The hallway lights buzzed overhead as Cara walked past the nurse's station, gripping the folded note in her pocket like it was burning through her scrubs.
She found Eliot outside in the back garden of the hospital—the only place he went when he wanted to be alone. He sat on a bench beneath a rusted angel statue, coat folded on the seat beside him, tie slightly loosened. He looked peaceful.
But she knew better now.
"Eliot."
He looked up, smiling faintly. "Hey."
"We need to talk," she said. Her voice was sharp, no longer soft around the edges. "Now."
He gestured to the bench, but she stayed standing.
"Daniel Park called," she said. "Hyun Park's son. One of your patients. He found a vial labeled potassium chloride among his father's meds."
Eliot's smile faded slowly.
"He's asking questions," Cara continued. "Real ones. The kind that don't stop with just a phone call."
Eliot looked away, toward the garden's empty flowerbeds. "What did you say to him?"
"That potassium is used for cardiac cases," she said. "Which is technically true. But we both know that's not what happened."
Silence.
Cara took a step forward, anger rising under her skin like static. "Do you have any idea what happens if this unravels? If someone audits the death records, finds the patterns, the anomalies? You think they won't trace it all back to you?"
"I didn't do it for me," Eliot said quietly.
"You did it without consent."
"I did it to stop pain."
Cara's voice cracked. "But you're creating pain now. For people like Daniel. People who trusted us to give them time—not take it away!"
Eliot stood slowly, eyes searching hers. "You think I don't know that?"
"I don't know what you know anymore, Eliot," she snapped. "You scare me now. I never thought I'd say that, but you do."
That hit something in him. His posture faltered.
"I never wanted you involved," he said, barely above a whisper. "I wanted you to be the one good thing untouched by this."
She almost laughed—but it came out bitter.
"Too late."
They stood in that cold silence, two people once bound by trust, now cracked open by the weight of what he'd done.
"What happens now?" he asked.
Cara looked at him, heart pounding.
"You tell me," she said. "Because the next person who asks questions? I'm not sure I can lie for you again."
Then she turned and walked away, leaving him under the shadow of the angel, hands trembling in the dark.
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End of Chapter 10.
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