PART 2: HE KNOWS YOU FOUND THEM

For several seconds, I could only stare at the pH๏τograph.

Seven children.

Seven names.

Children who had supposedly been victims of unrelated accidents.

But there they were.

Alive.

Standing together.

And behind them stood the man who ran the hospital.

My hands were still shaking when Marcus called my name.

“Dr. Jenkins!”

I turned.

The boy’s heart rate had dropped dangerously low.

“Get the crash cart!”

The entire trauma room moved at once.

Marcus started compressions.

Clara prepared the medications.

I secured the airway and shouted instructions over the alarms.

The boy was barely hanging on.

“Come on,” I whispered.

“You’re not dying here.”

His heart rhythm suddenly disappeared.

“Code blue!”

We worked for what felt like forever.

Then—

a beat.

Another.

The monitor came alive again.

His heart had returned.

The room exhaled.

I looked at the boy.

He was still unconscious, but alive.

For now.

I stepped away from the bed and looked at my phone again.

The pH๏τograph was still there.

Seven children.

One hospital director.

And a message meant specifically for me.

He knows you found them.

I immediately called hospital security.

“Lock down the pediatric wing.”

The security officer hesitated.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I looked toward the hallway.

“And don’t let anyone near Trauma Room 2 without my authorization.”

Minutes later, police officers arrived.

They took Martha into custody.

But before they took her away, I asked her one final question.

“Where are those children?”

She stared at me through tears.

“I don’t know.”

“You know something.”

“I only knew about the cast.”

“Then why did you say the hospital director was responsible?”

Martha lowered her eyes.

“Because he made me.”

“Made you do what?”

Her voice broke.

“Keep quiet.”

I leaned closer.

“About what?”

She looked toward the officers.

Then back at me.

“He has records.”

“What records?”

“Every child.”

She swallowed.

“Every injury. Every admission. Every family.”

My stomach тιԍнтened.

“Why?”

Martha shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

But her expression told me she knew more than she was saying.

Before she was taken away, she grabbed my wrist.

“He doesn’t want the children ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

I stared at her.

“Then what does he want?”

She whispered:

“He wants them controlled.”

The police pulled her away.

I stood frozen in the hallway.

Then Marcus approached.

“Sarah.”

I turned.

He held up a folder.

“We found something in the boy’s medical records.”

“What?”

“The cast wasn’t applied by an orthopedic surgeon.”

I stared at him.

“Then who applied it?”

Marcus looked uncomfortable.

“The hospital system says it was ordered by the director’s office.”

My heart sank.

“Six weeks ago.”

Six weeks.

The exact time the child’s mother claimed he had fallen.

I walked toward the director’s office.

Two security guards tried to stop me.

“Dr. Jenkins, the director isn’t available.”

“I don’t care.”

I pushed past them.

The office door was unlocked.

Inside, everything looked normal.

Too normal.

A polished desk.

Family pH๏τographs.

Awards.

Medical journals.

Then I noticed a locked cabinet.

I opened it.

Inside were patient files.

Dozens of them.

Children.

Names.

Dates.

PH๏τographs.

Medical reports.

And every file contained the same strange pattern.

Injury.

Hospital admission.

Treatment.

Discharge.

Then another admission months later.

I opened the first file.

A six-year-old boy.

Broken arm.

“Accidental fall.”

Second file.

Seven-year-old girl.

Severe burns.

“Household accident.”

Third.

Eight-year-old boy.

Head injury.

“Playground accident.”

I opened another.

And another.

My hands grew colder with every page.

They weren’t accidents.

Someone had been documenting these children for years.

Then I found a pH๏τograph.

It was the same seven children from the anonymous message.

But this pH๏τograph had been taken inside the hospital.

And standing beside them was the director.

On the back was a date.

Three years earlier.

Underneath it was a handwritten note:

“Phase Two complete.”

I heard footsteps behind me.

I turned.

The hospital director stood in the doorway.

Dr. Richard Cole.

Calm.

Perfectly dressed.

Smiling.

“You shouldn’t be in here, Dr. Jenkins.”

I stepped backward.

“What have you done to those children?”

His smile disappeared.

“You’ve misunderstood everything.”

I held up the file.

“Then explain this.”

He didn’t move.

Instead, he looked toward the hallway.

“You’re very curious.”

“Those children were never supposed to be found.”

My voice shook.

“Why?”

He stared directly at me.

“Because once people know where they are…”

He paused.

“…they’ll start asking who put them there.”

The lights suddenly went out.

The office fell into darkness.

I heard the door lock behind me.

Then Richard Cole whispered from somewhere in the room:

“Now you’re one of them.”

A second later, my phone buzzed.

Another pH๏τograph.

This time, it wasn’t of the seven children.

It was of me.

Taken that morning.

Standing outside Trauma Room 2.

Underneath it was a message:

“You should have left the cast alone.”

And in that moment, I realized something terrifying.

The boy hadn’t been brought to our hospital by accident.

Someone had sent him there.

Someone wanted me to cut that cast open.

Someone wanted me to discover the truth.

And now that I had—

they wanted to make sure I never left the hospital alive.