I needed to move.

It wasn't my worst situation. Istanbul, for instance, where the man with the bone-pale knuckles had waited outside my recovery room for three days before gutting the wrong patient.

This was different. Cleaner. More... legitimate.

That didn't make it safe.

I kept my eyes closed and let my other senses examine my surroundings. It was a single room, judging by how the sound bounced off the walls—no other beds to block the echo. Privacy meant either special care or special interest—neither was comforting.

The IV bag hanging beside me dripped steadily, feeding clear fluid into the line taped to my left hand. Standard saline, probably. Maybe antibiotics.

My fingers touched fabric—a hospital gown, thin and exposing. Beneath it, someone had been careful with the dressings. Professional work. Precise.

My memory clung to fragments: twisted metal, the taste of blood, and headlights cutting through fog. The rest was empty except for the growing certainty that staying in the hospital would be a mistake.

I breathed steadily, eyes barely cracked open, and let the hospital's rhythm wash over me. My room had two exits—the main door leading to what sounded like a busy hallway, and a smaller one that probably led to a bathroom. The window was too narrow for anything but a desperate last resort.

Footsteps approached in soft-soled shoes. A nurse appeared in my peripheral vision, a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and competent hands. She checked the IV flow rate, adjusted something on the monitor, and scratched a note on a tablet.

"How's our mystery patient?" It was another voice from the doorway—younger, male, probably a resident.

"Stable. Vitals are good. Dr. Reyes wants another blood panel in the morning." The nurse moved toward the door. "Still no ID and no emergency contacts. Police said they'd be back tomorrow to try again."

Police. My stomach clenched, but I kept my face relaxed.

"GSW and an MVA? That's unusual." The resident's voice faded as they moved down the hall. "Wonder what his story is."

I was still a John Doe in their system. That was useful. It bought me time.

Twenty minutes later, I heard different footsteps. Heavier. They paused outside my door and lingered longer than the medical staff. Someone was watching, but I didn't sense a predatory weight.

Through my half-closed lids, I saw him. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a uniform I recognized—Seattle Fire Department EMT. Dark hair, steady posture. He stood with his hands at his sides, without nervous energy or fidgeting. He was merely present, like he was keeping watch.

A passing nurse nodded to him. "Evening, McCabe. Your patient's doing well."

McCabe. The name clicked—he was the one who'd found me. He'd pulled me from the wreckage, placed his hands on me, and stabilized my body.

He turned slightly, and I saw him in profile. Strong jaw, focused eyes. I thought I saw worry about me.

When was the last time someone worried about you?

I clamped down hard on the thought. Sentiment was poison in my line of work—former line of work.

McCabe took half a step into the room, then stopped. Our eyes met through my fake sleep, and for a heartbeat, I thought about letting them open fully. I'd acknowledge that he'd been seen, and his presence had been noted.

That would require trust, a luxury I didn't have.

He stood there another moment before turning away. His footsteps retreated down the hall, steady and unhurried.

I lay in the antiseptic silence, staring at the empty doorway, and tried to ignore the tiny sense of loss when he disappeared.

I gave myself another hour to map the hospital's rhythms. Institutional spaces ran like clockwork—predictable patterns I could learn, analyze, and exploit.

The evening medication round came at nine-fifteen.

There was a soft knock, a cheerful voice, and pills in a small paper cup.

The food service cart squeaked past at ten-forty-seven.

Night shift rotation happened around eleven, marked by the shuffle of tired feet and muffled conversations about patient handoffs.

I'd crashed just before midnight. It was nearing 11 PM now. It had been almost twenty-four hours since the auto accident.

I tested my limits with careful precision. Pressed the call button and asked for water, timing the response—four minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Not bad for a busy unit.

I rearranged my position in bed with a convincing groan, noting which staff member appeared first. The night nurse, Patricia, according to her badge, responded to distress calls. The orderly, Miguel, handled the routine requests.

Both were competent. Neither was suspicious.

When Patricia brought ice chips, I studied her routine. She had keys clipped to a retractable badge reel. In her left hand, she held a tablet, and reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck.

Miguel was more interesting. He restocked supplies from a cart parked in the hallway—surgical gloves, disposable gowns, and towels.

The cart sat unattended for long stretches while he worked in other rooms. Hospital scrubs hung from a rack near the nurse's station, and I'd watched two different people grab fresh ones without signing anything out.

The IV line was the primary concern. Pulling it would cause bleeding and maybe set off alarms if the drip chamber went empty too fast. The tape job was standard—medical adhesive, not restraints—thirty seconds to remove it cleanly.

Security made rounds every two hours. I'd seen the guard twice—an older man, more interested in his coffee than patient rooms. He checked doors more than he checked people. That suggested they were watching for intruders, not runners.

I closed my eyes and ran through my plan step by step. Distraction. Misdirection. Movement. Disappearance.

A familiar calm settled over me—the pre-operation stillness that had kept me alive in places where they measured the mistakes in body counts. I'd been running contingency plans since I was old enough to understand that staying in one place too long meant dying.

My plan crystallized. Simple. Clean. Effective. It was just another extraction. Another tactical problem with variables to manage and solutions to implement.

Now, I had to execute it without thinking about the man who'd pulled me from the wreckage and stood guard at my door like he gave a damn whether I lived or died.

McCabe returned, quiet as before. He paused at the threshold, one foot inside the room. His posture was different from the men I'd learned to fear. No aggressive stance or territorial energy.

His hands hung loose at his sides. He didn't look confused or clinical. He looked... tethered. It was as if seeing me made something in him settle, and walking away would cost him something.

My eyes opened fully, betraying me. He didn't flinch. Didn't step back or call for a nurse. Just stood there, taking in the sight of me, seeing past the hospital gown and bandages and careful blankness I kept on my face.

I stared back. When was the last time someone had looked at me without wanting something in return? For thirty seconds, I forgot I was supposed to be nobody.

He turned and walked away, footsteps retreating down the hallway toward whatever everyday life awaited him outside these walls. He left behind an irrational wish that he'd stayed a little longer, even without words passing between us.

I waited until Patricia made her next round—11:23 PM, precise and efficient. I was ready when she appeared in my doorway with her tablet and practiced smile.

"How are we feeling tonight, Mr. Doe?" She moved to check the IV line, efficiently adjusting the drip rate.

I let my eyes go unfocused, my speech thick and confused. "My dog... is Charlie okay? I left him in the car." The words slurred together convincingly. "He gets scared when... when the storms come."

Patricia's expression shifted to gentle concern. "Oh, honey, there's no dog listed in your belongings. You were in an accident, remember? You're safe now."

"But Charlie..." I tried to sit up, then let myself fall back against the pillows with a grimace. "He needs his medicine. The blue pills. Where are the blue pills?"

She turned toward her cart, reaching for her tablet to take notes. When her attention turned away from me, my fingers moved to the key ring clipped to her badge reel—hospital master keys, elevator access, storage rooms. I palmed them without a sound.

The pulse monitor was next—three adhesive patches connected to leads, beeping with my heartbeat. I peeled them away carefully, the adhesive pulling at skin and hair. The machine let out a confused chirp, then went silent.

"Let me just check with the doctor about—" Patricia began, still focused on her screen.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. White-hot pain exploded through my ribs, but I clamped down on the reflex to cry out. I'd learned to breathe through agony and compartmentalize nerve signals and muscle function. Pain was information. It could be processed and filed away.

My bare feet hit the cold linoleum. Pain flared as I shifted weight to my injured leg—sharp at first, then settling into a hot, dragging pull. The hospital gown gaped open in the back, exposing my skin to the air. Patricia turned as I reached the bathroom door.

"Mr. Doe, you shouldn't be—"

"Just need a minute," I pushed through the door and locked it behind me. The small space reeked of industrial disinfectant. I gave myself ten seconds to let the dizziness pass, then moved to the window. Too small, too high, and facing the wrong direction.

Patricia pounded on the door. "Mr. Doe? Are you all right in there?"

I needed a different plan. I unlocked the door and stumbled out, one hand pressed to my head like the world was spinning. "Sorry, I feel... everything's moving."

Patricia was already reaching for her radio and calling for assistance. Perfect. While she spoke in urgent medical codes, I slipped past her into the hallway.

The service corridor was precisely where I'd mapped it—an unmarked door beside the supply closet, propped open by a wedge someone had kicked into place.

The laundry cart squeaked past just as I reached it, pushed by a tired-looking woman in scrubs who didn't look twice at another patient wandering the halls.

I fell into step behind her, casual and unhurried. The service hallway was dimmer, quieter. Boxes of supplies lined the walls. A forgotten pair of surgical gloves lay crumpled on a shelf beside masks and disposable gowns. I grabbed both without breaking stride.

My ribs screamed with each step, the stitches in my temple pulling tight enough to make my vision blur at the edges. Still, I kept moving. Movement was survival. Stillness was death.

The freight elevator was ahead, doors standing open like an invitation. I slipped inside as voices echoed from the patient wing—Patricia discovering my empty room and calling for security, initiating lockdown protocols.

The elevator descended, carrying me away from antiseptic safety and toward whatever waited in the Seattle night. When the doors opened, I stepped out into the city.

Rain misted everything in a fine spray, turning the streetlights into soft halos.

My stolen surgical mask clung damply to my face, and the gloves were already moisture-slick.

The disposable scrubs and hospital gown offered little protection against the October weather, and within seconds, I was shivering.

I was free. Uncomfortable, but I'd escaped. No monitors tracked my vitals. No well-meaning staff could ask questions I couldn't answer. The night accepted me without question or judgment.

I stumbled down an alley on the side of the hospital building. My legs were about to give out when I noticed the engine running in a car a block beyond the alley.

I won't survive long, I told myself with mathematical precision.

The bullet wound was stable, but infection could turn it septic within hours.

I had no money, no identification, and no safehouse available.

The people hunting me had resources, patience, and the kind of institutional reach that turned helpful EMTs into unwitting accomplices.

Cats had nine lives. I'd probably used about ten of mine.

Disappearing? That was still a possible lifeline. It involved skill, instinct, and the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime spent becoming nobody special.

Six years in the shadows, all because of one yes to humanitarian work that turned into something else entirely.

I'd vanished from places with active manhunts and evaded pursuers with government backing and unlimited budgets. Seattle's urban sprawl was a maze I could navigate even when injured.

The city offered a thousand ways to become invisible—Pioneer Square's maze of underground tunnels, or the industrial waterfront where they stacked cargo containers high to form urban canyons. I'd mapped it all during months of preparation for contingencies just like this.

As I walked away from the only place I'd felt safe in months, I carried the memory of brown eyes that had seen me and hadn't looked away. Even if I never saw McCabe again, he was worth remembering.