Chapter 1: Thirty-One Hours
She was so exhausted she didn’t even notice it wasn’t her car.
The shift had started thirty-one hours earlier, and Olivia Hart’s body had become a map of pure, unrelenting fatigue. Every muscle remembered the night. Her feet ached from the endless hallways she had sprinted down answering code calls. Her lower back burned from the heavy gurney she had pushed alone for three full blocks when the main elevator broke down at 3 a.m. Her eyes felt dry and gritty from staring at harsh fluorescent lights for far too long. Even her fingers were tired from charting, from holding patients’ hands, from adjusting oxygen masks and IV lines.
She had stopped feeling hungry hours ago. She had stopped feeling anything except the need to keep moving until the shift finally ended.
When the charge nurse finally told her she could go, Olivia nodded without speaking. She gathered her bag, pulled on her thin gray cardigan, and pushed through the side exit of the hospital into the cool October night. The air smelled of rain that hadn’t started falling yet. She tugged the cardigan tighter around her body and walked toward the curb on autopilot.
A row of black cars sat idling quietly in the dark, waiting for passengers.
May you like
Olivia didn’t check the license plate.
She never did when she was this tired.
She opened the back door of the nearest car and slid inside.
