Chapter 2 - The Skyline View Through Broken Blinds
The safe house smelled of stale dust and old varnish. It was a sparsely furnished apartment on the tenth floor of a brick building that offered an identical view of the city skyline and the same distant landmark statue we had watched from the hospital window. I sat heavily on the worn sofa, wincing as the sudden movement pulled at the stitches in my right arm. The portable IV pole stood beside me, the fluid bag dripping at a carefully measured rate into the plastic line taped securely to my skin.
She moved with quiet efficiency, unboxing the medical monitor she had managed to smuggle out in a duffel bag and plugging it into the lone functioning outlet near the baseboard. The digital screen flickered to life, casting a pale blue light across her face as she adjusted the leads attached to my chest.
"Your heart rate is still elevated," she noted, her fingers tracing the edge of the white bandage on my arm to check for fresh seepage. "The infection hasn't cleared, no matter what the discharge papers claimed."
"They weren't real discharge papers," I muttered, leaning my head back against the upholstery. "Just paperwork to get me out of the ICU before the corporate security detail started asking for visitor logs."
She paused, her hands resting on my forearm. The physical proximity was unavoidable, breaking down the professional boundaries that normally existed between a nurse and her patient. Every touch carried a dual purpose: clinical necessity and an unspoken acknowledgment of our shared isolation.
"You haven't told me who they are," she said, her brown eyes meeting mine in the dim light of the fading afternoon. "I'm helping you hide, I'm changing your dressings, and I'm risking my license. I deserve to know what kind of target is painted on our backs."
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"Men who own buildings like the ones out that window," I replied, gesturing toward the dirty glass of the window. "They don't leave loose ends, and they don't lose court cases because they write the laws."
Before she could press further, a low rumble echoed from the street below. We both froze. Through the broken plastic blinds, a black sedan crept down the asphalt, its headlights off despite the gathering dusk. It slowed near the curb directly beneath our window, idling for three agonizing minutes before accelerating away into the shadows.
