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I met her eyes, seeing disappointment mix with concern. “I’m thinking about taking it.”

“Lauren.” Just my name, but weighted with everything she wasn’t saying. Everything I wasn’t admitting.

“What else am I supposed to do?” The sugar pyramid collapsed, packets sliding across the table. “I can’t… I’m different now, Sophia. The person who went to Corazón, who thought she could save everyone, who believed that good intentions were enough—she’s gone.”

“Because of what happened with Mateo?”

“Because of all of it. Because I was naive and stupid and reckless.”

The memories rushed back despite my efforts to contain them.

Carlos falling dead in the dirt, Diego Silva’s casual disregard as he holstered his weapon.

The terror of being hunted through the jungle.

Logan’s hands steady on my wounds while he fought his own demons.

The weight of a gun pressed to my temple, Logan using me as a human shield to get us to the boat.

Waking up alone.

“Carlos died because I tried to avoid a simple dinner.” My voice sounded distant, clinical. “If I’d just gone, if I hadn’t made excuses?—”

“Carlos died because Diego Silva is a sociopath who used murder as a teaching tool for his son.” Sophia’s voice sharpened. “Not because of anything you did or didn’t do.”

“That’s what Logan said.”

His name hung between us, heavy with everything I hadn’t said. Everything I’d been trying not to feel.

“The security contractor?”

“Yeah.” I stared into my coffee, watching the liquid swirl. “He… We…”

“You were together.” Not a question.

“We survived together. There’s a difference.” The lie scraped on the way out. “Adrenaline, proximity, shared trauma. Classic cocktail for emotional confusion.”

“Is that what it was? Confusion?”

I thought about his hands as he stitched my wound, despite the fact that he was emotionally falling apart. The way he’d held me during the hurricane, like I was something precious worth protecting. How he’d looked at me that last night, like he was trying to memorize every detail.

How I’d woken up alone.

“Doesn’t matter what it was. He left without saying goodbye. Made it pretty clear where I stood on his priority list.” I forced a laugh that fooled neither of us. “Just another successful extraction. Asset delivered safely.”

“Emotionally constipated combat Barbie.”

Despite everything, my lips twitched toward a smile. “Maybe. Or maybe he just saw things more clearly than I did.”

“Lauren—”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

Silence sat between us for a moment.

“I’ve been back with Compass.” She changed tactics with characteristic grace. “Just finished six weeks in Alaska. Mobile clinics for remote villages. Brutal cold but incredible people.”

“That sounds perfect for you.”

“It was good. Challenging in different ways than Corazón.” She pulled out her phone, scrolling through photos. “Look at this—we set up a dental clinic in a community that hadn’t seen a dentist in two years. Did over one hundred extractions in three days.”

I looked at the images—Sophia in heavy winter gear, surrounded by smiling faces. The makeshift clinic. The grateful families. The work that mattered.

“I’m heading to Haiti next month,” she continued. “Six-month assignment doing surgical support in Port-au-Prince. The need there is overwhelming.”

“Of course it is.”

“Come with me.”

The offer landed between us, simple and impossible.

“Soph—”

“They need doctors. People with trauma experience. People who can work miracles with limited resources.” She leaned forward, intensity in every line. “People like you.”

Six months ago, I would have been mentally packing before she finished the sentence. Would have been calculating how quickly I could wrap up loose ends, which vaccines I’d need, whether my rusty Creole would come back with practice.

Now, the thought of leaving the safe, sterile bubble of Chicago made my chest tighten with panic.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m different now.” The words tumbled out, each one a small admission of defeat.

“Because maybe Logan was right when he called me naive. Maybe my parents—and that damned hospital psychologist—were right that the medical missions were just my extended rebellion, playing at being noble while real life waited.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Do I?” I pulled my hands back, wrapping them around my cooling mug. “I was so sure about everything. My purpose, my calling, my ability to read people and situations. But look where that certainty got us.”

“It got Miguel through emergency abdominal surgery. It got Lucia’s baby safely delivered on the brink of a hurricane. It got hundreds of people treatment they wouldn’t have received otherwise.”

“And it got Carlos killed.”

“No.” She reached across the table, but I pulled back. “A vicious man’s choice got Carlos killed. Not your dedication to your patients.”

“My dedication.” The words tasted like ash. “Was it really about the patients? Or was it about me feeling important? Feeling special? The great white savior bringing medicine to the masses?”

“Stop it.”

“Maybe I never understood myself at all. Maybe the work was just ego dressed up as altruism. Or me running to where I felt important because an ex-boyfriend called me fat.” We’d talked about that over our months working together too.

“Lauren, stop.” Her voice carried the authority of someone who’d seen me at my best and worst. “This isn’t you talking. This is trauma and grief and whatever that asshole Logan did to make you doubt yourself.”

“He saved my life. Multiple times.”

“And then he left you without a word. That’s its own kind of violence.”

As she spoke, that familiar sensation started at the base of my neck.

The feeling of being watched. Observed. I glanced around the diner, trying to be casual.

The businessman in the corner booth, absorbed in his laptop.

The couple by the window, deep in whispered argument.

The teenager at the counter, scrolling through his phone.

Anyone. No one. Everyone.

“You okay?”

I forced my attention back to Sophia. “Fine. Just…this has been happening more lately. Feeling like someone’s watching me. Following me, maybe.”

Her expression sharpened. “How long?”

“Started about a week after I got back. Getting worse the past week or so.” I tried to laugh it off. “Textbook hypervigilance, right? My amygdala in overdrive, seeing threats that aren’t there.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you should trust your instincts.”

“My instincts are broken, remember? Can’t trust someone whose judgment is that compromised.”

We sat in silence for a moment, the diner’s ambient noise washing over us. Somewhere in the kitchen, dishes clattered. The couple by the window had progressed to the silent treatment phase of their argument. Normal life, continuing around my dysfunction.

“I’m not giving up on you,” Sophia said finally. “I’m going to keep sending you information about opportunities. Short-term trips, teaching positions, anything to remind you who you really are.”

“Sophia—”

“No arguments. You’re brilliant, Lauren. Compassionate. Skilled. That doesn’t disappear because one mission went sideways.” She signaled for the check. “Maybe start small. A week-long trip. Just to remember what it feels like.”

“Maybe.”

We split the check despite her protests, another small battle in maintaining some semblance of my former independence. The walk back to the hospital felt heavier, October wind cutting through my coat like accusation.

“Give yourself time,” she said as we reached the corner where our paths would diverge. “But not too much time. The world needs doctors like you.”

“The world needs doctors who don’t get their patients executed.”

“The world needs doctors who care enough to stay when everyone else evacuates.” She pulled me into another hug, fierce and quick. “Don’t let them win, Lauren. Not the cartel, not the trauma, not that coward who left you alone. Don’t let them take away who you are.”

I watched her disappear into the afternoon crowd, her practical stride carrying her toward whatever conference room awaited. The sidewalk river of humanity flowed around me, everyone with somewhere important to be.

The walk back through the hospital felt different.

The familiar hallways seemed longer, the antiseptic smell sharper.

Every face was a potential threat, every corner a possible ambush.

My ID badge got me through three different security checkpoints—when had there been so many?

—each scanner beep making my heart race.

Back in my office, I slumped into my desk chair and stared at the stack of charts waiting for review. Routine follow-ups. Medication adjustments. The small tweaks that passed for medical care when everything was functioning normally.

The afternoon had evaporated while I’d been with Sophia. The hospital was shifting into evening mode—day shift wrapping up, night shift filtering in. The changing of the guard in our sterile little fortress.

I should review the charts. Update my notes. Prepare for tomorrow’s rounds.

Instead, I sat there, Sophia’s words echoing in my skull. Don’t let them win.

But what if they already had? What if the person who’d gone to Corazón with such certainty, such purpose, was as dead as Carlos? What if all that remained was this shadow, going through the motions in a white coat that felt like a costume?

My computer pinged. New email. Probably lab results or schedule changes or another reminder about the monthly staff meeting I kept missing.

But maybe…

I opened the email client, hope and dread warring in my chest. Seventeen new messages since this morning. Sixteen from internal hospital addresses.

One from Compass Medical Outreach.

My cursor hovered over it. Sophia worked fast—she must have sent it from her phone on the way to the conference. Opening it would mean acknowledging possibilities. Admitting that maybe this sterile purgatory wasn’t my final destination.

I closed the email without reading it.

Tomorrow. I’d look tomorrow. When I was stronger. When the walls weren’t closing in. When I could think about the future without drowning in the past.

I packed my things with robotic movements. Patient files into the locked drawer. Computer powered down. White coat hung on its hook, ready for another day of pretending this was enough.

The parking garage stretched before me, a fluorescent-lit concrete cavern that always felt like a tomb. My heels echoed off the walls, rhythmic and hollow. Third level, section C, space 347. The same spot I’d parked for two months, developing the kind of routine that felt like safety.

My car sat waiting, silver and sensible, exactly what a respectable doctor would drive. Nothing like the battered van we’d used to get to other villages in Corazón, rattling over dirt roads with medical supplies sliding around with us.

I clicked the remote, headlights flashing their welcome. Almost there. Almost safe. Home to my secure building, doorman and cameras and?—

They materialized from between the cars like shadows given form.

Two men, moving fast, purposeful. One grabbed for my bag, yanking hard enough to spin me half around. The other reached for me, hands grasping, and?—

The scream tore from my throat before conscious thought engaged. Loud, primal, the kind of sound that comes from the place where civilized ends and survival begins.

“ Help! Help me! ”

I twisted, using the momentum from the bag-snatcher to break free from the second man’s grip.

My keys fell, skittering across the concrete.

The bag’s strap bit into my shoulder as I fought to keep it, some primitive part of my brain unwilling to let go despite the fact that there was nothing of much value in there.

Footsteps pounded across concrete—salvation in a security guard uniform. The two men looked at each other, some silent communication passing between them, and then they were gone. Melting back into the shadows between cars, leaving me spinning in the pulsing overhead lights.

“Ma’am? Dr. Valentino?” The security guard rounded the corner, hand on his radio, breathing hard. “Are you hurt? Did they?—”

His words faded to white noise. My legs gave out, dumping me onto the cold concrete. I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapped my arms around my head, making myself as small as possible.

I was supposed to be safe here. This was Chicago, not Corazón. Parking garage, not jungle. Security cameras and guards and civilization.

But the terror was the same. The helplessness. The knowledge that violence could find you anywhere, that safety was just an illusion we told ourselves to get through the day.

“Dr. Valentino? Ma’am, I need you to talk to me. Are you injured?”

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. Could only sit there on the oil-stained concrete, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

I was back to being terrified of everything.