Chapter 19 · The Traitor at the Clinic

***Nora's POV***

The clinic smelled like blood and burnt antiseptic. I stood in the back storage room, staring at the open locker that shouldn't have been open. Inside, three vials of cursed reagent sat neatly arranged where we kept bandages and saline. Someone had been using my supply closet as a drop point.

I heard footsteps in the hall. Soft. Careful. The kind of footsteps people made when they were trying not to be heard.

I grabbed the nearest scalpel and flattened myself against the wall beside the door. My heart hammered, but my hand stayed steady. Fifteen years running a clinic in the Flats taught you how to hold a blade.

The door creaked open. A woman slipped inside, her clinic scrubs wrinkled from a double shift. Short dark hair. Tired eyes. My night nurse, Marissa.

She didn't see me. She went straight for the locker, reaching for the vials with practiced efficiency.

"Going somewhere with those?" I stepped out, scalpel raised.

Marissa spun around, her face draining of color. "Nora. I—" She swallowed hard. "I can explain."

"Yeah?" I didn't lower the blade. "Explain why you're stealing cursed gear from my clinic.