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The automatic doors slide shut behind me with a soft hiss. Outside, dawn is only just breaking.

A couple of nurses stand off to the side, smoking, and laughing at something on a cell. An orderly pushes an empty wheelchair back inside. A paramedic slumps against the side of an ambulance, eyes closed for a moment of stolen rest.

I step onto the pavement and exhale, rubbing my thumb over the inside of my wrist where the elastic from the plastic glove has left a faint line.

My shift is finally over. My body knows it before my mind even catches up. My feet scream inside my trainers from pacing across corridors and exam rooms for hours. My shoulders drag downward, heavy from leaning over patients, handling triage, signing forms, and answering one urgent question after another without pause. I’m starving in that hollow way where the last thing I ate doesn’t even count anymore. It’s those cookies.

Exhaustion coats my every muscle as I keep walking until I reach the marked zone where taxis pull in. The concrete is faintly damp, the air damp too, humid and warm, pressing close over the thin fabric of my top. I forgot my jacket. I cross my arms, rub my hands up and down them, more out of habit than chill.

The night replays in my head. After Taylor was taken outside, the shift slid into something close to normal. I stitched a forehead, changed dressings, updated relatives. Ordinary chaos.

And I went to 7V.

I pushed open the door, half expecting Alessio to taunt me, because men often do after they’ve used me. He didn’t.

Morti sat in the corner near the window, scrolling through his cell. He only lifted his head every so often, watched me long enough to confirm I’m handling the bandage and not doing anything beyond the job.

Alessio lay propped up in the bed, with his shoulder bandaged. He tracked me from the moment I stepped in, eyes a little too bright, interest layered over pain.

I moved to him, gloved up, checked the wound. Clean. No redness, no discharge. I began to change the dressing, my mind clouded with everything that had happened since the last time I was in that room.

“So,” Alessio said while I worked, his voice casual. “How come you wear a nurse’s outfit now?”

I didn’t answer at first. Tape, gauze, movement. The rustle of the packet.

“Is this one from the Boarpit?” he continued. “You look different tonight.”

“I’m here for you,” I said, noncommittal. “Try not to move your arm.”

He shifted anyway, gritting his teeth when the movement tugged at the wound, but he didn’t stop with the questions.

“How come you have such free rein in here?” He tipped his chin at me. “What do you really do?”

“I patch you up,” I replied, and secured the fresh bandage over his shoulder. “That’s all you need to focus on.”

“Where do you live?” he pressed, as if he hadn’t heard my answer. “If you’re one of the pets, you should be in the basement of the Boarpit right now, but you’re not. They’re not allowed to go out without a handler. Is your handler here?”

“Stay still,” I said. “You want this to heal or not?”

He huffed a quiet laugh, edged with frustration.

“So many secrets, my little pet,” he murmured.

I pressed the final piece of tape down. “Lift your arm. Gently.”

He obeyed. The bandage held.

“Looks good,” I said, ignoring everything else. “No infection. I’ll note it down.” I peeled off the gloves and dropped them in the waste bin. “Try to sleep. Tomorrow they’ll discharge you.”

He watched me gather my things, and leave.

Morti never spoke. Not once. They both knew something had changed. They knew their place.

Five days ago I was in that room, going crazy, fucking every living thing thanks to Dr. Morales. Feeling the weight of that realization, together with the grating memory of being filled up with more drugs only a day ago, I’m relieved her shadow no longer stretches across anyone’s horizon. She is dead.

A black taxi pulls up at the curb, with low headlights cutting through the dim morning. The driver nods to me through the open window.

“Taxi for Georgina?”