The first thing I remember is the sound of plastic moving when I breathe.
A dry, rasping drag in the dark, inches from my mouth. The air is thick and chemical, laced with disinfectant and something coppery that coats the back of my throat. My lungs seize, kick, scrape for oxygen that isn’t there.
Panic hits so fast it’s almost quiet.
I try to sit up and slam into slick resistance. My forehead bounces off something hard above me. My hands jerk, fingers skating over cold vinyl. Walls, inches away, everywhere. I’m wrapped, zipped, sealed.
No. No.
The word doesn’t make it out. It just ricochets inside my skull while my pulse goes from zero to detonation.
I shove hard. My elbow screams. The plastic bag crinkles, shifts, but there’s a zipper lock somewhere I can’t find. My chest is a vise. There’s no room to move, no light, no sound but the frantic thudding in my ears and the thin, ugly wheeze of me trying not to suffocate.
I am in a body bag.
The realization slams into me with cold, brutal clarity. Images flash—autopsy photos I’ve scrolled past on news pages, crime podcasts describing toe tags and steel drawers. My stomach flips. I dig my nails into the vinyl, surge with everything I have left.
“—am I late for the party or are you just dramatic?”
The voice is muffled but close, male, bored in the way of someone who’s seen too much. It cuts diagonally through my terror. There’s a metallic clack—latches—and then a vertical blade of light knifes through the darkness as a zipper shrieks open over my face.
Cold air slams into my lungs. I suck it in like it’s liquid, coughing so hard my ribs ache. Fluorescent light burns my eyes. For a second I can’t see anything past the white glare and the blurred outline leaning over me.
Then he comes into focus.
He’s wearing black nitrile gloves and a fitted charcoal shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. There’s a white coat thrown over the back of a swivel chair behind him instead of on his body—like formality is optional, but power isn’t. His hair is dark, too neat to be an accident, eyes an indeterminate gray that catches the fluorescent light and doesn’t let it go.
He looks like someone who spends a lot of time around corpses and none of it surprises him.
“Easy,” he says. His voice is low, unhurried, the kind you lean in to hear without realizing it. “You try to bolt upright and you’re going to crack your head on the tray again.”
Again.
My hands fly to my face. No stitches. No tape. There’s a tenderness along my hairline, a bloom of pain when I touch it. I drag my fingers down to my throat. My skin is bare. No tubes, no IVs. Just a thin hospital gown and the icy bite of air on legs that feel like I’ve run a marathon in my sleep.
“What—” The word fractures in my raw throat. “Where am I?”
“A sub-basement of the Mercer Forensic Complex.” He straightens, giving me space that doesn’t feel like space at all. “More specifically, cold storage. You were in Drawer Thirty-Two. You’re welcome for the upgrade.”
“Cold storage.” The syllables are thick on my tongue. I lift my head despite the warning and look past him.
