Chapter 50

Chapter 50
Gracie

I walked to the bedside, slowly, each step feeling heavy, impossible. I reached out, my fingers trembling as they gently brushed his hair from his forehead. His skin was cool, almost cold.

"David," I whispered, the name a fragile plea.

He didn’t stir. The machines hummed their steady, rhythmic song. His chest rose and fell, shallow, but constant. He was alive. He was breathing. That was all that mattered.

I sank into the chair beside his bed, taking his hand, gently, carefully. It was limp in mine, but warm. I brought it to my cheek, pressing it there, feeling the fragile connection.

He was in this bed because he wouldn't stop digging. Because he was too good, too relentless. Because he was pulling on threads that people had died to keep buried. This was the cost of his unwavering pursuit of justice. And for a terrifying moment, the cost had almost been his life.

A fierce, protective rage surged through me, cold and sharp. This Killer. They had hurt him. They had dared to touch my David. They thought they could stop him. They thought they could scare him. They would learn. They would all learn.

I sat there, holding his hand, watching his peaceful, unconscious face, a promise forming in my heart. He would heal. And when he did, we would finish this. Together.

The sterile scent of the hospital room was cloying, sharp against the raw ache in my chest. I hadn’t moved from the chair beside David’s bed in hours. My hand remained clasped around his

, feeling the fragile warmth that seeped from his skin. The soft, rhythmic beeps of the machines were the only sounds, a constant, low thrum against the frantic beat of my own heart.

He was still so pale, his face slack in the deep sleep induced by the sedatives. The bandage on his shoulder was stark white, a cruel beacon against the hospital gown. Every time I looked at it, a fresh wave of something akin to cold fury washed over me. They had done this to him. This phantom, this monster. They had dared to touch him.

The image of Ben’s face, etched with dread, still flickered in my mind. "Poisoned dart... in the precinct." It was audacious. Terrifying. Who could even do such a thing? Move like a ghost through a secured building, strike with such precision, then vanish without a trace? The sheer nerve of it.

I stroked David’s hair back from his forehead, my fingers tracing the familiar lines of his brow. He’d been pushing himself too hard. I knew it. Had seen it building for weeks. That manic energy, the gaunt face, the hours blurring into days in front of his laptop, surrounded by the ugliness of the city’s secrets. He was burning himself out, completely consumed by the cases. He wouldn’t eat, barely slept. He was a force of nature, yes, his commitment admirable, but he was tearing himself apart.

Maybe… maybe this was a twisted way to force him to stop. To make him rest. To make him understand that he couldn’t keep going like that, not without consequences. It was a brutal lesson, an unforgivable act, but in a strange, detached way, I could almost understand the cold, calculating logic of a mind desperate to make a point. Whoever this Killer was, they operated outside the bounds, making their own rules. And their rules were uncompromising.

A silent promise formed in my heart as I watched David’s chest rise and fall with each shallow breath. They thought they could stop him. They thought this would break him. They were wrong. This would only make him more determined. And when he woke up, when he was strong enough, I would be right there beside him, helping him. Helping him find the bastard who dared to put him in this bed.

The irony of it, sitting here, seared through me. The emotions so raw, so utterly devastating, that they were indistinguishable from genuine despair. The tears that welled in my eyes now were real, for the danger he had faced, because of the pain he was in. But beneath it all, a cold, unyielding resolve hardened my heart.

The city was spiraling. I could feel it, even from this quiet hospital room. The news channels, flickering silently on a television mounted high in the corner of the room, showed endless loops of panicking anchors, dramatic headlines about "The Precinct Attack" and "City Under Siege." Rhodes’s face flashed across the screen, looking haggard, trying to reassure a terrified public. He was unraveling, everyone saw it. His fear was a potent weapon, forcing him to act, to push David to uncover the truth they tried so hard to bury.

This whole terrible game was reaching its crescendo. Davies, Thorne, Caldwell, Sterling. Each one was rotten and disgusting. And now David, the unwilling champion, he had been chosen to witness it all.

I gently ran my thumb over his knuckles. He was a fighter. He would pull through. And when he did, he would be even more dangerous. More focused. More unburdened by the illusions of how things "should" work. This forced pause, this brutal moment of vulnerability, would strip away any remaining complacency. He would understand the Killer's language, the uncompromising truth they demanded.

My thoughts drifted to the Assistant Commissioner, he was a weak man, exposed. He was panicking, losing control. He would inevitably make a mistake, a desperate move that would reveal even more. The city was holding its breath. The pieces were still moving, even with David out of commission. And when he finally opened his eyes, he would find a city teetering on the brink, and a determined partner ready to help him finish what he started. They would find this Killer. They would expose the truth. Every last, ugly bit of it.

Killer

That was the whole point of him getting hurt. To make him stop, to make him think, to help him see the bigger picture without all the noise from the case. And to make sure Rhodes was all alone, with no one to help him, no one to figure out what was really going on. Rhodes’s meltdown, even though he was just rambling like a crazy person, was a gift. It proved to everyone that the bad stuff David had been trying to show was real.

This whole twisted game was getting close to the end. Every person I took down, a new secret came out. The city wasn't just a place anymore; it was the one hearing my message the loudest. People were waking up. The quiet agreements that kept everything hidden were falling apart.

The detective would come out of this stronger, sharper, ready to fight even harder. He’d finally get how deep the corruption went, how far people would go to hide it. And when he did, when he finally pulled that last thread, when he saw the whole terrible picture I’d painted for him, then the real hunt would begin. Not just for some killer, but for the soul of Newport City itself. And I’d be there, watching, waiting for the very end.