Chapter 4

    The rain didn’t let up. It never did in this part of the city. It pounded against the rooftops and the windows like a surgeon hammering nails into the lid of a casket. I stood in the doorway of my office, watching the slick street below, the pavement glowing faintly under the sick yellow lights. There was a stillness hanging in the air, the kind that came after too much noise, too much gunfire, and too many unanswered questions.

    Inside, the phone sat silent on my desk, though it felt like it was always ringing in my head. My hands trembled when I lit another cigarette, the flame flickering in the stale air. The cold hadn’t left my bones since that night at the foundry. Achilles was still there, somewhere, like a tumor you couldn’t cut out.

    Madeleine hadn’t called. She was probably holed up somewhere, keeping out of sight, hoping Achilles wasn’t tracking her movements. But I knew better. You didn’t run from something like Achilles. You didn’t outrun what was already inside you.

    Then the phone broke the silence. It rattled the air, loud and shrill, like a scream through the dead night. I stared at it for a second, the noise settling into my skull like an echo. When I finally picked up, the line crackled. There was no voice on the other end, just breathing. Slow, deliberate.

    “Who is this?” I asked, my voice colder than I meant.

    The response came after a beat, low, guttural. “Achilles.”

    I felt it again—that icy drip down my spine, as if the very mention of his name had the power to freeze something deep inside. He didn’t wait for me to speak. “South Ward Clinic. Room 22.”

    He hung up. The line clicked dead, the cold lingering like the touch of a scalpel.

    The South Ward Clinic. It was a place they sent the broken ones. The ones who came out of it alive but never quite the same. It wasn’t far, but it was far enough to make me wish I wasn’t going. I grabbed my coat and headed out into the rain, the cigarette still burning between my fingers, but it was already as dead as the conversation I just had.

    The clinic sat in the middle of the industrial district, squeezed between a condemned warehouse and a rail yard that hadn’t seen trains in years. Its windows were black, the ivy crawling up its brick walls like veins on pale skin. The lights inside flickered dimly, casting long shadows that stretched across the wet pavement.

    Inside, the air was cold and antiseptic, smelling like bleach and rot. It was the kind of place where people came to disappear. I made my way down the long hallway, the tile floors reflecting the faint glow of the fluorescent lights above. Each step echoed, the sound bouncing off the empty corridors, creating a din that pressed in on me from all sides.

    At Room 22, I hesitated. The door was slightly ajar, a sliver of light spilling into the hallway. I pushed it open slowly.

    She was lying on the bed, her eyes half-closed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Wires snaked out from her arms, leading to machines that beeped softly in the corner, steady and unfeeling. Her skin was pale, her lips dry. Madeleine.

    The sight hit me like a bullet. She looked fragile, like someone who had been drained too many times and had nothing left to give. The machines pulsed rhythmically, each beep a reminder of how close she was to slipping away.

    “Achilles,” I muttered under my breath. He had done this. Of course, he had. This was his version of mercy—a slow, cold drip.

    A low laugh came from the corner of the room, pulling my attention away from Madeleine. Achilles was there, standing in the shadow, his arms crossed, his eyes gleaming under the brim of that damn hat.

    “You came,” he said, his voice like ice cracking.

    I stepped forward, my fists clenched. “What the hell did you do to her?”

    He didn’t answer, just tilted his head slightly, watching me like a doctor studying a patient before making the first incision. “I didn’t do anything she didn’t ask for.”

    “She didn’t ask for this,” I growled, but even as I said it, I wasn’t so sure. Madeleine had always been the type to invite danger, to get too close to the fire. But this—this was something else. Something worse.

    Achilles walked over to the machines, his hand grazing the wires hooked into her, fingers light, almost tender. “We’re all hooked into something, aren’t we? Some of us just take a little longer to run out of juice.” He looked at me, eyes like two dark pits. “She’s not dead. Not yet. But she will be. Eventually. We all will.”

    The sound of the machines grew louder, the beeping filling the room, the steady hum of life being kept on a thin, cold thread.

    “What do you want?” I asked, my voice low, barely controlled.

    Achilles smiled, a thin, hollow smile. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what’s already in motion. The wheels turn. The drip falls. And in the end, it’s all just noise.” He glanced at Madeleine, then back at me. “You can try to save her if you want. But we both know the truth. This city drains people dry. It doesn’t care who they are. Or what they’ve done.”

    He stepped back, his hand brushing against the wires one last time before he turned toward the door. “I’ll be seeing you.”

    The door clicked shut behind him, the sound echoing in the cold, sterile air. I stood there, staring at the machines, at Madeleine’s pale face, and felt the weight of it all crashing down on me.

    The rain continued to fall outside, relentless, like a heartbeat you couldn’t stop.

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