The hospital lights were dim, sterile and cold—the kind of cold that didn’t just touch your skin, but sank into your bones. You lay half-conscious, stitched together with steel staples and painkillers after going toe-to-toe with Benjamin Poindexter. You’d fought like hell to make it out alive—barely did.

And then she walked in.

Karen Page. Blonde hair tied in a loose braid. Dark coat clinging to her like stormclouds. Her boots echoed against the tile floor as if the air recognized her grief before she even spoke.

She hadn’t been seen in months. Not since Foggy Nelson’s funeral. Some said she went upstate. Others claimed she left the country entirely. But you knew what loss did to people—it sent them somewhere the rest of us couldn’t follow.

Until now.

She stood over your bed, her eyes rimmed red, not just from the weather. “You look like hell,” she murmured, voice cracking just slightly.

You managed a half-smile. “You should see the other guy.”

Karen sat down slowly. There was something haunted in her expression—like every thread tying her to the world had worn thin, but yours had somehow held.

“I wasn’t going to come back,” she said quietly. “Not until I saw your name on the trauma report. And then I saw his name in the incident log.”

Poindexter.

The man who killed Foggy. And almost killed you.

She reached out and adjusted your blanket. Her hand trembled only a little.

“I left because I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t save him. Couldn’t save Matt. Couldn’t save anyone.”

You looked at her, eyes heavy. “But you’re here now.”

Her mouth tilted into something that might have been a smile. “Yeah. And I’m not leaving again. Not until this ends.”

Then she leaned forward, whispering low so only you could hear:

“I’m going to put a bullet in that bastard’s spine.”

And somehow, despite the pain, you slept better that night.