Chapter 183: DOUBTED LOVE

SURACHAI KASEM'S POV (Age 34):

We were pulling gutted shamans out of back alleys all week. Three bodies in five days. Chalk outlines washing away in the monsoon rain. The brass called it a gang war and tried to sweep the mess under the rug. Sompong and I knew better. The slaughter started the exact same day Yaak Thuk Jotlom supposedly died. The kid was leaving a trail of bodies behind him, and the department was looking the other way.

The paperwork crossing my metal desk was a joke. A bad, insulting joke. Phuchong supposedly unclasps his cuffs, escapes the infirmary, walks half a mile past the guard towers, breaks into a maximum-security solitary block, cuts Yaak's throat, and evaporates. No alarms tripped. No guards alerted. Then the kid's body gets fast-tracked to the furnace. Pre-signed consent forms. Zero autopsy.

Cons don't walk through solid concrete walls. Dead kids don't book their own cremations. Yaak faked it. He pulled the strings from inside that cell, and the only person in a position to help him pull it off was Queenie.

I loved her. That made the reality hurt worse than a knife. The idea of Queenie aiding a mass murderer made my stomach turn, but the details piled up faster than I could knock them down. She worked the morgue. She handled the transport. She was the sole witness to the assassin's escape.

I tailed her for three nights. I slept in the driver's seat of an unmarked Toyota. Lived on cold espresso and nicotine. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to catch her doing something normal. Dropping her keys on the pavement. Buying bad street food. Missing her train stop and cursing at the schedule.

Instead, I sat in the dark and watched her clear blind spots. I watched her check reflections in the glass of noodle carts before turning corners. You don't pick up counter-surveillance in a hospital triage ward. She was moving through the dense Bangkok crowds like a phantom. Tracking her felt like tracking a ghost.

Tonight, she finally broke routine.

She took a hard left down a dead-end alley off the main road. No street vendors. No foot traffic. She dropped to the pavement. A man was slumped against the brick. I stuck to the shadows, killing my engine and creeping up behind a stack of rotting shipping pallets. The smell of wet garbage masked my approach.

Dr. Lert. The charity surgeon with rumored Chaiya syndicate money backing his clinic. His expensive dress shirt was soaked in dirty puddle water. Queenie was gripping his shoulders, hunting for a pulse. I felt an ugly, pathetic spike of jealousy hit my chest. I’m tracking a serial killer, I haven't slept in three days, and I’m getting bent out of shape over a doctor catching her attention. My tired brain shifted gears. Maybe her erratic schedule had nothing to do with Yaak. Maybe she was just sneaking around with Lert in the dark.

The temperature in the alley crashed.

The sweat on the back of my neck literally turned to ice. The orange streetlamps didn't just flicker; they choked out completely. A massive, gray shape dragged itself straight out of the concrete behind her. It was impossibly tall. The instinct I inherited from my shaman grandmother didn't just warn me—it screamed. That wasn't a shadow. It was a massive, hollow shape with no face. The air pressure spiked so hard it physically crushed my chest. My ears popped.

My hand dropped to my holster. I shifted my weight on the balls of my feet, ready to draw and hit her out of the way.

But Lert inhaled. A harsh, wet gasp that echoed off the brick. His eyelids flew open.

The black shape above them cracked apart like cheap glass. It shattered into gray mist and blew away in the humid wind. Queenie didn't look up. Her fingers stayed pressed to his pulse. I just stood there in the shadows, my hand gripping my weapon, unable to make my brain process the impossible.

"Surachai? What are you doing out here?"

Sant leaned against the alley entrance, picking his teeth. Panic hit the back of my neck like a lit match. I shifted my stance fast to block his view down the passage.

"Getting food," I told him, forcing my voice to stay flat. "You?"

"Friday night," Sant snorted, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "Thought I saw you duck in here."

"Just a shortcut," I grunted.

"To a brick wall?" He stepped closer, peering over my shoulder.

"Surachai?"

The voice came from right behind me. Cover blown. I turned around. Queenie stepped out of the dark. She brushed dirt from her skirt, totally composed. I looked past her shoulder into the gloom.

Lert was nowhere. I didn't hear footsteps. I didn't hear a car engine. The alley was a dead end. He was just gone.

"Queenie." My neck burned.

"Well look at that," Sant jumped in. He stepped right into our space, grinning like an idiot. "Evening, Nurse Queenie. You two hanging out?"

She gave him a polite, flat smile. "No. We just bumped into each other."

"Right," Sant said, drawing out the syllable. "In a dead-end alley. At midnight." He knew exactly what he was doing.

"I was walking home," Queenie said. "Shift just ended."

"Perfect," Sant grinned. "Surachai can walk you. Make sure you get there." He started walking backward toward the main street. "Have a good night!"

I cursed him in my head. I looked at Queenie. My hands were sweating.

"I'll walk you," I told her.

She nodded. We walked. The wet pavement echoed under our shoes, a steady, hollow tap against the quiet city blocks. My hand hovered by my belt. My cop brain yelled that she was an accomplice to murder. My chest just felt tight because she was close.

The silence between us dragged on for two excruciating blocks. She was the one who finally broke it.

"You are walking like you expect to get shot, Surachai."

I swallowed, refusing to look away from the dirty concrete ahead of us. "The precinct is a slaughterhouse right now. Hard to drop the habit."

She pulled her jacket tight against her ribs. "The infirmary is just as bad. The guards are losing it. They refuse to do patrols alone." She cut her eyes toward me. "They keep talking about Yaak. They say that body in the furnace was a decoy. They say he walked."

I lost my step. I stopped and stared down at her. Heavy dark circles bruised the pale skin under her eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Her canvas bag was clutched so tight to her chest her knuckles were white. The detective in my head warned me she was fishing for secrets, trying to gauge how much the police actually knew. But looking at her shaking hands, it was hard to see anything besides a tired nurse breaking down under the stress of a haunted prison.

"Dead bodies mess with people's heads," I grunted. "They panic."

Queenie stopped walking. She turned to fully face me under the streetlamp.

"Maybe," she murmured. "But look at your face. Your skin is gray. You look ready to collapse right here in the dirt."

I didn't answer. She took a half-step closer.

"You look at everyone on the street like they're a threat," she said. "Like they're hiding a weapon." Her dark eyes searched my face. "Do you look at me like that?"

The paranoia in my gut completely caved in. Pure shame hit me instead. She wasn't some criminal mastermind pulling strings for a ghost. She was terrified. She was a civilian stuck in the middle of a bloodbath, and I was stalking her through the alleys. I was treating the woman I cared about like a homicide suspect.

"No," I said. I dropped my shoulders, physically letting the tension bleed out of my posture. I just looked at her. "No. I don't."

A small, tired smile showed up on her face. It made my chest hurt.

"Good," she whispered. "Because out here... you are the only person I trust."

I felt like an absolute idiot. The job was ruining my brain. I opened my mouth to apologize. I was going to promise to stand outside her door every single night until this case was closed.

I never got the words out.

Something slammed into the back of my skull. Hard.

White flashed behind my eyes. A wet crack sounded inside my own ears. The impact rattled my teeth. My legs went entirely numb. The concrete rushed up and smashed into my jaw.

Everything fractured. Black spots swam everywhere, blotting out the streetlamp. The taste of hot copper filled my mouth. I tried to push myself up, but I couldn't move my arms. Total paralysis.

Through the ringing, I saw Queenie's shoes step into my line of sight.

She didn't scream. She didn't kneel down to check my pulse.

The last thing I saw before it all went black was Queenie standing perfectly still, staring down at my bleeding head with absolute, dead-eyed indifference.