Chapter 4: Beneath the Surface
740 Words
Nina stared at the paper in her hand, the words burning into her skin like fire.
“They’re watching you too.”
She spun around, heart thundering. The hallway outside Room 317 was deserted—eerily silent except for the soft hum of fluorescent lights. Her instincts screamed to walk away, shred the note, and pretend it never existed.
But something about the way the man had gripped her wrist… the urgency in his eyes… the fact that her name was on this note…
She couldn’t ignore it.
She carefully folded the paper and tucked it into her scrub pocket before quietly pulling the door shut behind her.
⸻
By morning, the hospital was buzzing with its usual rhythm—machines beeping, carts rolling, pages overhead. But Nina couldn’t hear any of it. Not fully.
She went through the motions of her shift on the cardiac floor, but her thoughts kept circling back to Room 317—and the note.
When her lunch break finally came, she ducked into the empty stairwell and pulled out her phone. Her fingers hovered over the search bar before typing:
Tattoo symbol: broken circle with a dot inside.
A few irrelevant images popped up, mostly abstract symbols and foreign insignias. But one link caught her eye.
“The Sentinels: A disbanded private medical task force rumored to have operated globally in high-conflict zones. No official records exist. Identified by a broken-circle tattoo.”
She clicked.
The page was short, poorly formatted, and clearly speculative—but one detail stood out:
“Some former members went underground. Rumors suggest their knowledge of pharmaceuticals, poisons, and black market surgeries remains unmatched.”
Nina leaned back against the wall, breath catching.
Who the hell was that man?
⸻
Later that afternoon, Nina passed the ER hallway and caught sight of Dr. Cole through a glass partition. He was deep in conversation with a woman in a tailored navy suit.
She wasn’t hospital staff.
Nina paused, trying to read their lips—but the glass was too thick. The woman handed Cole a thin manila folder. He flipped it open, frowned, and then looked directly toward the hallway.
Nina ducked back just in time.
Her heart pounded. Was she being paranoid?
Or was the note right?
⸻
That night, Nina couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, the ceiling fan whirring uselessly above her bed. Her dreams were a blur of flashing lights, hospital gurneys, and whispers in the dark.
When she woke up drenched in sweat, it was barely 5 a.m.
She swung her legs out of bed and walked to the kitchen, grabbing her phone and the folded note. She took a photo of the handwriting, uploaded it to a font comparison app, and then froze.
Match found.
She tapped the result.
Same handwriting as… Dr. Cole.
“No,” she whispered.
But the more she looked, the more it made sense. The slight slant. The elongated tail on the “y.” The capital “T” curved just so.
If it was him… why?
Why leave her a warning?
⸻
She arrived at the hospital early. Too early. The halls were still quiet. She made a beeline for the staff break room but halted when she saw Cole already inside, sipping coffee, a rare moment of calm in his typically sharp-edged world.
Their eyes met.
He nodded toward the empty chair across from him.
“Couldn’t sleep either?”
Nina sat down slowly. “What happened to the patient in 317?”
“Transferred to another facility.”
“That’s all I get?”
He studied her. “You’re asking questions above your clearance.”
“I got a note,” she said bluntly. “With my name on it.”
Cole didn’t flinch, but his eyes darkened slightly.
“I didn’t write it,” he said carefully. “But you’re not wrong to be worried.”
Nina’s voice lowered. “Then what’s going on, Dr. Cole? Because if you’re trying to protect me, I need to know from what.”
He leaned forward, eyes locking with hers.
“You’re smart, Nina. That’s what makes this dangerous. That man didn’t come here by accident. And you weren’t assigned to him by accident either.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
He looked around, then whispered, “Someone is testing the system from the inside. And you’re already in the middle of it.”
- Writer
