The city was quieter than it had any right to be.
Jason Hale noticed it because silence had become a warning sound in his life. Silence meant anticipation. It meant something was about to demand payment. The kind of quiet that came before gunshots, before screaming tires, before men stopped breathing under his hands while he counted seconds instead of prayers.
His car cut through the night like a blade, headlights carving pale tunnels through mist and streetlight glare. The dashboard clock glowed 02:17 a.m. Too late for honesty. Too early for forgiveness.
His phone buzzed against the console.
Jason didn't look at it immediately. He already knew who it was.
The vibration came again. Insistent. Impatient.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and picked it up, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Speak," he said.
A man's voice slid through the speaker, smooth and poisonous. "You took your time, Doc."
"I was operating," Jason replied. His tone was calm, clipped, professional. The same voice he used when blood pooled too fast and lives slipped through his fingers. "If you wanted a faster response, you should've scheduled an appointment."
A chuckle. Low. Dangerous. "Cute. We've got a situation."
Jason tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "You always do."
The city thinned as he drove, concrete giving way to industrial shadows, abandoned lots, half-dead warehouses crouched like animals waiting to be put down. This was where secrets came to rot. Where bodies were found too late to matter.
"What kind of situation?" he asked.
There was a pause. Long enough to be deliberate.
"Something fell into our lap," the man said. "And it's… unusual."
Jason frowned. "I don't do unusual. I do injuries."
"This one won't fit in an ambulance."
Jason opened his mouth to respond...
...and the world exploded!.
The impact came out of nowhere. A violent, bone-shuddering jolt that slammed through metal and muscle and sent the steering wheel jerking hard beneath his hands. Tires screamed. The car lurched, skidded, fishtailed.
"Shit....!"
Jason slammed the brakes, heart slamming into his ribs as the car spun halfway before grinding to a halt at an ugly angle across the road.
Silence followed.
Not the anticipatory kind.
The shocked, hollow kind that rang in his ears.
His phone had flown from his hand, clattering somewhere near the passenger seat. The engine idled unevenly, coughing like it was as stunned as he was.
Jason sat frozen for one breath.
Two.
Then training kicked in.
He killed the engine, shoved the door open, and stepped out into the cold night air. His shoes hit asphalt slick with mist as his eyes scanned wildly ahead, behind, everywhere.
"Hello?" he called, already knowing how stupid that sounded.
The headlights illuminated the road.
And then...
....him.
Jason stopped dead.
A body lay sprawled several meters in front of the car, illuminated starkly by white light. Too still. Too pale. Naked skin gleaming faintly under the beams.
"N-no," Jason breathed, already moving, already dropping to his knees beside the man.
He had hit a person.
Jesus Christ!!!
Jason's hands hovered for half a second before they touched skin, as if afraid of what they'd find. The man was tall. Broad-shouldered. Muscular in a way that wasn't gym-built but… engineered. Sculpted. His chest rose and fell shallowly, breath dragging in with a sound that was almost mechanical.
And his skin...
Jason's breath caught.
Tattoos covered him.
Not ink. Not really.
They wrapped around the man's body in intricate patterns, flowing lines etched so deeply into flesh they looked fused with it. Metallic, almost. They caught the light strangely, reflecting blue, then silver, then something darker beneath.
They covered everything...arms, chest, ribs, thighs...curling and spiraling with an intelligence that made Jason's stomach tighten.
Everything except his face.
His face was human. Starkly so. Strong jaw. Sharp cheekbones. Dark lashes resting against pale skin. There was blood at his temple, a thin line trailing into his hair.
Jason pressed two fingers to the man's neck.
A pulse....
Slow....
Strong....
Too strong....
"What the hell are you?" Jason whispered.
He reached for his coat, shrugging it off to cover the man's nakedness, when his fingers brushed one of the tattoos along the man's collarbone.
The reaction was instant.
Heat flared beneath Jason's skin, sharp enough to make him gasp. The tattoo moved...not like muscle twitching, not like reflex.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Like a heartbeat answering his touch.
Jason yanked his hand back, staring.
The tattoo dimmed, the glow retreating beneath the skin as if nothing had happened.
His mouth went dry.
No. That wasn't possible. He was tired. Overworked. His brain was misfiring, filling gaps with nonsense.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to breathe.
"Okay," he muttered. "Okay. You're in shock. I'm in shock. We're all in shock."
He checked for injuries, fingers tracing ribs, limbs. There were bruises, abrasions, but no obvious fractures. No broken bones he could feel.
The man stirred.
Jason froze.
A low sound escaped the man's throat...not quite a groan. More like a suppressed vibration, as if something inside him was struggling to surface.
His head shifted slightly.
Eyes fluttered.
Jason leaned closer without thinking, heart hammering.
"Hey," he said softly, instinctively. "Don't try to move. You've been in an accident."
The man's eyes opened.
They were dark.
Not just brown or black...but deep, reflective, like polished obsidian catching light from somewhere far away. For one terrifying second, Jason had the distinct impression that those eyes were not seeing him...
...but scanning him.
Then the man's pupils dilated.
His gaze locked onto Jason's face with sudden intensity.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
No sound. No breath. Just a silent, desperate shape as his chest heaved.
"It's okay," Jason said quickly, though his pulse was screaming that nothing about this was okay. "You're safe. I'm a doctor. I'm going to help you."
The man's hand shot up and clamped around Jason's wrist.
The grip was iron.
Jason hissed, startled by the strength, tendons protesting as his bones were caught in a hold that felt utterly effortless.
"Hey...listen..." Jason started.
The man stared at him, panic flashing across his face. His grip tightened, then loosened, as if he realized he was hurting him.
His lips moved again.
Still no sound.
Jason swallowed, forcing his voice steady. "You can't speak. That's alright. We'll figure it out."
The man's brows drew together. Confusion. Fear. Something darker flickered beneath it...Something sharp, restrained, dangerous.
A distant sound cut through the moment.
Sirens.
Jason's head snapped up.
No.
No, no, no.
If police arrived, questions would follow. If questions followed, records would be pulled. If records were pulled...
His phone.
Jason scrambled back to the car, grabbed it, and saw the call was still active.
"Doc?" the voice said sharply. "What the hell was that noise?"
Jason stared at the naked, tattooed man on the road. At the impossible patterns etched into his skin. At the way the air around him seemed to hum faintly, like static before a storm.
"There's been an accident," Jason said slowly.
A pause.
Then: "Are you alive?"
"Yes."
Another pause. Longer.
"…Did you hit something?"
Jason closed his eyes for half a second.
"I hit someone."
Silence stretched, heavy and dangerous.
Then the man on the phone laughed softly.
"Well," he said. "That is unusual."
Jason opened his eyes, gaze snapping back to the stranger...who was watching him with that same unnerving intensity, eyes unblinking, chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths.
"I'm taking him to the hospital," Jason said.
"You'll do no such thing," the voice replied smoothly.
Jason's jaw tightened.
"I'm a doctor," he said. "I don't leave people bleeding in the street."
"You leave them when we tell you to."
The sirens grew louder.
Jason looked down at the man again.
At the way the tattoos along his chest flickered faintly, responding to the sound, to the tension, to him.
Something in Jason's chest shifted.
A line crossed.
"No," he said quietly. "Not this one."
The silence on the other end turned cold.
"…Excuse me?"
Jason met the stranger's gaze.
"I'm bringing him in," Jason repeated. "I'll handle the paperwork. He'll be a Jane Doe. No records. No questions."
The voice exhaled slowly. "You're making a mistake."
"Then it's mine."
Jason ended the call.
The sirens were close now.
He moved quickly, sliding his arms beneath the man's shoulders and knees. The weight should have been impossible to lift alone.
It wasn't.
The man's body felt perfectly balanced in his arms, as if it knew how to be carried.
As Jason laid him gently into the backseat, the tattoos along the man's chest flared brighter .....and for a split second, Jason could have sworn he felt something inside his skull shift, align, lock into place.
The man's eyes never left his face.
Somewhere deep in his gut, Jason felt it then.
This wasn't an accident.
This wasn't a man.
And whatever he had just brought into his life...would destroy it.