Page 37 of Midnight Between Us
I remember treating Blythe during her pregnancy.She had an NDA so thick it could’ve suffocated a lawsuit.I thought it was about her ex, who was an abusive monster—and a criminal.It was about safety.
Now ...I’m not so sure.
“Are you involved with CQS?”I ask him.
He doesn’t answer.
“So I’m supposed to ignore that she’s—what?Hiding a patient?Covering for someone?”Mal snaps, still not letting it go.“How do I know we can trust her with people’s lives?”
Atlas closes the gap between them, eyes narrowing.“You’re the sheriff of Birchwood Springs, not some rogue federal agent.You’re going to get her killed if you keep pressing.”
Well, yeah.There’s always that risk.Assignment hazard.Just another clause in the NDA fine print.I was hoping to make it out of this town in one piece.Maybe even with a heart that’s not completely fucked.
Mal doesn’t back down.“Can you at least tell me why you’re hiding this John Doe?”
Atlas adds, “At least confirm it’s Keir because it’s fucking with us that we can’t find him.”
Mal’s gaze snaps to mine.“Is it?”
It takes me a second to realize that their worry is genuine.This would be a great time to tell them the truth because honestly, I’m so tired of lying.But telling the truth doesn’t feel any better.
“I’m supposed to keep him away from you,” I say.“Hidden until they figure out why he was zipped up and left for dead in the trunk of a car.”
Mal narrows his gaze.It’s as if he doesn’t believe me, as if there’s something that doesn’t fit in my story, and then he punches me in the gut with his words.“You’re just keeping him because you still love him, don’t you?”
ChapterTwelve
Keir
There’s a voice—awoman’s—that reaches me before the words do.Muffled, warped by distance and the sterile hush of the hallway.But it’s hers.Simone.
Or, as she calls herself, Dr.Moreau.
The title doesn’t sit right.It lands foreign on my tongue and in my soul.It’s too formal, too distant.That’s not how I remember her.Not the cadence of her voice.Not the exact shade of her eyes when she hovered over me.Not the press of her fingers against my wrist—right here, where I can still feel the ghost of her touch.
What is Simone to me?
Her voice carries again, louder this time.Not angry—controlled.I’d call it controlled fury.If that’s even a thing.
But that doesn’t matter as much as fundamental question pressing into my skull like a dull drill: why do I remember her?
Am I imagining things?Obsessing over a stranger who isn’t one?The truth moves in fragments, all jagged edges and broken glass.I remember her in pieces.In how my insides knot when she enters the room.In the crease of her mouth when she’s holding something back.Words.Regret.Guilt.
I tune in the way you do when the room dims before a storm.That suspended breath the world takes right before it all goes to hell.
“...just fucking admit it,” a man growls.His voice cuts through the door like a jagged blade.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
It’s not in a comforting way—more like muscle memory after an old injury.I don’t know how I recognize it, only that I do.Like my body flinches before my mind catches up.
“You’re just a fucking mole,” he accuses.“And not a noble doctor.”
Malerick.That’s his name.I just know it.I’ve no fucking idea where I know him from, but I know his name and his voice.Somehow, I feel like his voice is the last I heard before I lost everything.
But then, something twists deep in my gut, and my breath falters, caught between panic and something I can’t name.
