The room smelled like too-clean sheets and lemon sanitizer. Bianca stared at the ceiling, counting the small cracks in the plaster above her head. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been doing it. Long enough for the bruises to fade from purple to yellow. Long enough to remember her captor’s voice in perfect clarity. Long enough to start thinking about what came after rescue.

Outside her door, voices flickered.

"...slipped right past SWAT, left them chasing shadows."

Bianca’s breath froze.

A nurse’s voice now hushed. “They’re saying it wasn’t even his base. Just a burner site. Whole setup was designed to be abandoned.”

She sat up slowly, pulling the blanket off her lap.

The killer was gone.

Again.

He ran.

She looked at the IV in her arm, the healing scab on her cheek, the fingerprint bruises that hadn’t quite vanished. None of it felt real anymore. Not compared to the weight in her chest.

He’s still out there.

Not because no one was looking.

Because no one could see him.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold against her feet. Every joint screamed, but she didn’t care. She needed to move. To breathe. To think.

In the quiet hum of the hospital corridor, something settled inside her not grief, not rage, but something colder.

Clarity.

He thought he’d broken her.

He hadn’t.

He thought running would end it.

He was wrong.

Because next time… she wouldn’t be the one in a box