Elaine didn’t ask how he knew.
She just moved.
They ran through service corridors, the smell of antiseptic replaced by dust and old concrete, Ivy cradled against Elaine’s chest now, the girl’s eyes fluttering open just long enough to meet Knox’s.
“They’ll erase you,” Ivy whispered faintly. “They erase everyone.”
Knox swallowed hard. “Not tonight.”
They reached the ambulance bay just as black SUVs screeched into view, men pouring out with weapons raised, and for one suspended moment, Knox realized the truth of what he’d stumbled into.
Ivy wasn’t lost.
She was discarded.
A failed piece of something bigger, something that had no place for mercy or memory.
Knox shoved Elaine into the back of an ambulance, slammed the doors shut, and climbed into the driver’s seat, engine roaring to life as bullets shattered the side mirrors, tires screaming as he tore out of the bay and into the night.
Behind them, Mercy Ridge Medical Center locked itself down completely, every record wiped, every camera looped, every trace of Ivy’s existence scrubbed clean in real time, as if she’d never crossed that threshold at all.
They never found Knox Mercer.
They never officially treated Ivy again.