Chapter 4: The Transfer
838 Words
I didn't sleep.
Not because of Elena or the syringe or the way she'd looked at my face like she was one step away from placing it. All of that was enough. But what actually kept me awake was simpler than that.
I kept thinking about the word transfer.
By six in the morning I was back on the floor. Chart checks. Medication rounds. Linen cart. The same routine Alex's body moved through without me having to think about it, which left my mind free to work the problem.
They weren't planning to keep my body in this hospital. Angela had made that clear. The doctors, the machines, the official paper trail — all of it was slowing them down. Whatever came next for Adrian Cole, they wanted it somewhere private. Somewhere with no witnesses who had medical licenses and legal obligations.
Somewhere like an estate with its own staff and no one to ask questions.
I was on my third round when Priya stopped me near the nurses' station.
"You hear about the Cole patient?"
I kept my expression neutral. "What about him."
"Family's moving him. Home care." She said it the way people say things that aren't their business but are too interesting not to mention. "Private transport, private staff. The whole setup apparently. Must be nice."
"When?"
"Two days." She shrugged and moved on.
Two days.
I stood in the middle of the corridor with a linen cart and thought about what two days meant. Once they moved my body to the estate I lost the only advantage I had — proximity. Right now I could watch them. I could see who came and went, catch pieces of conversations, stay close enough to react if they tried something again.
At the estate I'd be locked out completely.
Unless I wasn't.
I found Elena in the family lounge that afternoon. She was alone, coffee in front of her she hadn't touched, staring at nothing the way people stare when the thing they're thinking about is too heavy to look at directly.
I almost kept walking. Then I thought about two days and didn't.
She looked up when I stopped in the doorway. Something moved across her face — not quite surprise. More like she'd half expected this.
"You again," she said.
"You requested additional nursing staff for the home transfer." I kept my voice level. "I'm putting my name forward."
She studied me. "Why."
"Because I need the work."
That was true enough. Alex's rent was three weeks overdue and the collections notices weren't getting friendlier.
Elena looked at me for a long moment. The same careful look from last night, like she was measuring something she couldn't quite get the number on.
"You walked in on something you shouldn't have seen," she said quietly.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes you do." She wasn't aggressive about it. Just certain. "And you haven't reported it. Which tells me you're either very smart or you want something."
"I want the work," I said again.
She picked up her coffee, took a small sip, put it down. "You're not what I expected from a nursing assistant."
"Most people aren't what you expect."
Something shifted in her expression at that. Not softness exactly. More like a wall developing a crack it was trying to hide.
"The estate is not a simple environment," she said finally. "It's a private household. What happens there stays there. If that's not something you can commit to, say so now."
"I understand."
She nodded slowly. "Then I'll have Kate add you to the transfer list."
She looked back at her coffee. Conversation over.
I was almost at the door when she spoke again.
"Alex."
I turned.
She was looking at me differently now. Quieter. Like she'd made a decision and wasn't fully comfortable with it.
"My brother built that company from nothing." Her voice was careful. Almost too careful. "Whatever you think you saw last night — it's not what it looked like."
I held her gaze. "I didn't say it was."
She nodded once. But she didn't look relieved.
I walked back to the floor and stood at the window at the end of the east corridor, looking out at nothing, turning it over.
She was lying. Obviously. But there was something underneath the lie that I hadn't expected — something that looked, if I was being honest, like someone trying to convince herself as much as me.
Elena wasn't comfortable with what she was doing.
That didn't make her safe. It didn't change anything about the syringe or the guard outside my door or Angela's voice asking about transfer windows.
But it meant something.
I just didn't know what yet.
Two days.
I was going to the estate whether they wanted me there or not.
And somewhere inside those walls, between the hidden rooms and the locked doors and whatever secret was worth killing me over, the answers were waiting.
I just had to stay alive long enough to find them.
- Writer
