"I—I got stuck."
The words barely finished leaving Nguyen's mouth before Sharon moved.
Not like a doctor.
Like a decision.
Like something inside her had finally snapped into place and locked.
No warning.
No discussion.
No chance for anyone to stop her.
Sharon snatched another syringe from the tray, thumb already depressing the plunger to clear air, and drove the needle straight into Nguyen's thigh with practiced force.
"Sharon—!" Patel shouted.
Too late.
Nguyen gasped once, sharp and startled, then her knees buckled. Sharon caught her under the arms as her body went slack, lowering her hard to the floor.
Her head hit tile with a dull knock that made Reyes flinch. For half a second, Nguyen's lashes fluttered—confusion, betrayal, the beginning of panic—then the sedative swallowed it. Her pupils widened, then rolled back as if her body had decided it didn't want to be present for what came next.
"She's out," Sharon said, already moving. "She'll stay that way."
Reyes stared, horrified. "What did you—"
"Fast-acting sedative," Sharon snapped. "Drops heart rate. Slows circulation."
Nguyen lay still on the tile, eyes rolled back, chest rising shallow and uneven.
The air felt tight—like the room had shrunk around them. Like the hospital itself leaned in close to watch.
Patel shook himself into motion. "Sharon, you can't just—"
"I can," Sharon said, voice razor-flat. "And I just did."
She grabbed Nguyen's hand.
The puncture site was already swelling, the skin around it flushed and angry, veins standing out like dark threads beneath translucent skin.
It was moving.
Not visibly—but Sharon could feel it. A warmth that didn't belong. A pressure that pulsed faintly against her fingers.
Like something had been poured in and was now looking for a route.
Like it had teeth even when you couldn't see them.
"Scalpel," Sharon barked.
Reyes froze. "Wait—what?"
"Scalpel. Now."
McAllister's face drained of color. "Sharon—"
"We cut it off," Sharon said. "Before it spreads."
Nguyen's heart monitor showed a sluggish rhythm now. Slow. Controlled.
Exactly what Sharon wanted.
Patel swallowed hard. "You're talking about amputating her finger."
"Yes."
"You don't know if—"
"I know enough," Sharon said. "Bites turn. Scratches don't. This is blood-to-blood. Direct injection."
A beat of silence hit the room.
Not because they agreed.
Because every one of them saw the same image at once: Nguyen waking up later, smiling weakly in relief, and then—minutes after—her jaw snapping shut hard enough to crack teeth.
Or worse: not waking up at all, while something inside her learned how to use her body.
Evan growled.
Low.
Wet.
The sound slid across the room like oil.
Everyone turned.
Evan's body strained against the restraints, muscles bunching unnaturally beneath the sheet. His head jerked to the side, jaw snapping open and shut, teeth clacking hard enough to echo.
Foam spilled from his mouth again—thick, pink-tinged.
It dripped onto his chin and neck, stringing as he breathed, as if the saliva itself didn't want to fall—like it clung because it was changing.
"He's reanimating," McAllister whispered.
"No," Sharon said, eyes never leaving Nguyen's hand. "He already did."
Her gaze flicked once—just once—to Evan's mouth.
To the way his lips pulled back from his teeth like he was already practicing what he'd do if the straps failed.
Then she held out her hand again. "Scalpel."
Reyes's hands shook as she placed it in Sharon's palm.
The blade gleamed under the harsh light.
It didn't look like a tool.
It looked like a verdict.
"Tourniquet," Sharon ordered.
Patel moved on reflex.
His fingers trembled, but his training held. He looped the strap around Nguyen's finger and pulled until the skin blanched, until the veins flattened, until blood stopped daring to travel.
They wrapped it tight around Nguyen's finger, cinching until the skin blanched white.
Nguyen didn't stir.
Good.
"Alcohol," Sharon said.
Reyes poured it liberally, the sharp smell cutting through blood and fear.
It pooled in the creases of Nguyen's hand, ran in thin streams down her wrist, and dripped onto the tile—tiny clear rivulets that looked obscene against the dark smears already staining the floor.
Outside the door, something slammed hard—once, twice.
The lone officer shouted something muffled, desperate.
Evan screamed.
Not a human scream.
A tearing sound that came from deep in his chest, straining vocal cords that no longer cared about pain.
His body bucked violently. The restraints groaned.
"Hold him," McAllister said, backing away instinctively.
"He's secure," Patel said, though his voice shook.
Sharon didn't look at Evan.
She brought the scalpel down.
The blade bit cleanly into flesh.
Reyes gagged.
Blood welled instantly—dark, thick, slow—pressing up around the blade like the body was reluctant to let anything leave. Sharon didn't pause. She cut through tendon with the same cold efficiency she used to cut through fear.
Bone resisted for a split second—then gave with a soft, wet crunch that Sharon felt through her wrist.
She didn't hesitate.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't stop until the finger came free in her gloved hand.
For a fraction of a second, it looked almost unreal.
A finger shouldn't be separate from a person.
It shouldn't still look warm.
It shouldn't still feel like Nguyen.
Blood poured, dark and thick, slower than it should have been—sluggish, like it didn't want to leave the body.
"Cauterize," Sharon said.
Patel moved fast, pressing gauze, then heat.
The smell of burned flesh filled the room.
It was immediate—hair and meat and something chemical underneath, like infection being cooked into the air. Reyes' eyes watered. McAllister swallowed hard enough the sound carried.
Nguyen's body jerked once under sedation, a reflex, then stilled again.
Sharon dropped the severed finger into a specimen container and sealed it.
The click of the lid sounded louder than the screams.
"Time," she said. "Mark it."
Reyes's voice trembled as she checked the clock. "Twenty-seven seconds from exposure."
"Good," Sharon said.
Evan slammed his head back against the bed.
The sound cracked.
His eyes rolled wildly, milky and wrong, tracking movement without recognition.
His lips peeled back from his teeth.
"Sharon," Patel whispered. "He's watching us."
"I know," she said.
But there was something worse than watching.
There was learning.
Evan's gaze wasn't the frantic darting of fear anymore. It was deliberate. Like the sound of the blade had registered. Like he understood—on some sick, stripped-down level—that the people in this room were capable of doing violence with purpose.
Evan lunged again.
The restraints held—but barely.
Plastic creaked.
Metal squealed.
"Sedatives won't stop him," McAllister said. "His heart rate's not spiking. He's not reacting like—"
"Like a living person," Sharon finished.
She looked down at Nguyen.
Alive.
Sedated.
Missing a finger.
Possibly saved.
Possibly not.
And suddenly the whole room felt like it was balanced on a thin edge: blood versus time, mercy versus math.
Outside the door, the moaning grew louder. Closer. A chorus now.
Hands dragged along the wall.
The officer yelled again—fear thick in his voice.
Sharon stood slowly.
Every joint in her body protested. Not from exhaustion—though that lived in her bones—but from the weight of what she had just done. She had crossed something that didn't have a return path.
"We watch Nguyen," she said. "We watch Evan."
She peeled off her gloves and stared at the blood smeared across them.
Like proof.
Like confession.
"This is the line," Sharon said quietly. "Once it crosses into the bloodstream—"
Evan snarled, saliva spraying, head thrashing against restraints that bit into his wrists.
"—you don't come back," Sharon finished.
She looked at Nguyen's bandaged hand.
Then at Evan's teeth.
Then at the door.
And she knew—deep in her bones—that whatever was happening inside this building was moving faster than they could ever hope to stop.
Not faster than sound.
Not faster than fear.
But not faster than a blade.
And that was the most terrifying part of all.
Because it meant the only thing still beating it—
was them.