Hospitals are supposed to feel sterile. Safe.
Melinda had spent years training her body to breathe evenly beneath fluorescent lights, to relax her muscles when the beeping got too loud, to close her eyes and pretend she was only there for observation.
She was used to hospitals.
So when the air changed, she noticed.
At first, it was tiny.
A nurse—someone new—passed her room and didn't make eye contact.
Then a second, whispering at the corner of the hallway.
Then her heart monitor spiked. Not because of her injuries.
Because her gut said something was wrong.
Deep wrong.
Melinda slowly sat up in her hospital bed, her body aching in all the usual fractured places. She reached for the nurse call button. Her hand hovered over it.
Stopped.
No.
They wouldn't tell her. Not fast enough. Not directly.
She needed someone who would.
Melinda ripped the IV out of her arm.
The machine screamed.
She didn't stop.
One step out of the bed and her knees buckled—but she caught herself on the tray table, breathing hard. Her vision swam, but she grit her teeth and kept moving.
Alex Karev.
She didn't trust a lot of people. But him?
He looked at her like she wasn't crazy. Like she wasn't overreacting. Like she wasn't being dramatic when she felt pain in places most people didn't know could hurt.
He listened.
She limped into the hallway.
People stared.
A nurse stepped forward. "Ms. Sage, you need to get back in—"
"Where's Karev?" she snapped, green eyes blazing.
"He's—he's in Trauma Three—"
She didn't wait.
Barefoot, pale, and visibly shaking, Melinda ran.
Stitches tore. Scabs pulled. One IV port still dangled from her hand, dripping red down her arm like a ghost trail.
Behind her, Meredith turned a corner and caught a flash of movement.
"Melinda?" she called. "Melinda?!"
Cristina looked up from her chart.
"What the hell—"
"She's running."
"Why?!"
But Melinda already burst through the stairwell doors.
Because she could feel it.
Her father knew.
He knew where she was.
Someone told him.
And he shouldn't even know her name.
ESTÁS LEYENDO
Code A++
FanfictionShe came in unconscious with a cracked skull and a past that read like a case file. Melinda Sage wasn't supposed to survive the trauma buried in her bones. But she did. What she didn't expect was Alex Karev. The surgeon who didn't ask stupid questio...
