CHAPTER 4: Predators in the Hallway
“I don’t want any brain surgery,” Ashley stated, his voice clear and final. It cut through the clinical murmur of the room. “I want to be discharged. Now.”
The hospital room felt like a cage now to him, its sterile walls pressing in on him. And worse, two men in dark suits stood flanking Dr. Evans, their presence a silent, physical threat.
It was Security. To ensure he stayed.
Diana moved closer, her gentle hands hovering near his shoulder. “Ashley, please. They just want to help. This could fix things.” Her eyes pleaded, but he saw the deeper worry there—the fear of what would happen if he refused.
He looked at her, this woman who believed she was his mother. He felt a pang of something unfamiliar—pity, perhaps. But his mind, Void’s mind, was already calculating. Surgery meant more time trapped, more vulnerability, more chances for them to poke around and find something wrong with this brain that wasn’t Ashley’s. “I am fine,” he insisted, the words flat. “Let me go.”
Diana’s voice tightened. “Listen. I… I had to get Cole to agree to pay the bills. Don’t let this go to waste.” The confession was rushed, desperate.
Ashley’s gaze hardened. He didn’t need charity, especially not from a man whose name already curdled in his gut. “I don’t want his money. Keep it.”
As the words left his mouth, the door swung open.
A man stepped in, and the air in the room changed. He was tall, built with a broad-shouldered authority that filled the space. His suit was impeccably tailored, dark and expensive.
It's Cole.
Ashley’s eyes locked onto him, and a strange, electric jolt ran through his nerves. The face was unfamiliar, but the aura… it was familiar. A presence of absolute, contemptuous control. It prickled at the edges of Void’s fragmented memory.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Cole said, his voice a smooth baritone. He embraced Diana briefly, a perfunctory gesture. Then he turned, his eyes—dark, piercing, and utterly cold—settling on Ashley. “How are you, boy?” He adjusted his tie, a small, dismissive motion.
Ashley didn’t answer. He was studying him, reconstructing the man’s posture, the sneer barely hidden beneath a polite mask. He smelled not just pride, but a deep, ingrained arrogance.
Cole’s eyebrows lifted slightly. On a normal day, Ashley would have been groveling. This silence was a deviation, and a problem. “What’s wrong with him?” Cole asked the nurse, his tone implying the staff was incompetent. “Can’t he speak?”
“Perhaps he’s just—”
“I don’t want the surgery,” Ashley interjected, his voice slicing through the nurse’s tentative explanation.
Diana flinched. “No, Ashley, stop saying that!”
Cole’s lips twitched. A small, dark smile bloomed. “You heard him,” he said to Diana, his voice dripping with faux reasonableness. “He doesn’t want my help.” He turned his full attention to Ashley. “So be it.”
Ashley met his gaze directly. “It’s not as if you wanted to give it in the first place.”
The smile on Cole’s face froze, then solidified into something colder. He clasped his hands, a gesture of contained power. He was furious, but he was masking it with a veneer of pride. “So be it,” he repeated, the words a dismissal. He turned and walked out, his polished shoes clicking a definitive rhythm on the marble floor.
Diana shot Ashley a look—a mixture of panic and you’re going to regret this—before rushing after her husband. “Cole, please, listen!” Her voice chased him down the hallway.
Ashley heard the muffled exchange outside his door. Cole’s voice, a low thunder: “I don’t tolerate disrespect, especially from a rag like him!”
Diana’s pleading, softer: “He’s suffering from brain damage, he doesn’t mean—”
“The only thing that stopped me from hitting him back there was you, you saw him talking rudely at me didn't you. ” Cole snarled, the threat naked and clear. “Trust me, I will deal with him mercilessly.”
Ashley listened, his body tense. The original Ashley had been a target for this man. A rag. The word fit. He looked at his own hands, slender and pale. A rag could be twisted, torn, discarded.
He heard Diana’s final, defeated plea, and Cole’s last, icy words: “He disrespected me. So be it.” Then the sound of footsteps fading, and the distant hum of a car engine.
Silence returned, thicker than before. Ashley moved. The pain in his ribs was a sharp, grounding reality, but he ignored itbas he stood, slowly, testing the limits of this borrowed body. He found his old clothes—rough, tattered jeans and a thin sweatshirt—folded in a plastic bag. He dressed, the fabric feeling alien against his skin. He slung a small backpack over his shoulder, the weight insignificant.
He walked to the door and locked it from inside.
A minute later, a frantic knocking. “Ashley? Honey, did you lock the door?” Diana’s voice was high with alarm.
He didn’t answer. He waited, letting the panic in her voice rise. Then, calmly, he unlocked it and pulled the door open.
She stood there, her face a canvas of shock. He was dressed, ready to leave. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
“I told you I’m leaving,” he said, his voice low but firm. He tried to limp past her, but her hand shot out, gripping his arm.
He peeled her fingers off, the movement deliberate and strong. “Either help me get home,” he said, staring into her wide eyes, “or let me go. Why can’t you just listen to me?”
She backed down, stunned. This wasn’t her sweet, compliant Ashley. This was someone else. Someone with a cold fire in his wary blue eyes.
Ashley saw her retreat, and the anger in him softened, replaced by a tactical need. “Please,” he said, the word a strategic concession. “I don’t want to fight. Just take me home.”
She nodded, defeated. She settled the bills—bills Cole would now never pay—and led him out.
The city outside was a grim panorama. Grey skies hung over buildings that seemed to lean in, oppressive. As their car wound through the streets, Ashley saw a cluster of official vehicles and police cordoning off an area. “What’s happening?” he asked, his gaze sharp.
Diana glanced out. “There have been… unnatural occurrences lately. The bureau is investigating.”
Unnatural occurrences? The phrase resonated in Void’s mind. It wasn’t just him. Something was wrong with this world.
As they drove past the scene, a man in a sharp suit was being escorted into a car by security. Ashley caught his profile, he is in his early forties, and he has this air of command. And his eyes, as they briefly met Ashley’s through the window… there was a flicker there. An old feeling, arecognition that wasn’t recognition. Ashley’s breath hitched.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Diana assured him, her voice trying to soothe.
The car drove on, leaving the city’s core and descending into a neighborhood of crumbling brick and cracked pavement. The glamour of Cole’s world vanished. This was the ghetto. The car stopped before a dilapidated apartment building, graffiti scrawled across its facade.
Ashley stepped out. The street smelled of damp concrete and despair. A few figures lurked in shadows, their eyes hollow. “What is this place?” he asked, his voice tight.
Diana turned, her expression pained. “This is where you live, honey.”
He chuckled, a bitter sound. “I thought… what about your husband’s house?”
She was quiet for a long moment. “We… we talked about it. Cole and I are trying to make arrangements. I’m trying.....”
He cut her off with a raised hand. The fury boiled up again, but he swallowed it. “I understand,” he said, the words flat. “You don’t need to explain.”
He turned to go inside, but Diana hurried after him. She slipped an envelope into his palm, her movements furtive, her eyes glancing back at the waiting driver. “Use this,” she whispered. “Take care of yourself. I don’t want them to see.”
He looked at the money, then at the driver, a silent sentinel of Cole’s control. He understood. This was her secret rebellion. “Thank you,” he muttered. He kissed her forehead, a gesture that felt both alien and necessary, and they parted.
The hallway inside was dark, smelling of mildew and stale smoke. He limped slowly searching and wondering where his room was. He slowly regretted it becayse he could have just aksed her to show him. He walked, searching his senses alert. Then, two men materialized from a shadowed corner, blocking his path. They were young, tattooed, one bald, one with dyed red hair. Vape pens hung from their lips.
“Well, well,” the bald one said, his voice predatory. “Look who finally showed up.”
Ashley needed no one to tell him, this is danger, but he tried to ignored them, trying to sidestep.
The bald one shoved him back, a rough impact that jarred his injured ribs. “The fuck? Why are you acting like you don’t know what we’re here for?”
Ashley sighed, the pain a sharp reminder of his vulnerability. “I don’t know you. I’m tired, and I—”
“He can talk back?” the red-haired one mocked, laughing. “Thought you couldn’t talk, dweeb?”
The insult clicked into place. This body’s history was a map of humiliation.
“Give us the goddamn envelope, like usual,” the bald one demanded, his eyes greedy. “Then we let you go.”
Ashley’s fingers tightened around the envelope in his pocket. They were predators. They waited for his mother’s secret charity and then stole it, because the original Ashley couldn’t fight back.
But today, that ended. He wasn’t Ashley. He was someone else. Someone who had walked through lightning and a trap. He looked at them, his gaze steady, his body aching but his will iron.
“No,” he said, the word simple and absolute.
