Chapter 22 · The Door Inside

"Amy, don't." Mark stepped in front of the door before her hand reached the knob.

Her phone buzzed again. The night supervisor's voice still crackled through the speaker, buried under alarms and shouting.

"Six ambulances," Keisha said. "Two critical. Patel's down. We're drowning."

Amy tightened her grip on the phone. "It's not at the hospital."

Mark's jaw flexed. "Then where is it?"

"Inside me." The words came out flat. Too calm. "It's calling from inside me. If I don't answer, it'll come out anyway."

From the couch, Lucas pressed a hand to his ribs. Daniel had hit him hard enough to leave his breathing shallow.

"That's bait," Lucas said. "The Court does this. It makes you choose between hiding and being human."

Amy snatched her jacket from the chair. "Then I choose human."

Mark caught her wrist. His fingers were warm, careful, and still strong enough to stop her.

"You walk into that ER, you're giving it exactly what it wants."

"People are dying."

"People die every night. You can't save all of them."

Amy looked at him. For one second, she saw the same expression he'd worn in her kitchen three weeks ago—