My legs stopped working while I carried food to my husband’s birthday party. He stood over me and roIIed his eyes.

The revelation hung in the sterile air like mustard gas.

*Clara Bennett.*

Leo had mentioned an ex-fiancée once, years ago, on our third date. He had told me, with tears glistening in his eyes, that she had died of a tragic viral cardiomyopathy. He had played the grieving widower-to-be so convincingly that my heart had broken for him. I had thought his protectiveness, his constant need to make my meals, his insistence on caring for me when I was sick, was born from trauma.

It wasn't trauma. It was a rehearsal.

"Did they exhume her?" I whispered. "Did anyone check Clara’s body?"

"In 2014, the coroner ruled it natural causes," Detective Miller replied, closing her notebook. "Thallium isn't part of a standard post-mortem tox screen. Unless a medical examiner has specific reason to test for heavy metals, it slips right past them. It looks like Guillain-Barré, severe viral neuropathy, or acute heart failure. But our department just contacted the Fulton County Sheriff's Office in Georgia. We're filing for an exhumation warrant tonight."

"And Leo?"

"He's in a holding cell. Bail hearing is set for 9:00 AM on Monday. Judge Holbrook is presiding, and given the flight risk and the nature of the charges, we're asking for no bond."

After the detective left, Tara fell asleep curled in the vinyl recliner by the window, exhausted from the physical and emotional terror of the night.

The hospital fell into that eerie, low-frequency stillness that only exists between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM. The nurses' station at the end of the corridor was quiet, save for the rhythmic chime of telemetry alarms. The heavy IV bag of Prussian blue slowly drained into my arm, a bright azure drop falling every four seconds.

I lay in the dark, staring at the white acoustic ceiling, trying to move my toes.

*Just an inch. Just a twitch.*

There was a faint prickling in my right thigh—a sharp, stinging sensation like hot needles. Dr. Thorne had warned me that if the nerves began to fire again as the toxin bound to the Prussian blue, it wouldn't be comfortable. It would feel like fire.

I welcomed the pain. Pain meant the tissue wasn't dead.

Suddenly, the soft click of the room’s door latch cut through the quiet.

I turned my head slowly. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint green glow of the vital signs monitor and the streetlamp outside the window.

A figure in hospital scrubs stepped silently through the door.

At first, I thought it was Kelly, the night nurse coming to change my IV bag. But this person was broader, taller. A blue paper surgical mask covered the lower half of the face, and a standard disposable bouffant cap hid the hair.

"Nurse Kelly?" I asked, my voice weak and raspy.

The figure didn't answer.

They moved with a deliberate, unnerving swiftness, slipping around the edge of the bed toward the IV pole. In their gloved hand, they held a large plastic syringe fitted with a blunt plastic cannula—the kind used to inject medication directly into an IV port.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice rising as panic kicked my adrenaline into overdrive. "Tara! Tara, wake up!"

In the chair by the window, Tara stirred, blinking groggily against the dim light. "Wh... what?"

The masked figure didn't hesitate. They lunged toward my IV line, grabbing the plastic port with one gloved hand while positioning the syringe with the other.

Through the narrow gap between the surgical cap and the blue mask, I saw the eyes.

Pale, watery blue eyes, lined with deep crow's feet and rimmed with smudged mascara.

It wasn't a nurse.