Page 6 of Vital Signs

My heart hammered against my ribs.Come inside, I wanted to say.Let me show you Tyler. Let me see if you're as dangerous up close as you look from here.

He held my gaze for several heartbeats, his expression giving nothing away. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.

"You'll be back," I murmured, pulse still racing. "They always come back."

And when he did, we'd have something in common. Tyler. Justice. Maybe more.

I closed the window, already planning what I'd say when Hunter returned. Because he would return. Men like that always came back to finish what they started.

And I wanted him to.

Cold bit through myjacket as I approached the funeral home. I was fucking freezing. Ohio winters had a way of finding the cracks in my armor, just like everything else in this godforsaken state.

I flexed my hands, veins standing out against skin that remained tanned despite months without proper shelter. Four years of homelessness hadn't completely erased the physique I'd built during my nursing days. I still did push-ups every morning, a hundred on good days, twenty on bad. Sit-ups whenever I could. Running when the withdrawal symptoms weren't too bad. My body was the last thing I controlled, even as I poisoned it daily with the very substances I once warned patients against.

I paused at the edge of the treeline, studying the building. The modern structure stood in stark contrast to the old farmhouse next door, where the family lived. The funeral home's sleek lines and large windows were dark now, the new construction a black silhouette against the night sky. Perfect. No lights meant no onewas inside. The farmhouse next door was equally dark. Everyone was gone or asleep. Just me and the dead.

I checked my phone: 11:17 PM, four hours since my last dose. The tightness in my muscles and the crawling sensation under my skin told me I needed something now, but I needed clarity for this. I needed to see Tyler with clear eyes, not dulled by chemicals. I could hold out a little longer.

My tongue ran over chapped lips, tasting copper where I'd bitten through during last night's withdrawal. The scar that bisected my right eyebrow throbbed in the cold, a souvenir from a patient who'd coded on my table during the third COVID wave. I'd fallen face-first into a crash cart when my legs gave out after the thirty-hour shift. Twenty-seven patients lost in two days. The start of my unraveling.

I took a final drag of my cigarette, crushing it under my boot before moving across the empty parking lot. My knuckles were split and scabbed. Some from the bare-knuckle fights I'd been using to earn cash, some from punching the bridge support when I'd found Tyler's empty sleeping bag.

The service entrance lock was simple. I had it open in under thirty seconds, closing the door silently behind me. The interior smelled of chemicals and artificial flowers, death masked by pleasantries. My boots made no sound as I moved carefully across the polished concrete floors.

The preparation room would probably be in the basement. I found the staircase and descended slowly, one hand on the wall to guide me in the darkness. No need for a flashlight yet. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I didn't want to announce my presence if there was a security system.

At the bottom of the stairs, I reached for my phone, using its dim light to navigate the hallway. I pushed the double doors at the end of the hall open slowly, bracing for an alarm that never came.

A sound behind me made me turn.

He stood in the doorway, backlit by the hallway light. Slender build, dark curls falling perfectly despite the late hour. The same man from the window that morning, the one who'd called me.

Michael.

He didn't look scared. Didn't reach for a phone to call the police. Just stood there, watching me with those sharp brown eyes.

He was beautiful in an unsettling way. The kind of beautiful that made you wonder what the fuck someone that pretty was doing in a funeral home in the middle of nowhere, Ohio.

"You must be Hunter," he said.

My throat tightened. "I need to see Tyler."

"I know." He stepped into the room, and I caught a hint of cologne, something expensive and out of place in this temple of death and formaldehyde. "That's why I didn't call the police."

Light suddenly flooded the room as he flipped the switch, blinding me momentarily. I dropped into a fighter's stance instinctively, fists raised, weight balanced on the balls of my feet.

He frowned. "There was no need to break in. You could have called back."

"Would you have let me in?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "Without question."

He took a step forward. Our eyes locked, and for a moment, the room seemed to shrink around us. His pupils dilated slightly, and I wondered if he experienced the same unwelcome current of awareness as I did.

"What are you on?" he asked. "Heroin? Oxy? Fentanyl?"

"Does it fucking matter?" I muttered, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. The withdrawal crawled beneath my skin like fire ants, my muscles spasming with need.