Page 26 of Obeying

And now he's here. In my hospital. On my floor. Standing twenty feet away from me and my patient.

Every survival instinct I have is telling me to run.

David. It had to be David who told him. The text went out, and here he is, and I was stupid to think I could hide. I was stupid to think a new hospital and a quiet house would be enough to keep him away. Men like him don't stop looking. They don't let go. They just wait until they know where to find you.

"Kristen. There you are."

My name in his mouth turns my blood to ice. His voice is loud enough that every person in the ward must be able to hear. The nurses at the station freeze, a patient across the hall turns toward the sound, and Walter's grip tightens on his walker.

He crosses the room in three strides. Before I can move, before I can think, his hand closes around my arm and he yanks me toward him. Hard. The force pulls my whole body off balance, and the walker slides out from under Walter's hands. He stumbles backward, his legs buckling, and lands in the chair behind him. He's okay—he falls right into it—but his face goes white with shock. His hands clamp onto the armrests. "Hey! What the hell⁠—"

But Miguel doesn't hear him or doesn't care, because his grip is tightening on my arm and he's pulling me farther away from Walter, toward the door.

"You're coming home. We're done with this. You've had your little tantrum, and now we're going home."

His voice fills the entire ward. Everyone is watching. Everyone sees us. His fingers are digging into my arm. I know there will be bruises. I can feel them forming, deep beneath the skin where the bruises will bloom by morning.

I can't move or speak. My body has gone back to the place it learned to go when he gets like this. Still, small. Don't fight it. Don't make it worse. Wait for it to pass. Three years of training that I thought I'd unlearned, and it took him five seconds to put me right back there.

Walter is trying to stand up from the chair. A nurse has rushed to his side. Someone at the station is reaching for the phone.

Then the doors swing open, and Logan walks in so fast his white coat snaps behind him.

Suddenly, every monitor beeping, every machine humming, every person breathing and blatantly staring does not register—because the only thing I can see is his face, and he is looking at Miguel the way I've never seen him look at anyone.

He stops three feet away. His eyes drop to Miguel's hand clenched around my arm.

His voice is a deadly calm.

"Let go of her, or I will break your hand."

9

KRISTEN

Miguel doesn't flinch. He smiles.

That smile. I know it so well it makes me sick. The charming one: the one he uses on donors and board members and waitstaff and anyone he needs to believe he's a good man. He turns it on Logan like a weapon.

"Doc, look, I just really need to talk to her. We know each other. It's an emergency. I'm sure you understand."

Logan steps forward. One step. That's all. But it is more threatening than Miguel has ever been. Still, I want to be on that side of the room.

"And I'm sure you understand that I can call the police and report you for harassing my resident." His voice is even. "Let go. Now."

Miguel's eyes flick around the room, taking in the staff watching and the patients staring from their beds. He does what he always does—he calculates. He figures out what he can get away with and what he can't, and right now, with Logan standing three feet away looking at him like that, the situation isn't in his favor.

He smiles again, then releases my arm.

"Right. Looks like I came in at a bad time."

He straightens his jacket and smooths a crease that isn't there. Then he looks at me one last time with a look that says I know where you are now. This isn't over, and you know it.

He turns and walks out.

The ward is dead silent.

Logan turns to me. "Are you alright?"