The Touch of Death

Isabella Hart POV

My hands are buried deep in a stranger's chest cavity when the world shifts sideways.

"Pressure's dropping fast," Dr. Martinez barks over the steady beep of monitors. "Hart, keep those arteries clamped."

I can't feel my own fingers anymore. Eighteen hours straight in this ER, and my body's running on fumes and the bitter dregs of my fourth cup of coffee. But this man—this patient bleeding out on our table—he needs me to hold it together just a little longer.

The stab wounds are brutal. Three clean punctures between his ribs, one nicking the subclavian artery. Professional work. Not some street fight gone wrong, but calculated violence meant to kill slowly. His blood is warm against my surgical gloves, and I can feel his pulse weakening with each heartbeat.

That's when it happens.

Pain slams into me like a physical blow—not my own exhaustion or aching feet, but his. Raw, burning agony that makes me gasp behind my surgical mask. It pours through my fingertips where they press against torn flesh, flooding my nervous system with sensations that shouldn't be mine.

I can feel his terror. His desperation. The way his body is shutting down, organ by organ.

"What the hell" I start to say, but then something else flows out of me. Something warm and electric that travels down my arms and through my hands into his torn chest.

The monitors change their tune. His erratic heartbeat steadies. Blood pressure climbs from dangerously low to stable in seconds.

Dr. Martinez stares at the readouts, then at me. "That's not possible."

My legs shake as the strange sensation fades, leaving me hollow and dizzy. "I don't—I didn't do anything different."

"Like hell you didn't." But he doesn't press, just continues suturing while stealing glances at me.

The man on the table opens his eyes for the first time since they wheeled him in. He looks directly at me, pupils dilated but aware. His lips move soundlessly around the intubation tube.

Thank you.

I rip off my gloves and stumble backward. The surgical bay suddenly feels too small, too bright, too everything. My scrubs stick to my skin with sweat that has nothing to do with the room's temperature.

"Hart." Dr. Martinez's voice follows me toward the doors. "We need to talk."

But I'm already moving, pushing through the swinging doors into the corridor. My shift ended an hour ago. I need air, space, and answers to questions I don't even know how to ask.

The parking garage is mercifully empty at 3 AM. Chicago's February wind cuts through my jacket like it's made of paper, but the cold helps clear my head. I fumble for my car keys, hands still shaking from whatever the hell just happened in there.

My phone buzzes. Unknown number, but I answer anyway. "Isabella Hart."

"Miss Hart?" The voice is professionally polite, which means it's about to ruin my night. "This is Jennifer from Memorial Cancer Center. I'm calling about your mother's treatment authorization."

My stomach drops. "At three in the morning?"

"I'm working night shift, and I wanted to reach you as soon as possible. I'm afraid the insurance company has denied coverage for the experimental treatment program. Again."

The keys slip from my numb fingers, clattering against the concrete. "What do you mean, again? We appealed twice already."

"The review board classified it as investigational with insufficient evidence of efficacy. I'm so sorry, Miss Hart. Without insurance coverage, the cost would be approximately two hundred thousand dollars."

Two hundred thousand. I make barely enough to cover rent and my mother's current medications. The number might as well be two million.

"There has to be another option," I say, but the words sound hollow even to me.

"I'll email you information about clinical trials and charitable foundations. Sometimes they offer assistance for qualifying patients."

Sometimes. Maybe. If we're lucky.

I end the call and lean against my car, staring up at Chicago's light-polluted sky. Mom's been fighting this cancer for two years. Two years of watching her waste away while I work myself to death trying to afford treatments that barely slow the disease's progress. And now, when we finally find something that might actually save her, it's impossibly out of reach.

The drive home takes me through the south side, past blocks of abandoned buildings and empty lots where streetlights flicker like dying stars. My ancient Honda makes concerning noises, but it gets me from the hospital to my apartment and back, which is all I can ask for.

I'm so tired I almost miss the red light. My eyes drift closed for just a second, and when they snap open, the intersection is directly ahead. I slam the brakes, heart hammering as the car shudders to a stop.

In my rearview mirror, a black SUV pulls up behind me. It's been there for the last three blocks, I realize. Same distance, same speed, like it's following me.

Paranoid. I'm just paranoid because I'm exhausted and everything went to shit tonight. Nobody follows nursing students through bad neighborhoods at 3 AM.

The light changes. I drive through the intersection, watching my mirrors. The SUV maintains its distance, making every turn I make.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. There's a police station six blocks north. I can—

The drunk driver comes from the left, running a red light at forty miles per hour. I have maybe two seconds to register the approaching headlights before impact.

The crash is surprisingly quiet. Just the crunch of metal and the tinkle of falling glass. My car spins twice before slamming into a light pole, and everything goes fuzzy around the edges.

I taste blood. My head throbs where it struck the window, and something warm trickles down my temple. But I'm conscious, which has to count for something.

Footsteps crunch across broken glass. Multiple sets, approaching fast. Not paramedics—they would have announced themselves, asked if I was okay.

"Is she alive?" The voice is gravelly, like its owner has been smoking for decades.

"Yeah. Conscious too. Boss is gonna be pleased."

My blood turns to ice water. They're not here to help.

"Twenty-two years of searching," another voice says, younger but equally cold. "And she just drops into our lap."

Searching for me? That's impossible. I'm nobody. Just a broke nursing student who can barely afford groceries.

Strong hands reach through my shattered driver's side window, working to unlock the door. I try to move, to fight, to scream, but my body won't cooperate. Shock, maybe, or a concussion from the impact.

"Easy now," the first voice soothes as they pull me from the wreckage. "Vincent's been looking forward to meeting you, Isabella."

Vincent. The name should mean nothing to me, but something stirs in the back of my mind. A fragment of memory, too old and buried to grasp.

"How do you know my name?" The words come out slurred, but audible.

Someone laughs. "Your father owed us a debt, sweetheart. And debts don't die with the debtor."

My father died when I was five. Car accident, Mom always said. We never had money, never had connections to dangerous people who knew my name and followed me through Chicago at 3 AM.

The world tilts as they lift me, carrying me toward the black SUV. Darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision, but I fight it, trying to understand what's happening.

"Welcome home, Isabella," the gravelly voice says as they slide me into the backseat. "Your father's debt has finally come due."

The last thing I see before unconsciousness takes me is the drunk driver's car, empty and abandoned. No drunk driver in sight.

It was never an accident at all.