Underneath The Skin
1295 Words
Rain had become a permanent soundtrack in Elara’s life, soaking into the spaces between each disaster. New York pulsed beneath her like a city on morphine—moving, yet numb. It was only a matter of time before it all crashed into full awareness. And Elara? She would be at the center of it.
She hadn’t slept in two days. Lucian had disappeared again—no texts, no cryptic warnings. She didn’t know whether to be worried or grateful. Silence could mean dead. Or free.
At 3:00 a.m., she slipped into her office at the hospital. The badge scanner chirped red, then green. She shut the door quietly, turned off the lights, and powered on her laptop. Everything was encrypted now—she couldn’t trust the hospital’s system anymore. She was using a network built by an old med-school classmate who now lived off-grid. Anonymous. Untraceable.
She typed in three names: Zeller, Donnelly, Lennox.
And one wildcard: Tomas Moretti.
Tomas’s name triggered more than she expected. Six sealed court cases. Five sealed autopsies. Three missing persons tied to hospital facilities. None officially linked to him—just indirect evidence. Payment trails. Disappearances. Staff names quietly removed from HR.
She began to realize the truth:
This wasn’t a hospital anymore. It was a shell for something darker.
Her door clicked.
She reached for the drawer, where a surgical scalpel waited beside her phone. The door creaked open.
Lucian.
He looked different—less soldier, more ghost. Eyes darker. Shirt stained. His knuckles scraped raw.
"We need to go."
"You said that last time."
"This time, it’s not a warning. It’s a countdown."
He tossed a flash drive on her desk.
"That’s a video. From the sublevel. A meeting between Tomas and someone in your hospital."
"Who?"
"You’re not going to like it."
She hesitated, then inserted the drive. The video flickered on.
A static hallway. Then two figures. One, unmistakably Tomas Moretti. The other…
Chief of Surgery, Dr. Helena Voss.
Her mother.
---
The screen felt like a fire burning through her spine. Elara stepped back. "This is fake."
Lucian’s voice was low. "It’s not."
"She wouldn’t—she can’t—"
"She’s been on the board since before you started your residency. She helped approve every security policy, every new hire, every tech upgrade."
Elara’s mouth went dry. Her mother had always been cold. Calculating. But a criminal?
She replayed the video. Tomas handed her mother a folder. Her mother opened it. Inside, were four photographs. One of them was of Elara. Her in scrubs. Her ID visible. Her name highlighted in red.
Lucian placed a hand gently on her shoulder. "She’s the one who signed the contract on you."
Elara recoiled. "Why would she—?"
"Because you’re close. You’re inside. And you don’t follow orders."
"That’s not a reason to have me killed."
Lucian’s voice dropped. "In this world, it is."
---
They left the hospital that night. Lucian drove. Elara sat frozen in the passenger seat, the flash drive clutched in her hand.
They reached a warehouse in Brooklyn—one of Lucian’s safe houses. Inside, old weapons crates and surveillance monitors lined the walls. A mattress sat in one corner. The air smelled like oil and memory.
He handed her a towel. "You’re shaking."
"I’m fine."
"You’re not. And you shouldn’t be."
She collapsed onto a crate. For a moment, silence held them like a breath.
"So what now?" she asked.
"Now we show them we’re not pawns."
Lucian flipped open a duffel bag. Inside were three burner phones, a laptop, a folded piece of paper, and a g*n.
He handed her the g*n. She pushed it away.
"No."
"You need to be armed."
"I took an oath."
"So did they. And they’re still killing people."
She gripped the edge of the crate, nausea rolling through her.
"You said she signed the hit. But why is Tomas doing this through the hospital?"
Lucian hesitated.
"He’s using it as a distribution front."
"For what?"
Lucian looked at her.
"Bio-weapons."
---
It didn’t feel real until she saw the file.
Test results. Charts. Lab data. All tied to non-existent patients who’d died shortly after receiving injections. The records were falsified, the causes of death listed as "complications."
But Elara saw the truth. These were live human trials. Inside her hospital.
"Jesus," she whispered. "This is what Zeller found."
Lucian nodded. "And why she’s dead."
"And Donnelly?"
"Wrong place. Wrong time."
Her mother. Her hospital. Her oath.
Everything was rotting from the inside.
---
Lucian made her sleep that night. He locked the door, set alarms, and took watch with his g*n cradled across his lap.
She woke up hours later, heart pounding, and found him still sitting. Eyes open. Still.
"You okay?" she asked.
He didn’t answer right away.
"You’re the first person in five years who didn’t look at me like I was a monster."
"Maybe because I’ve seen worse monsters."
Their eyes met. There was something unsaid between them, a thread stretching tight across the space.
He stood. Moved to her. Sat beside her.
"You don’t have to trust me," he said. "But you need to trust yourself. Because the moment you do… they lose."
Elara looked at him. And slowly, quietly, she nodded.
---
The next day, they went back into the hospital. Separate entrances. Different names. New IDs.
Elara was now posing as a visiting trauma consultant from Philadelphia. Lucian wore scrubs, forged papers showing him as part of a tech repair crew.
They weren’t just gathering intel anymore.
They were laying traps.
Her first target: Dr. Lennox.
He was still floating like a phantom through the ICU, logged as "tech support." She followed him to the 9th floor. There, she overheard him speaking into a phone:
"We’re ready for next week. Shipment’s arriving under the renal wing."
She snapped a picture. Recorded the call.
Lucian met her on the stairwell. She handed him the phone.
"Proof. He’s coordinating the next batch."
Lucian didn’t smile. "That’s not the only thing he’s doing. Your mother just wired him another 50k."
Elara’s breath caught.
"We bring this to the FBI?"
Lucian shook his head. "They’re compromised. Raines is dirty."
"You sure?"
Lucian handed her a USB stick. On it: a recording of Raines meeting Tomas two weeks ago.
"We’re on our own, Elara. It’s just us."
---
They waited until the next night. Surveillance cameras rigged. Lucian wired the elevator system to stall when needed. Elara disguised her voice and called Lennox to the sublevel lab.
He arrived, annoyed. "What’s the issue—"
Lucian stepped from the shadows and knocked him out cold.
Elara stood over the unconscious man, heart pounding.
Lucian looked at her. "Ready to break your oath yet?"
She swallowed. "Just this once."
They tied him to a chair. Injected him with a mild sedative—enough to fog his memory, not knock him out.
Lucian took lead. "Who’s funding this?"
Lennox slurred. "It’s... global. Not just Tomas. He’s middle-tier. There’s more."
"Names."
"Someone from Biogen. And someone inside the UN."
Elara’s heart dropped. This wasn’t just a family war. It was international.
Lucian looked at her. "We need to go deeper. Way deeper."
---
As they left the hospital that night, Elara whispered:
"We’re in over our heads."
Lucian’s reply chilled her to the bone.
"No, Elara. We’re under their skin. And now they’re going to bleed."
---
💬 What do you think about Elara’s mom being involved?? Did you see that twist coming?
🧬 Would YOU have agreed to t*****e Lennox like that?
🔥 And let’s talk about Lucian in protector mode—do you trust him more now... or less?
💭 Drop your theories, fav lines, and plot predictions. Chapter 8 is going nuclear.
- Writer
