"I know you're in there."
Lauren's voice comes through the metal like it owns the hallway.
The IV line is already in my arm. Clear fluid ticks down, cold and uselessly clean. It takes the edge off the way chewing gum takes the edge off hunger—something to do, something to swallow, nothing that counts.
I keep my forehead against the shelf for one breath, then lift it and stare at the cartons of gauze like they might offer advice.
If I ignore her, she doesn't go away.
If I open the door, I'm opening it with Hunger at my heels.
[HUNGER: 95% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 82% — STABLE]
My fingers curl around the IV tubing, not to yank it out—too obvious—but to keep my hands occupied. My pulse is loud in my ears. My mouth is dry, then wet, then dry again, like my body can't decide whether it wants to beg or bite.
Lauren knocks once. Not hard. Not polite either. A marker, not a request.
"Doctor," she says, and the word hits with practiced distance. "Open the door."
I exhale slowly through my nose.
My options are ugly but limited. If I force this into a scene, she escalates. If she escalates, she does it in my workplace. If she does it in my workplace, my staff gets involved, and the ER becomes a stage.
Stages get remembered.
I pinch the clamp, stop the drip, and pull the line out in one smooth motion. Cotton ball. Pressure. Tape. Sleeve down. The evidence disappears because I'm good at disappearing in plain sight.
I open the door.
Lauren stands there with the mild guy behind her and the bearded one just out of frame, close enough that I can feel him as a presence. Lauren's eyes flick to my arm where the tape is hidden under my sleeve.
"You're dehydrated," she says.
"It's an ER," I reply. "We all are."
Lauren doesn't react to the attempt at normal conversation. She steps half a pace closer. Not into my space. Into my line of retreat.
"What happened behind that curtain?" she asks again.
I let my shoulders drop as if I'm tired instead of cornered. "I already told you."
"You told me a story with rounded edges," she says. "I'm asking for the part you're sanding down."
The bearded man shifts, boot squeak faint on tile.
My throat tightens. Hunger answers movement like a dog answering a whistle.
[HUNGER: 96% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 82% — STABLE]
I keep my voice even. "Fine. You want the moment? He moved. My brain flagged it as wrong. I reacted. That's it."
Lauren's gaze stays fixed. "No."
I blink once. "No?"
"You're missing the part where you fed," she says, calmly, like she's naming a symptom. "And you're missing the part where you hid it."
My jaw clenches. For a second, I can't find the right words, only the sharp ones.
"I didn't feed," I say. It comes out too fast.
Lauren's expression doesn't change, but her eyes sharpen. "Michael."
Hearing my name from her mouth does something annoying in my head—makes it feel like she has access. Like she's already walked into a room of my life I didn't invite her into.
I glance down the corridor. Two nurses hustle past pushing a medication cart. A tech wheels linens. Everyone is moving. Nobody is paying attention.
"Not here," I mutter.
Lauren nods once, then gestures down the hall. "Walk."
I lock the supply room and follow, keeping pace that's normal, not too brisk. The mild guy trails behind. The bearded one takes the lead and scans corners like the hallway might ambush him.
Lauren steers us into a tiny office near the charge desk—glass window, blinds half drawn, a whiteboard full of bed numbers and scribbled notes. The kind of room where people argue about staffing ratios and pretend it's not about bodies.
She closes the door.
"You're on shift," I say immediately, because I need an anchor. "I'm on shift. I can't sit in a side room while you—"
"While I keep you from getting yourself killed," she says.
I laugh once, short and flat. "That's generous."
Lauren doesn't take the bait. "Sit," she says again.
I sit because standing makes my legs want to spring. I don't like how ready my body feels.
Lauren leans on the desk, palms braced, posture calm. Mild guy stands by the door. Bearded guy remains outside, visible through the window's edge like a warning sign.
Lauren's eyes drop to my badge again. "How long have you worked here?"
My stomach tightens. "Why does that matter?"
"It matters because this is where the blood is," she says. "It matters because predators choose hunting grounds."
"I'm not—" I start, then stop. The denial is too automatic. Too guilty-sounding.
Lauren holds up a hand. "Don't. Not yet."
I stare at her hand, then at her face. "Not yet?"
She straightens slightly. "You want to keep your job. You want to keep your staff safe. You want to keep living a normal life."
I almost snort. Normal.
"I want to keep people alive," I say instead.
Lauren nods, as if that answer is acceptable. "Then listen. What came in tonight wasn't rabies. It wasn't a drug overdose. It wasn't a psychotic break. It was a vector."
"A vector for what?" I ask.
She pauses, then chooses a word that sounds like she hates using it in fluorescent light.
"Turning," she says.
My fingers tighten together in my lap. The word shouldn't mean anything, and yet my body reacts like it recognizes a category.
Lauren watches the reaction closely.
"You've heard rumors," she says. "You've seen wounds that don't line up with the police report. You've noticed patients who 'fell down stairs' with bite patterns."
I keep my face neutral, but my throat is too dry to swallow comfortably.
Lauren continues. "Some things in this world feed. Some things infect. Some do both."
"Okay," I say. "So you're here to—what—hunt them?"
She gives a small nod. "Contain when possible. Kill when necessary."
Her moral code shows in the order.
I force my voice to stay level. "And you decided I'm one of them."
Lauren's eyes don't flicker. "I decided you're adjacent."
"That's a diplomatic way to accuse someone."
"It's a precise way to keep you alive," she replies. "If I thought you were fully turned, you wouldn't be sitting here."
A chill passes through me that has nothing to do with air conditioning.
The Hunger stirs, irritated by threat, by proximity, by the sense of being evaluated.
[HUNGER: 97% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 81% — STABLE]
Lauren notices my jaw tighten. "You're fighting something."
"Stress," I say.
"You're a doctor," she says. "Don't insult me with that."
The mild guy shifts by the door, subtle. A reminder that if this goes sideways, I'm outnumbered in a room with no easy exit.
Lauren's voice softens by a fraction. Not kind. Practical.
"I'm not here to drag you into a van," she says. "I'm here because something is hunting in your city. And because you're in the center of the blood flow."
I swallow. "So what do you want from me?"
Lauren's gaze stays steady. "The truth."
I stare at her. The truth is a trap. The truth is a bullet. The truth is the end of my job, my license, my life.
And yet—
The taste from the curtain lingers behind my tongue. The relief it gave me was real. I can't pretend it wasn't. I can't pretend my body didn't respond like that was nourishment.
"I did something stupid," I say, choosing words that fit a doctor first. "He moved. I got close. There was blood. I—" My throat tightens. The confession catches. "I reacted."
Lauren doesn't flinch. "Define reacted."
I exhale slowly. "I tasted it."
The mild guy's eyes sharpen. He doesn't move. He just becomes more present.
Lauren studies me, then nods once, like I finally handed her a usable piece of the map.
"You tasted blood," she says. "And you didn't immediately lose control."
My mouth twists. "You say that like it's a compliment."
"It is," she replies, matter-of-fact. "It means you're not a rabid case."
Rabid. The word lands with cold irony.
I keep my voice steady. "You're assuming a lot."
Lauren's eyes narrow slightly. "I'm working with what I have."
"What you have is one moment in a curtain," I say. "One smear. One—"
"One Hunger spike," she cuts in. "I saw your face. I saw your hands. I've seen addicts. I've seen ferals. Your body was choosing."
My skin prickles. My stomach turns.
"You don't get to diagnose me," I say, and the edge in my tone is real.
Lauren's expression hardens. "I do if you're a risk to civilians."
The silence stretches.
Outside the office, the ER keeps making noise. A monitor alarms, then stops. Someone laughs too loud in the hallway, brittle with fatigue.
Inside, Lauren holds my gaze until I look away first.
"You're going to tell me how long this has been happening," she says.
I breathe in. Disinfectant. Paper. A faint undernote of coffee.
I keep my answer clipped, human. "Months."
Lauren's eyes remain steady. "And you've been feeding."
"Carefully," I say before I can stop myself.
Lauren's mouth tightens. "On what?"
I hesitate. If I say blood bags, she asks how. If I say animals, she asks where. If I say people, she reaches for the gun she hasn't shown me yet.
"I work in a hospital," I say, choosing the least incriminating truth. "There are ways to… minimize harm."
Lauren leans closer, voice low. "Answer the question."
My throat tightens. The Hunger pulses at the pressure, impatient.
[HUNGER: 98% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 81% — STABLE]
Words fragment in my head. Not robotic—just narrowed.
"Not—" I start. Stop. Try again. "Not civilians. Not—random."
Lauren's eyes search my face like she's looking for the exact place the lie would sit.
"And if you had to?" she asks.
The question is a blade.
I stare at her, then drop my gaze to my hands because I don't want her to see what that question does to my mouth.
"If I had to," I say quietly, "I wouldn't be sitting here asking permission."
Lauren holds the silence a beat longer, then nods once. Not agreement. Acknowledgment.
"Okay," she says. "So we're at the part where you don't want to be a monster."
I look up. "You don't know what I want."
"I know what people do," she replies. "And I know what hunger does."
She pushes off the desk and reaches into her jacket. The motion is slow. Deliberate. A signal that she's not drawing a weapon.
She pulls out a small insulated pouch, the kind paramedics use for meds. She sets it on the desk and unzips it.
Inside is a sealed blood bag.
The label is covered with black tape.
My mouth goes instantly wet. My throat tightens so hard it aches.
[HUNGER: 99% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 81% — STABLE]
Lauren watches my reaction with clinical calm.
"Don't," I say, and it comes out rougher than intended.
"This is why I'm here," she says. "I need to know what you are when temptation is offered, not when it's leaking on your glove."
The mild guy by the door straightens slightly, attention sharpening.
Lauren slides the blood bag across the desk toward me, stopping it halfway.
It doesn't touch me. It doesn't have to.
The scent hits like a punch. Not the metallic background of an ER, not the faint iron on someone's lip—this is concentrated, warm even through plastic, like the bag has been kept close to skin.
My hands twitch.
I clamp them together hard enough that my knuckles ache.
"Is this a test?" I ask, voice tight.
"It's a boundary," Lauren says. "If you can't keep your hands off that bag for sixty seconds while I talk to you, you don't go back into your ER tonight."
"That's not your call," I spit, and the words come out sharp and ugly.
Lauren doesn't react. "It is if the alternative is a feeding incident on my watch, in a room full of civilians."
The HUD sits heavy in my vision, like it's pleased by the trap.
[HUNGER: 99% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 81% — STABLE]
My breathing becomes something I have to manage consciously. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow. Controlled. Like I'm talking a patient down from a panic attack, except the patient is my body.
Lauren's voice stays calm, almost gentle. "Michael. Look at me."
I force my eyes off the blood bag and onto her face.
She holds my gaze.
"You said carefully," she says. "Show me."
My jaw clenches. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth. My hands want to move like they have their own plan.
I keep them still.
Seconds tick by like IV drips.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
My vision narrows around the bag, then I pull it back by focusing on Lauren's eyes, on the small scar at the edge of her eyebrow, on the fact that she's not flinching.
Forty.
Fifty.
My heartbeat is loud enough to feel in my fingertips.
Sixty.
The mild guy exhales, quiet relief.
Lauren doesn't move immediately. She simply nods once, satisfied.
"Good," she says.
I release my hands slowly, flexing fingers that feel cramped. The Hunger doesn't vanish. It just stops screaming long enough for words to form again.
"What's that blood?" I ask, voice hoarse.
Lauren re-zips the pouch and pulls it back. "Not yours."
"That doesn't answer—"
"It's bait," she says plainly. "And it's also a promise."
"A promise of what?"
Lauren meets my gaze. "That I'm not here to execute you for one impulse."
I let out a breath that tastes like bitterness. "And if I fail next time?"
Lauren's expression hardens. "Then I do my job."
The moral line is clean. Brutal. Honest.
She turns slightly toward the door, as if the conversation is already shifting phases.
"Here's the deal," she says. "You keep working. You keep your hands clean. You tell me when your… condition spikes. You help me identify the thing that attacked that man."
"I didn't see the attacker," I say.
Lauren's eyes sharpen. "You smelled it."
I go still. "What?"
Lauren's voice stays level. "Your senses aren't normal. Don't pretend they are."
I swallow hard. The Hunger hums, annoyed by being observed so accurately.
Lauren continues. "You're going to help me track the rogue. In exchange, I keep my people out of your ER unless there's a direct threat. I keep your name off certain lists. And I make sure the Guild doesn't decide to solve this problem in a way you won't like."
The office feels smaller.
"You're recruiting me," I say, and it comes out like an accusation.
"I'm leveraging you," Lauren corrects. "Recruitment implies you get to pretend you have a choice."
I stare at her. "I do have a choice."
Lauren's gaze doesn't waver. "You do. It's just not the one you want."
A knock taps the office door.
The bearded guy leans in, eyes scanning. "Lauren. We've got movement."
Lauren turns her head. "Where?"
"ER entrance," he says. "Security camera flagged someone bleeding and walking like they don't feel it. Same wrong movement as the witnesses described."
My stomach drops. My mouth goes instantly wet again.
The HUD flickers like it approves of bad timing.
[HUNGER: 99% — PREDATORY]
[HEALTH: 81% — STABLE]
Lauren looks at me, and for the first time there's no placeholder in her eyes.
There's expectation.
"Doctor," she says, voice calm, "this is where you earn your sixty seconds."
She opens the office door.
The ER noise swells.
And somewhere out there, something hurt is walking toward the place that feeds monsters and saves people.
I stand.
Not because I'm brave.
Because if I don't move, my Hunger will.