Sirens || d.h.

Seventeen

As a doctor, you were accustomed to ensure that when patients failed to breathe or had a shortness of breath, you would take the initiative to return them to normal again. You would, with the speed of lightning and with a surgeon's precision, solve them of their predicament. There was no conscious thought, no hesitance, no awareness of what you were doing until you were finished. To you, it was as if second nature - saving people from the problem of suffocation, to help them breathe once more.

However, then and there as you absorbed the news delivered by Jay Hopkins, you realised how helpless the receiver of your aid was. Your breathing stopped immediately, hitched in your throat, and your mouth turned dry and coarse like sandpaper. You couldn't form a coherent thought let alone a proper sentence and what escaped your mouth was nothing but gibberish. Blinking, stance faltering, still in stubborn disbelief, for once in your professional expertise, it was you that forgot how to breathe.

And no one present in the room could save you.

Stumbling a few steps, blinking several more times to regain your composure, you straightened up and tugged at your shirt, trying to appear businesslike. Jay, still entranced in a bubble of concern, did not stay to wait for your baffled expression and apparent shock to recover. Instead, he had disappeared down the corridor, trying to find Dan's GPS with his phone to seek out his location. Mumbling indiscreet spluttering sentences and ruffling his hair deftly, he bit his lip and continued his fruitless search.

You assessed the situation with cold, sweaty palms.

Firstly, Gaby was dead. Without an inkling of the method and the reason in which she had passed, it left you frustrated with yourself about how easily you had let her slip through your fingers. It was evident that people were baying for her blood, considering she had just turned into a key witness to the case of the series of insurance scams that had skyrocketed a few years back. It was also proof enough when a man had arrived to finish her, and the force he applied on the soft part of her neck indicated anything but a friendly gesture.

Presently, you were not concerned over the court case, for that was not what you were supposed to be worried about, but rather you were more aggravated about the fact that you previously had a lead and shred of information but had disappeared like thin air. Just like with Dan, back to square one.

Speaking of Dan, you thought of him with a slight constriction of throat and a cold sweat breaking out in the lines of your palms, the betrayal of your actual emotions bubbling beneath the surface of your resolve stunned you. But deep inside you, igniting like a fire burning under gasoline, you knew you had to keep it together – for you, or for Dan, or for Jay – you knew with certainty that you had to maintain your composure.

Jay was currently looking at you with concern swimming in his eyes, yet he did not express it, in fear you might lash out in denial. Instead, he continued to explain in a slightly hushed voice, yet the urgency did not decrease in its potency. "I don't know when he left. When I came back, the door was fine. It feels like he left with a sane mind – or, as sane as Dan can get after one of his fits. He isn't answering my calls, or reading my texts, and I can't track his location because his phone is probably off."

"Yes, I understand very well, Jay Hopkins, I do not need you to repeat it." You replied hastily, standing up and waving Jay's offered hand away. "What exactly have you done to search for him besides the obvious tactics? That is what I wish to know."

"Besides what I said earlier, nothing else. I've contacted his family, but they said he never talked to them in... well, ever since he moved to London with me. I've rung his friends, any form of person that is in association with him, but there was nothing. So the last clue I can get is you. What time did he leave you here? What time did he drug you?"