CHAPTER 1
Cold bit through Ryan's skin before anything else registered.Her eyes opened slowly. Shapes appeared without meaning. She blinked hard, forcing focus. Gray walls. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling, swaying slightly. Then the smell hit her: earth and something else, something that made her stomach twist.
She tried to move. She could not.
Her hands were behind her back,tied to a metal chair. Her ankles were tied too. Plastic cut into her skin with every futile pull, sending sharp stings up her arms.
"Do not struggle. You will only hurt yourself."
Ryan's head snapped toward the voice. Her heart froze.
Dr. Hayden stood in the corner, watching. His calm expression made patients trust him, and made them believe he cared. Dark hair was perfectly combed. An expensive watch caught the light. His hands rested in his pockets as if he were having coffee and not watching someone tied to a chair.
"You." Her voice was hoarse.
"Me." He stepped closer. Shoes echoed on the concrete. "You lasted longer than I expected. Eight months of watching you piece it together. Impressive."
Eight months. Her mind scrambled. Panic made coherent thought impossible.
"What did you do to me?" She pulled at the restraints again, wincing at the bite of plastic.
"Nothing yet." He crouched before her. Close enough to see the individual stitches on his collar. Close enough to smell sandalwood mixed with something clinical. "We have all the time in the world."
Ryan's gaze drifted past him. Three mounds covered with stained sheets occupied the corner. Roughly human sized. The shapes underneath did not move.
"Oh god." Her voice cracked. "Oh god, what did you…"
"Shh." Hayden touched her face. The warmth made her skin crawl. "Do not look at them. Look at me."
She jerked away. "Do not touch me."
"But I have been touching you for months," he said casually. "Why stop me now..."
Her mind raced back. The hospital. Her apartment. Every time she had felt watched but dismissed it as paranoia.
"You are insane..."
"No." He walked to a table she had not noticed. Medical tools lay in a neat row. Scalpels, scissors, instruments she did not recognize. "I am helping. There is a difference."
He picked up a scalpel, held it to the light, examining the blade. Ryan's heart hammered against her ribs.
"Why are you doing this?" She forced herself to speak, needing answers.
Hayden smiled, the same smile he had given her in the hospital eight months ago when she had woken from the crash. The smile that had made her feel safe.
"You want an answer?" His laugh was soft. "Not yet. First, I want you to understand."
"Understand what?"
"Everything." He returned behind the chair, hands resting on her shoulders. "I want you to remember how this started. Every reckless decision you made brought you here."
Ryan's breath came in short gasps. He leaned down. His warm breath brushed her ear.
"Eight months ago," he whispered, "you were nobody. Just another journalist chasing a story too big for you. Then…"
The lights cut out.
Darkness swallowed the room. Ryan screamed.
"Shh." His voice came from the darkness. "It is just the timer. The lights will come back."
Time stretched wrong in the dark. Then the bulb flickered on. Hayden stood before her holding a phone. Her own voice filled the basement.
"I know what you did. I have proof. The organs, the patients, all of it."
It was her voice. Determined. Angry.
Hayden stopped the recording and looked at her with pride.
"You said that three days ago, in your apartment. You thought you were alone." He turned the phone, showing footage of her apartment, bedroom, sitting at her desk with papers spread everywhere. "You have not been alone."
The realization hit like ice water. He had been in her home, watching while she lived her life thinking she was safe.
"You are sick," she said. Her voice shook.
"I am in love with you," he said simply, as if stating the obvious. "Since the moment I saw you on that road. Bleeding. Broken. Perfect."
Her stomach lurched.
"That is not love."
He crouched again, eye level with her. A strand of hair fell across her face. He tucked it back. She flinched. "I have taken care of you. Give you everything you need."
"You killed my mother."
His eyes flickered with satisfaction, not guilt.
"She was dying anyway. The heart that could have saved her went to someone who could pay."
Rage burned inside Ryan. She tried to throw herself forward. The chair rocked but held. Hayden did not flinch.
"There it is," he murmured. "The fire I fell in love with. The fighter. The daughter who would not let go of her father's case. The journalist who thought she could take down a system."
"I will destroy you," she said, raw.
"Maybe." He returned to the table, picked up a scalpel, testing the blade with his thumb. A thin line of blood appeared.
"Eight months ago, you were driving home in the rain. Do you remember?"
She did. The rain, the dark road, the bus that appeared from nowhere.
"That was no accident."
The bulb flickered above them.
"Let me tell you a story." Hayden walked slowly toward her. "I have been watching you far longer than eight months. I will tell you about your father's case and the night he died."
Ryan felt her blood run cold.
"You knew him?"
Knew him? Hayden laughed. The sound echoed. "I killed him."
The scalpel caught the light.
Footsteps sounded above. Heavy, multiple.
Hayden's calm cracked slightly. "We have company." He glanced back at Ryan. "This conversation is not over."
He moved faster than expected. The scalpel vanished into his pocket. He grabbed a syringe.
"No." She tried to pull away
but could not.
The needle pierced her neck. Cold spread through her veins.
"Sleep now," he said. His voice receded.