There was blood on the floor.
Not a lot — just a smear. But in a hospital, even a smear could tell a story.
Kamsi froze at the entrance to the private ward, her heart tightening. The cleaning crew had just finished their rounds. Whoever left that blood had done so recently.
She bent down slightly, observing the dark maroon line. Too thick for a nosebleed. Too diluted for a laceration. Her instincts clicked on like a switch. Someone was hiding something.
Behind her, Nurse Ijeoma came hurrying. "Ma, the girl in Room 12—"
"What about her?"
"She collapsed again. She's refusing blood work."
"Why?"
"She says the last time someone took her blood, she fainted and woke up in a strange place."
Kamsi's brows furrowed. "Strange?"
"She said someone injected her with something and she couldn't move."
Kamsi looked up slowly. Room 12 was Adaora's room.
She inhaled sharply.
Inside Room 12, Adaora sat curled on the bed like a child. Her eyes were alert, too alert — the kind of awareness that came after trauma, after your mind had stopped trusting your body.
Kamsi pulled a chair and sat beside her.
"Who injected you?"
Adaora looked at the wall, lips trembling.
"You can tell me, Adaora. You were sketching something that night. A face. Whose face was it?"
Adaora shook her head, fiercely. "If I talk, they'll come."
"Who?"
Adaora pointed to her left arm. There were faded needle marks, older than the recent ones. This wasn't self-inflicted. It was practiced. Repeated.
Kamsi's skin crawled.
"Who gave you these?"
"I don't know their names. Just white coats. Laughter. Sometimes music. Always cold."
Kamsi rose to her feet slowly, anger rising like bile in her throat. Somebody was using the hospital as cover. And Adaora wasn't mad — she was a witness.
The next morning, Kamsi walked straight into the administrative archive room. She spent hours digging through personnel files. She needed to know who had access to the psych wing, who signed in and out at odd hours. There were missing pages. Redacted names. Digital logs that had been mysteriously wiped clean after midnight.
Someone was hiding a trail.
At exactly 12:32 p.m., Tega appeared in the doorway.
"You're digging," he said, leaning against the frame.
"I'm not stopping."
"You think it's someone on staff?"
"I think it's worse."
He came closer. "Let me help."
Kamsi eyed him. "Why?"
"Because I know what it's like to miss the signs until someone bleeds on your hands."
She swallowed, remembering his story. The boy. The mother. The silence.
"Fine," she said, finally. "But we don't breathe a word of this until we know more."
He nodded. "Deal."
That night, they met in the staff library — the only place without CCTV coverage, ironically. The blueprints of the hospital were spread out on the table between them.
"There's an unused surgical suite under the west wing," Tega said, tracing a faded line with his finger. "It was shut down after the flood last year. But power still runs through it."
"Could someone be using it?" Kamsi asked.
"Only one way to find out."
They waited until the midnight shift.
Moving through the west wing was like walking through a forgotten tomb. The tiles were cracked, the lights flickered, and the silence was almost loud.
Tega pushed open the rusted steel door to the basement stairs.
"After you," he whispered.
Kamsi didn't reply. She took the lead.
They descended into the dark corridor. A faint humming sound echoed — like a generator or a machine running underground.
Then they saw it.
A light under the door at the end of the hallway. Not the pale glow of a bulb. Fluorescent. Medical. Active.
Kamsi's pulse quickened.
They crept closer. A soft murmur of voices came through the door. One male. One female. Then the clink of metal.
Tega looked at her.
She nodded.
He turned the knob.
The door didn't budge.
Fingerprint lock.
Kamsi stepped back. "We need access."
Tega's phone buzzed. A message. He checked it.
His face went pale.
"What?" Kamsi asked.
He showed her the screen.
It was a photo.
Of her.
Asleep.
In her call room.
The message: Stay out of what doesn't concern you, Dr. Okonkwo.
Kamsi's breath caught.
They were being watched.
By the time they returned upstairs, the corridor had emptied. But the silence was no longer peaceful — it was threatening.
Kamsi locked her office door behind her. She slumped into the chair, mind racing.
"This isn't about Adaora anymore," she said aloud.
Tega sat across from her. "No. It's about all of us."
She leaned forward. "Whatever this is, it's not just criminal. It's systemic. Maybe even... funded."
Tega looked grim. "And maybe that's why so many patients disappear from this hospital without records."
Silence.
Then Kamsi stood up.
"I'm calling Nwachukwu."
"Nwachukwu? The investigative journalist?"
She nodded. "She owes me a favor."
By the next morning, Adaora was gone.
The room was stripped. No bedding. No records. No discharge.
Gone.
Like a ghost.
Kamsi stood in the middle of the room, rage and fear mingling in her throat.
Tega appeared beside her.
"They're sending a message," he said.
Kamsi turned to him.
"Then let's send one back."
That evening, under the fading light of the hospital courtyard, Kamsi and Tega met Nwachukwu behind the canteen. She wore dark sunglasses and a leather file clutched to her chest.
"Are you sure you want to go public with this?" she asked them.
"Not yet," Kamsi said. "But we need a backup. If anything happens to us—release it."
Nwachukwu nodded. "I'll dig too. Quietly."
"And I need help tracing where Adaora could have been moved," Kamsi added.
"You'll have it," Nwachukwu replied. "But you both need to be very careful. What you've stepped into isn't ordinary corruption. It smells like organized exploitation."
Tega clenched his fists. "We're doctors. We were trained to heal people, not let them be used like lab rats."
Nwachukwu offered a grim smile. "Then let's see how far you're willing to go to fight it."
As she walked away, the air felt colder.
Kamsi looked up at the hospital building — the very place she had once considered her second home. Now it felt like a war zone, a prison, and a battlefield all at once.
"Whatever this is," she murmured, "it started long before Adaora. But it ends with us."
Tega placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Then let's make sure we finish it."