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The guy on the stretcher shouldn't be alive.
His chest is open. Not cut-open. Split. Like someone took a chisel to his sternum and cracked it down the middle. The paramedics are holding pressure but the blood keeps coming. It's soaking through the gauze, dripping onto the linoleum, and I can smell it—metallic and wrong.
"Ivy, you good?" Marcus is at my elbow. He's been my attending for three months and he still asks like I'm going to break.
I don't break. I got fired from my last hospital for not breaking.
"I'm good."
"Then move."
I move. Gloves on. The paramedics step back and I get my first real look at the wound. It's clean. Too clean. No torn tissue. No bone fragments. Just a straight line from the top of his sternum to the bottom of his ribs, like someone unzipped him.
"What the hell did this?" Marcus mutters.
"Don't know. Don't care." I grab the retractor. "We need to see if the heart's intact."
The guy's eyes snap open.
I freeze. He shouldn't be conscious. We gave him enough fentanyl to drop a horse. But his eyes are open and they're locked on me. Dark. Too dark. The kind of dark that doesn't reflect the overhead lights.
"Sir, you need to stay still—"
He grabs my wrist.
His grip is cold. Not clammy-cold. Ice-cold. Like he's been dead for an hour. But his pulse is there. Faint. Irregular. Wrong.
"Help me," he says.
His voice is a rasp. His lips are cracked and there's blood on his teeth. But his eyes are steady. Focused. Like he's not dying at all.
"We're helping you," I say. I try to pull my wrist back. He doesn't let go.
"Not like this."
Marcus steps in. "Sir, you need to let go of the doctor."
The guy ignores him. He's still looking at me. His pupils are blown. Shock, maybe. Or something worse.
"You're Ivy Moore," he says.
I go still. "How do you know my name?"
"I know a lot of things." His grip tightens. "I know you're not supposed to be here. I know you got fired for saving someone you shouldn't have saved. I know you'll do it again."
My stomach drops. That's not public record. That's sealed. That's buried so deep that even my mother doesn't know the details.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Someone who's dying." His breath hitches. The monitor starts screaming. His heart rate is plummeting. "And you're the only one who can stop it."
Marcus shoves a crash cart between us. "Ivy, step back."
I don't step back. I lean in. "What do you want?"
The guy's mouth twists. It might be a smile. It might be a grimace. "A contract."
"What?"
"Seven days." His voice is fading. The monitor is flatlining. "Keep me alive for seven days. I'll give you anything you want."
"Sir, I don't—"
"Your family." His eyes bore into mine. "I'll tell you who killed them."
The room goes quiet. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe the whole world just stopped because those words are the only ones that matter.
My family died six years ago. House fire. That's what the police said. Accelerant in the basement. My mom. My dad. My little brother. All gone in one night. And I was at a conference in Boston. I didn't even get to say goodbye.
The case is closed. The file is sealed. And I've spent six years trying to forget.
But I never believed it was an accident.
"You're lying," I say.
His smile widens. Blood leaks from the corner of his mouth. "Then let me die and you'll never know."
Marcus is shouting. The nurses are pulling me back. Someone's calling for a code. But I'm not listening. I'm staring at this man—this dying stranger—and I'm doing the math.
Seven days. That's all he's asking for. Seven days to keep him alive. Seven days to find out if he's telling the truth.
Seven days to get the answer I've been chasing since I was twenty-three.
"What kind of contract?" I hear myself say.
Marcus grabs my arm. "Ivy, what are you doing?"
The guy's hand is still on my wrist. His skin is ice. His pulse is gone. But his eyes are still open. Still watching.
"Moon contract," he whispers. "Old magic. Binding magic. You keep me alive. I keep my word."
"That's not real."
"Then you've got nothing to lose."
The monitor flatlines. Marcus is yelling for the paddles. The nurses are charging the defibrillator. And I'm standing here with a dead man's hand on my wrist and a choice I shouldn't be making.
But I've already made it.
I lean down. His eyes are starting to glaze. His lips are turning blue. And I say the words before I can stop myself.
"Fine. Seven days. You tell me who killed my family and I'll keep you alive."
His mouth moves. I think he says deal. I think he says something else. But I don't hear it because his hand is burning.
Not hot. Not warm. Burning. Like someone pressed a brand into my wrist. I try to pull back but his fingers are locked. The pain spreads up my arm, into my shoulder, into my chest. It's not fire. It's ice. It's cold enough to stop my heart.
I scream.
Marcus pulls me away. The guy's hand falls. His chest is still open. His heart is still silent. But the wound is moving.
It's closing.
Not stitching. Not healing. Closing. The edges of the split are pulling together like a zipper in reverse. The blood is disappearing. The tissue is knitting itself back together. In ten seconds the wound is gone. In fifteen seconds his chest is smooth. No scar. No mark. Nothing.
Just clean skin and a man who's breathing.
The monitor beeps. Once. Twice. A rhythm.
Marcus stares. The nurses stare. I stare at my wrist.
There's a mark. Black ink. A crescent moon with a line through it. It's small. It's clean. And it's burning.
"What the hell did you do?" Marcus says.
I don't answer. I'm watching the guy on the stretcher. His eyes are closed now. His breathing is steady. His chest rises and falls like nothing happened.
But something did happen. Because the mark on my wrist is still burning. And when I look at the security monitor in the corner, I see something that makes my blood run cold.
The man on the stretcher has a heartbeat. I can see it on the EKG. But on the infrared overlay—the one that tracks body heat—there's nothing.
No heat signature. No human pattern.
Just a cold, dark shape where a man should be.
Marcus is talking. He's asking questions. He's pulling at my arm. But I'm not listening. I'm staring at that monitor and I'm thinking about the contract I just signed.
Seven days. That's what he said. Seven days to keep him alive.
But what if he's not alive at all?