Notori paced the length of the medical wing, boots echoing softly against the sterile floor. He hadn’t sat down since they’d brought her in. Mike stood nearby, arms crossed, watching him with a quiet kind of concern. Notori looked worn thin—exhausted—but there wasn’t a crack in his posture. He wouldn’t let himself rest.
The door to the ward finally opened, and Dr. Margherita stepped out.
Notori was on her in an instant. “How is Lili?”
Margherita exhaled, folding her hands in front of her coat. Her tone was calm—measured—but there was an edge to it, something simmering just under the surface.
“She’s stable,” she began. “The gunshot wound passed through cleanly, no major organ damage. We treated the bleeding and closed the entry and exit sites. She’ll recover from that.”
Notori’s shoulders tensed. “And the rest?”
Margherita hesitated just for a moment, her jaw tightening. “She has multiple fractured ribs,” Margherita said, her tone clinical but laced with tension. “Contusions across her back and shoulders—consistent with prolonged blunt-force trauma. There are signs of malnutrition and dehydration. And…”
Her voice wavered, just slightly, as she glanced at the vitals screen before continuing, more quietly. “There are also indicators of sustained abuse. We’ll conduct a full trauma assessment once she’s awake and coherent enough to give consent.”
Mike stepped closer, his expression hardening. “Abuse?” he asked. “Are we talking about enhanced interrogation or something worse?”
Margherita’s sharp eyes flicked to him. “I’m talking about physical abuse beyond protocol.” Her words were flat, clinical—but underpinned by quiet fury. “Whether it was meant as part of an interrogation or not… only she can tell us.”
Mike’s jaw clenched. He looked toward the glass where Lili lay unconscious, her body barely visible beneath the sheets.
“They turned on her,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “They broke their own weapon the moment it started thinking for itself.”
The silence coiled tighter, wound with the tension of too many truths and not enough answers. Notori’s jaw worked, a shadow flickering behind his eyes as he stood rooted.
Margherita’s words still echoed, brittle and sharp in the sterile hush: “She can’t wake up alone. We need to contact her family.”
But his answer came like gravel, low and steady, laced with something that wavered between guilt and conviction. “Astonia isn’t the right choice,” he said, and his voice, though level, frayed at the edges like cloth worn too thin. “Lili only just met her parents—barely a week ago. She didn’t trust them. And Colin…” He exhaled, long and tired. “He approached her wrong. Pushed too hard. She lashed out. Used her power to stop him.”
Margherita’s brow furrowed, but her arms stayed crossed.
“Bringing them here now,” Notori continued, “might make everything worse. Lili won’t feel safer with people who already cracked what little trust she was trying to build.”
A beat passed, then another. The hum of a machine ticked in the background.
“I will try to support her myself,” Notori said, voice softer now. “We don’t know each other well… but we’ve fought together. And that kind of bond—sometimes, it sticks stronger than blood. I think… it might help.”
Margherita turned, slowly, and let her gaze pin him with weary disbelief. “I’m talking about someone familiar in a sense,” she said, a note of frustration slipping beneath her control. “Not someone who makes sense to you. Someone who won’t make her skin crawl when she wakes up to unfamiliar eyes.”
Notori flinched, not outwardly—but something in him faltered. He knew. She wasn’t accusing him. But she was right.
“If she was abused,” Margherita pressed on, “having a man—any man—as her first waking presence could push her deeper into the dark. Panic. Disassociation. Silence.”
“I know,” he murmured.
“Do you?” she snapped. “Because right now, it doesn’t sound like you’re thinking like someone who understands trauma. You’re thinking like someone who feels guilty and wants to fix it himself.”
Notori said nothing. Just stared at the glass separating them from the girl who had endured too much behind enemy lines, her body now resting but her mind likely still clawing its way through shadow.
Margherita sighed, rubbing at her brow. “She needs warmth. Safety. Control. And unless you can become all of those things without your presence triggering a memory she can’t name yet… you’re not the one.”
“She doesn’t have anyone else,” he said, bitterly. “I don’t know anyone she trusted.”
“Then we find someone new.”
The silence returned—heavier now, dense with unspoken burdens and reluctant truths—but underneath its weight pulsed the first fragile thread of agreement.
Notori’s eyes remained on the glass, on the pale silhouette of the girl beneath layers of white linen and quieter pain. Then, as if unburying a thought long hidden, he spoke. “I have someone in mind,” he murmured.
Mike, who had been watching in tense quiet, turned toward him. “Who?”
Notori’s jaw tightened, then he looked up, meeting Margherita’s gaze with something like fragile hope. “Cova,” he said. “She should be the one. She… went through something similar.”
Margherita’s posture shifted, alert now. “Cova?” she echoed, testing the weight of the name on her tongue. Then she nodded, sharply. “Yes. That might work.”
“She’s not close to Lili,” Notori continued, already stepping back, voice gaining momentum like a man building a bridge as he walked across it. “But she’s calm. She listens. And she knows what it’s like to be on the other side of that kind of pain. She won’t push.”
Margherita’s expression softened with reluctant approval. “Then go. Talk to her.”
He didn’t wait. Didn’t second-guess. He was already moving, boots thudding like a heartbeat against the corridor floor. The door hissed shut behind him, leaving the echo of urgency in his place.
Mike exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Cova’s strong,” he said into the quiet that followed. “And she’s been through hell and kept her kindness intact. If anyone can reach Lili without breaking her further…”
Margherita nodded. “Then let’s hope she says yes.”
***
Lili woke with a violent start—as if surfacing from a nightmare with no edges, no name. Her breath hitched in her throat, sharp and ragged, and she shot upright in the bed before her body could warn her of the pain.
Agony bloomed instantly. White-hot, raw. Her ribs shrieked with the sudden movement, lungs seizing as if she’d been punched from the inside. A strangled gasp tore from her lips, followed by a panicked sound—too hoarse to be a scream, too broken to be a breath.
Her eyes darted wildly, glassy and wide, taking in the unfamiliar white walls, the beeping machines, the scent of alcohol and antiseptic that clung to everything. No shadows. No chains. No screaming. But that didn’t make it safe.
Outside the glass, Mike jerked upright. “Shit—she’s awake.”
Margherita was already moving. “Stay here,” she ordered, her voice slicing through the tension.
She shoved open the door to the ward, her coat flaring behind her as she crossed the space in long, urgent strides. Lili was trembling, bracing herself against the mattress with one arm while the other clutched at her ribs, blinking rapidly like the world was moving too fast to parse.
“Lili,” Margherita said, soft but firm, careful not to move too quickly. “You’re safe. You’re in the medical wing.”
Lili flinched at the sound of her name. Her breath came in sharp, irregular bursts—her entire body shaking under the weight of confusion, instinct, and pain. Her gaze landed on Margherita, but there was no recognition. Only of someone caught in a trap.
“Don’t touch me!” she gasped, voice raw, scraped thin by memory.
Margherita halted a pace away, raising both hands in a gesture of peace. “I won’t. I promise. You’re not restrained. No one’s going to hurt you here. You’re free, Lili.”
But the words didn’t land. The panic had already flooded her system—blinding, drowning. Her shoulders curled inward protectively, as if bracing for a blow no one intended to give.
“I need you to slow your breathing,” Margherita said gently, taking a slow breath herself, letting Lili see it. “In through the nose. One. Two. Out through the mouth. One. Two…”
Lili tried. Failed. Tried again. Her lips trembled, but her lungs obeyed just enough to let the first thread of oxygen ground her.
Margherita didn’t step closer. “You’re safe,” she repeated. “You made it out.”
Lili blinked once. Then again. Her breathing slowed from chaos to panic, from panic to ragged control. She looked down at her own hands—unbound. Then to the bandages peeking from under the loose hospital shirt. Then finally, slowly, back to Margherita.
“Where… am I?” she rasped, voice barely audible.
Margherita exhaled, some tension melting from her spine. “You’re in our care. You were rescued,” she said, her voice soft as gauze. “You’ve been here three days. You’re safe, Lili. I’m Dr. Margherita. I’ve been looking after you.”
Lili’s gaze wandered—slow, searching—until it caught on the doorway, where the silhouette of a man lingered beyond the glass. Just a shape. Broad-shouldered, unmoving. He didn’t come in. Didn’t intrude. But he was there.
Her body, taut with the muscle memory of pain, slackened just slightly. A quiver in the lips. A tremble in the chin. Then—silent, startling—tears spilled down her cheeks, unannounced. She didn’t sob. Didn’t even blink. The tears just fell, as if they’d been waiting behind her eyes for too long.
Margherita took a single, careful step forward. “Lili,” she said gently, “can I help you lie back down? You shouldn’t be sitting. Your ribs—”
“I shouldn’t be here,” Lili interrupted. Her voice broke quiet, yet sharp enough to wound. She turned her head and locked eyes with Margherita, and in them was a terrible, hollow knowing.
“Why did you save me?” she whispered, voice raw with exhaustion and something deeper. “I asked Notori not to…”
Her throat tightened on the words, and her breath hitched, as if the confession itself weighed more than her broken bones.
“I told him,” she went on, slower now, as if pushing each word through a storm of shame, “to—”
Margherita didn’t flinch. She didn’t rush in with reassurances, didn’t flood the silence with soft lies or fragile comforts.
Instead, she knelt beside the bed, lowering herself to Lili’s height as someone willing to meet her in the wreckage. “You didn’t want him to do it,” she repeated gently, “because you thought you weren’t worth saving.”
Lili blinked, and more tears fell. Her fingers dug into the blanket.
Margherita tilted her head, her voice steady and quiet. “But that was a lie someone else taught you to believe.”
Lili’s lower lip trembled. She looked away, suddenly ashamed of her tears, her voice, her existence.
But Margherita didn’t let her drown in it. “You’re here because someone cared enough to see the truth beneath what they were told. You’re alive because Notori saw past the words you said and heard what you meant underneath.”
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