Chapter 1 — The Morgue’s Silence
1134 Words
The hospital smelled of antiseptic, bleach, and endings.
Alex shoved through the sliding doors so hard the glass rattled. The sharp night air followed her in for a second before being swallowed by the heat of the fluorescent corridor. The world inside was chaos: a nurse shouting codes, the squeal of a gurney being pushed at top speed, a woman sobbing in a waiting chair with her face in her hands. Phones rang without answer. The ceiling lights buzzed with a sound that burrowed straight into her skull.
She hated hospitals. She always had. Too many walls painted in false comfort, too many smells trying to mask the stench of fear. They all felt the same—places where people died and where truth was delivered in whispers that broke lives.
Colonel Arthur Stevens stood at the end of the hall near the restricted doors. To strangers, he looked like iron: tall, pressed uniform, polished shoes. To Alex, who had served under him for years, he looked like a man breaking from the inside. His hands were clasped too tight behind his back, his eyes carried shadows, his shoulders sagged with invisible weight.
Her throat burned as she pushed the words out.
“Where is he? Where’s Peter? Where’s Jacob?”
Stevens swiped his badge across the sensor. The small electronic beep cut through her nerves like a blade. He hesitated, then said, “Peter is alive.”
Alive. Relief should have steadied her. Instead it felt like a jagged knife lodged under her ribs.
“He’s in surgery. Critical condition. They tortured him, Alex. He made it out, but barely.”
Tortured. The word pierced her chest. Her hands clenched into fists. She saw flashes of Peter’s grin, his stupid jokes about her coffee, his voice telling her, “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” Now he lay broken because someone had made him scream for hours.
Her voice came out raw. “And Jacob?”
The silence was louder than everything else—the rushing footsteps, the buzz of lights, the ringing phones.
“Where is Jacob?” she pressed, her voice sharper, demanding the universe to answer.
Stevens’s eyes lowered. His jaw tightened. “They didn’t reach him in time. The building collapsed. What was recovered… it’s being transported to the morgue.”
Her body went cold. She stumbled, one hand slamming against the wall for balance.
“No.” The word cut from her throat. “No, he was right behind me. He said—he promised—”
“Alex.” Stevens’s voice cracked. For the first time, her commander sounded old. “I’m sorry. Jacob is gone.”
Her chest ached so hard she could barely breathe. Her hand went to her collar, fingers curling around the chain hidden under her shirt. Jacob’s ring pressed into her skin like glass.
Her lips trembled, but she forced the question out. “Who?”
The answer fell like a death sentence.
“Sebastian Cortez.”
The name burned her blood. Sebastian. The cartel’s golden son. The man who had haunted her missions for years, who slipped out of every trap, who left bodies behind like ashes. The man she had hated, feared, and obsessed over.
Her teeth ground together. Her voice was quiet but firm, a vow sharpened to a blade. “Then he dies. I’ll kill him. I swear it.”
They stopped at ICU. Behind glass, Peter lay still, his body a map of pain. Tubes crawled into his arms. A ventilator breathed for him. Bruises spread across his skin, his lips cracked and purple. His chest rose and fell because machines demanded it, not because his body had strength left.
Alex pressed her palm to the glass. “Peter…”
Memories poured in. Peter rolling his eyes during training. Peter sharing his last energy bar with her on a long stakeout. Peter whistling off-key just to irritate her. He had promised her once that he’d live long enough to retire on a beach, that she’d be forced to visit him every year just to laugh at his beer belly.
“Don’t you dare leave me too,” she whispered, her forehead pressing against the glass. “You promised, idiot.”
Her chest constricted. Tears burned but refused to fall. She dragged her nails down the glass and forced herself to walk away. “Jacob…” she breathed his name like a curse.
The morgue was colder. Each step down the corridor echoed. The lights hummed, their flicker making shadows twitch. The air tasted metallic, the kind of cold that sank into bone.
Two men in scrubs wheeled a stretcher toward them. A black body bag lay on it, sealed tight. It looked too small, too wrong, like debris wrapped in plastic.
Alex froze. Her throat was sandpaper. “Open it.”
The men hesitated. Their eyes flicked to Stevens. He gave a grave nod.
The zipper rasped down. The sound was jagged, final. The stench of burned fabric and smoke rushed out, so thick it choked her.
Inside lay ruin.
Not a face. Not a body. Just fragments. Charred scraps of clothing. A melted watch fused to blackened cloth. And a chain with a ring—Jacob’s ring. The one he had told her would be hers. The one she had kissed the day he promised forever.
Her knees buckled. She clutched the gurney for balance, eyes wide with disbelief.
“There’s no intact remains,” one of the men said softly. “The fire consumed almost everything. Identification will require DNA. But the personal effects… they were with him.”
Her hand trembled as she reached out. The chain scorched her skin. She curled it into her palm until her nails dug deep.
Memories stabbed her: Jacob slipping the ring onto her finger playfully one night, Jacob laughing that someday she’d be his wife, Jacob kissing her knuckles as if she was too precious for the world.
Now the ring was twisted, blackened, burned. Their future gone in smoke.
Her mind screamed denial. No, this can’t be him. Jacob’s too strong, too clever. He wouldn’t die in fire. But the proof burned in her hand.
Stevens stepped close, his hand anchoring her shoulder. His voice was steady but heavy. “It’s him, Alex. I’m sorry.”
Her tears still refused to fall. Instead, something else filled her veins: fire.
Sebastian Cortez.
Her grief sharpened into rage, her sorrow into a blade.
She lifted her chin, her voice trembling but unbreakable. “If no one else will stop him… then I will.”
Stevens’s mouth opened as if to argue, but she was already walking away. Her boots struck against the floor with the rhythm of a vow.
The morgue’s silence followed her like a curse.
- Writer
