Part 2
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The voice belonged to Dr. Harris Cole. The exact same doctor who had just declared Liam dead upstairs. The heavy steel door groaned as a master override keycard bypassed my lockdown.
I spun around, slipping the titanium syringe behind my back just as the door violently swung open.
Dr. Cole stepped into the freezing morgue, the red emergency strobes from the hallway painting his face in sinister, bloody flashes. He calmly reached behind him and locked the door again. In his right hand, he held a suppressed 9mm pistol, aimed directly at my chest.
“You set off the fire alarm, Evelyn?” he asked, his voice chillingly steady. Gone was the frantic, exhausted doctor from the trauma bay. His posture was rigid, highly tactical. “It was a clever distraction. But I noticed you staring at his jaw. You recognized the Nightshade, didn’t you?”
“You killed them,” I said, backing up slowly until my hips hit the cold steel of Liam’s autopsy table. “The three officers. And now Liam.”
“Liam was the real target,” Cole corrected, taking a slow step forward. “The other three were just beta tests. We had to ensure the dosage was absolutely perfect, that the paralysis mimicked a massive coronary event flawlessly. Liam stumbled onto our procurement logs in naval intelligence. He knew too much about the supply chain.”
Our. He wasn’t acting alone. A rogue faction inside our own government.
“You’re a DOD contractor,” I realized aloud.
“And you’re an embedded spy who blew her cover to play hero,” Cole sneered, raising the pistol slightly. “Step away from the body, Evelyn. I’m here to ensure the autopsy goes exactly as planned.”
I glanced down at Liam. His skin was turning gray, his eyes taped shut, but I knew his mind was screaming inside that frozen shell. He could hear every single word we were saying.
“I can’t do that, Harris,” I said.
Cole tightened his grip on the gun. “Then you die first.”
I didn’t hesitate. I threw myself sideways just as Cole squeezed the trigger. The muffled pffft of the suppressor cut through the air, and a bullet sparked dangerously against the stainless-steel table, inches from where I had stood.
I lunged forward from the floor, kicking a heavy rolling tray of surgical instruments directly into his path. The metal tray crashed into Cole’s knees, throwing him off balance. He stumbled, his gun waving wildly, but his reflexes were dangerously fast. Before I could draw the combat knife strapped to my ankle, Cole tackled me.
We slammed hard into the tiled floor. He was heavy, his knee pinning my thigh as his hands scrambled to wrap around my throat. I gagged, my vision swimming with black spots as his thumbs dug viciously into my windpipe.
“You should have just stayed a nurse,” he hissed, his saliva hitting my cheek.
I thrashed beneath him, my lungs burning for oxygen. My right hand, still gripping the Hades Shift syringe, was pinned awkwardly beneath my hip. With a desperate surge of adrenaline, I wrenched my arm free. I didn’t aim for Cole. I couldn’t reach his neck with the needle anyway.
Instead, I reached blindly up and slammed the heavy titanium needle straight into the side of Liam’s torso on the table above us, driving it deep through the intercostal muscles and directly into his heart. I crushed the plunger with the heel of my hand.
Cole let go of my throat and laughed, a cruel, breathless sound. “What did you just do? You stabbed a corpse?”
“No,” I choked out, a bloody smile spreading across my lips as air rushed back into my lungs. “I woke him up.”
For three agonizing seconds, absolutely nothing happened. Cole smirked, raising the gun and pressing the warm suppressor against my forehead. “Goodbye, Evelyn.”
Suddenly, a horrifying, guttural gasp echoed through the morgue.
It sounded like a drowning man violently breaking the surface of the water. Cole froze, his eyes widening in pure shock. He slowly turned his head toward the autopsy table.
Liam Sterling was sitting straight up. His chest heaved violently, his eyes blown wide with primal panic and unspeakable rage. The Hades Shift hadn’t just restarted his nervous system; it had flooded his body with pure, unadulterated synthetic adrenaline.
Before Cole could pivot his weapon, Liam let out a furious, deafening roar and launched himself off the steel table.
Part 3
Liam collided with Cole like a runaway freight train. The impact threw the corrupt doctor completely off me, sending both men crashing into a row of empty steel body cabinets. The pistol clattered across the wet tiles, spinning wildly out of reach.
I rolled onto my hands and knees, gasping violently for air, my throat bruised and burning from Cole’s grip.
Despite having been clinically dead just minutes ago, Liam fought with the terrifying ferocity of a cornered predator. The Hades Shift serum surging through his veins turned his raw psychological trauma into explosive physical strength. He grabbed Cole by the lapels of his white coat, slamming the doctor’s head viciously against the stainless-steel door of a morgue locker.
Cole cried out in pain, but his elite combat training kicked in. He kneed Liam brutally in the abdomen. Liam gasped, his newly restarted heart stuttering under the strain, and dropped heavily to one knee. Cole shoved him aside and lunged frantically for the dropped pistol on the floor.
He never made it.
I swept my leg out, hooking Cole’s ankle. As he stumbled forward, I drove my elbow down hard into the back of his neck. He hit the cold floor with a sickening thud. Before he could even attempt to recover, I drew the combat knife from my ankle holster, dropped my weight onto his back, and pressed the cold, jagged steel flush against his carotid artery.
“Move, and I’ll save the military tribunal the paperwork,” I snarled, my voice hoarse and completely devoid of mercy.
Cole went perfectly still, his chest heaving rapidly against the freezing floor tiles.
I looked up at Liam. He was leaning heavily against the autopsy table, shivering uncontrollably as the synthetic adrenaline began to aggressively burn out of his system. His skin was dangerously pale, and a violent red bruise was rapidly forming where I had stabbed the titanium syringe into his chest.
“You… you saved me,” Liam choked out, his voice barely a raspy whisper. “I heard everything upstairs. I heard my father crying over me. I couldn’t move. It was hell.”
“I know,” I said softly, keeping my knife locked firmly against Cole’s throat. “It’s over now, Lieutenant. You’re safe.”
Suddenly, the heavy steel doors to the morgue shuddered violently. Sparks rained down from the electronic lock as a heavy breeching tool smashed into the mechanism. The doors flew open, and six heavily armed military police officers poured into the room, their assault rifles raised and sweeping the corners.
Right behind them was Admiral Thomas Sterling.
“Drop your weapons!” the lead MP screamed, aiming directly at me.
I slowly lifted my knife, raising my hands high in the air while stepping carefully back from Cole. The MPs instantly swarmed the doctor, rolling him onto his stomach and slapping heavy iron cuffs on his wrists.
Admiral Sterling stood entirely frozen in the doorway. His eyes darted in confusion from the arrested doctor to me, and finally, to the autopsy table.
“Liam?” the Admiral whispered, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the single syllable.
“Dad,” Liam croaked, managing a weak, exhausted smile.
The hardened combat veteran collapsed straight to his knees. The Admiral wrapped his massive arms around his son’s waist, burying his face in Liam’s hospital gown, sobbing openly and without shame. Liam rested his shaking hand softly on his father’s head, tears streaming down his own face.
I quietly backed away, picking up my discarded medical bag from the floor.
“Wait,” the Admiral said, turning his tear-streaked face toward me. He stood up, looking at the tactical knife I was slipping back into my holster, then at the incapacitated doctor being dragged away. The pieces were slowly clicking together in his strategic mind. “You’re not just a palliative care nurse, are you? Who the hell are you?”
“Someone who hates bullies, sir,” I replied, offering a faint, respectful smile. “Dr. Cole is a contractor for a rogue faction smuggling Nightshade 7. Your son found their procurement logs. Cole killed those three officers to perfect the dosage before targeting Liam. Tell naval intelligence to check Cole’s offshore accounts. You’ll find your proof.”
“I don’t know how to possibly thank you,” Admiral Sterling said, stepping forward to extend a trembling hand.
I shook it firmly. “Just take care of your son, Admiral. And maybe get him a real doctor.”
Before the MPs could detain me for a formal statement, I slipped out into the chaotic, strobe-lit hallway. My cover at Walter Reed was completely blown, which meant my mission here was officially over. I pulled out my encrypted burner phone and typed a single message to my handler at the DOD: Target secured. The ghost is moving on.
I walked out into the cool Washington D.C. night, leaving the quiet nurse behind, ready for whatever shadows awaited me next.
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