Chapter 7 · Lea's Old Scan

The clinic was dark except for the emergency exit sign bleeding red across the back hallway. I checked my watch. Two-seventeen a.m. Lea would be upstairs in the apartment she kept above the practice, probably asleep, definitely not expecting me.

I shouldn't be here.

But the counter on my wrist said 06 now, and the last loop taught me that without the scan Lea took three years ago, I'd be walking blind into Viktor's next setup. So here I was, picking the back lock like old times, trying not to think about how many ways this could go sideways.

The lock clicked. I slipped inside, letting my eyes adjust. Exam rooms to the left, storage and records to the right. Lea ran a tight ship—everything labeled, nothing out of place. The kind of order you built when chaos used to be your job.

I moved toward the records room. Knew the layout from the last time I'd died trying to do this alone. That loop, I'd gotten cocky, made noise, and Lea put two rounds through the door before I could say her name. Woke up twelve hours later with 05 on my wrist and a fresh lesson in humility.