Chapter 10 · Marked Registry - Chapter 10: No Patients in White Tower

The White Tower looked like a hospital from the outside. Clean angles, white stone, the kind of place you'd take your kid for a broken arm. Ella stood three feet from the entrance, and her stomach told her it was a lie.

Cain stopped beside her. Didn't say anything. Just looked at the door like he'd been through it a hundred times and hated every single one.

"I need your badge," Ella said. Her voice came out flat.

He glanced at her. "No."

"Then what the hell are we doing here?"

"I'll scan it." He stepped forward. "You don't touch the reader. You don't get logged."

She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him she didn't need him running interference, didn't need him deciding what risks she could take. But Mia's face kept flashing in her head. Mia screaming at her to run. Mia still missing.

So she shut up and followed him to the door.

The badge reader was a black panel, no buttons, just a smooth surface that reflected Cain's hand when he held the badge up.