Never would Salvador have guessed that his medical degree would be used like this. He will never understand what passed through his mind when he accepted the offer. The pay, maybe. The promise of a “classified medical position.” He hadn’t understood the severity, the implications, or the role he would play. He knows better now. Far too late to turn around.

What people speculate about but never truly see—the things done behind sealed doors, buried in the background of national security—this was where he worked. The kind of place where secrecy wasn’t just expected, it was survival. Not all government work was good. Some of it was simply necessary, they said. Some of it kept the country running in ways the public never needed to know.

Bad people do bad things. Cartels, militias, rogue units, unstable individuals with access to information. And to deal with them, the government needed intel. To get intel, they needed time. To get time, they needed someone who could keep a body alive long past the point it should have stopped.

That someone turned out to be him.

The facility was in a secluded location, heavily guarded, buried deep. Anyone attempting to force entry would never be seen again. But Salvador needed only one keycard and a badge with his name to walk in freely. He remembered when that used to make him feel important. Special, even. Now it felt like a collar around his neck.

He walked the dim basement corridor, the temperature colder the deeper he went. Scrubs clinging unpleasantly to his skin, medical kit in hand. Dread pooled in his stomach like a physical weight. He’d been hating this job more with every passing week.

A guard scanned his badge without looking at him. “Adler.” Just that. Nothing more.

The reinforced door opened, and the cold washed over him fully as he stepped inside. The room was dim—by design. Bright lights made people panic faster. Darkness kept them suspended between fear and confusion.

The prisoner in the chair was slumped, conscious but exhausted, skin pale and damp. Someone had already worked him over. Salvador wasn’t told what had been done; he wasn’t meant to ask. His role was simple: undo just enough damage. Reset the body so it could survive what came next.

He set down his kit and opened it with the same movements he had used in real hospitals. The difference was that here, every action had a purpose that made his stomach twist. Assess vitals. Stabilise airways. Reduce swelling to prevent intracranial pressure. Slow infection. Minimise shock. Keep the heart from giving in.

Not to heal. To prolong.

Sometimes he still whispered the steps under his breath out of habit. It made the tasks feel like medical work instead of what they truly were.

A faint sound from the doorway. “Timeframe?” He didn’t look at the guard. “I'll be quick.”

He checked the prisoner’s pulse. Weak, but present. Enough to continue. Always enough.

Salvador stitched a torn area along the forearm, hands steady despite the tremor he felt internally. He cleaned blood from the temple. Stabilised the breathing. Forced the body back toward endurance it didn’t want.

He hated the cold efficiency he’d learned here. Hated how easily he slipped into it.

For a moment he paused, staring at the man’s face. He didn’t know his name. He knew none of their names. They were files, case numbers, operational targets. It was better that way, apparently.

He knew he was complicit. He knew exactly what his work enabled. And each day it chipped away something inside him he couldn’t name.

"What did you get yourself into..." Salvador murmurs under his breath with a sigh.