The ER froze when a fearsome biker burst through the doors, begging for help while carrying a dying child. But when her DNA was tested, the system collapsed—and the FBI sealed the hospital after discovering the girl officially did not exist.

Knox lowered the girl onto the gurney with a care that seemed almost reverent, his hands lingering for a fraction of a second as if he were afraid she might disappear if he let go completely, and when the nurses rushed her away through swinging doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, he staggered backward like the weight had been ripped out of him, slumping into a plastic chair against the wall, his massive shoulders shaking once before going still.

“Name?” the intake clerk asked, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Knox stared at his hands, still wet with rain and blood that wasn’t his. “Her name’s… Ivy,” he said finally.

“Last name?”

“I don’t know.”

The clerk frowned. “Date of birth?”

Knox’s laugh came out harsh and humorless. “If I knew that, do you think I’d be sitting here?”

That was when the police arrived.

Two officers, called in by a panicked security guard who had used the word intruder, stepped through the ER doors with hands resting on their holsters, eyes immediately locking onto Knox as if he were the obvious problem, which in a town like this he probably was.

“Caleb Mercer,” Officer Ronald Pike said, recognition flickering in his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”