Noah Bennett smiled and it's not the professional kind reserved for charts and credentials.
It was… real. Quiet. Intentional.
It was a smile that said, I see you.
I stood frozen, my throat closing around whatever breath I'd been planning to take. My heart stuttered and then picked up speed so violently I thought it might burst.
My first instinct was to look behind me—surely it wasn't meant for me. But the hallway was empty.
Just me.
And him.
A small, startled noise escaped my mouth—something between a cough and a laugh—and I panicked. I ducked my head and muttered something I don't even remember and walked faster, my shoulder clipping the corner of a gurney.
Smooth, Elena.
I didn't stop until I reached the stairwell two halls down. I pushed through the heavy door and let it slam behind me.
And there, under the harsh fluorescent lights and the cracked concrete steps, I leaned against the wall and tried to steady my breathing.
What just happened?
That smile—it had no place here. Not in this place. Not in my life. I was the background girl. The inventory. The afterthought. No one smiled at me like that. Not unless they needed something. Blood. Consent. Silence.
But Noah didn't ask for anything. He just… smiled.
I touched my hand to my chest, half afraid I'd find something broken there.
Then I remembered—I still had Cassandra's labs.
Damn.
I cursed under my breath and pivoted on my heel, retracing my steps through the dim, sterile corridors of the East Wing. The fluorescent lights above flickered weakly, casting long, distorted shadows on the linoleum floor. I moved slower this time, letting my body sink into the familiar rhythm of stealth—shoulders hunched, footsteps soft, breath held. I knew how to disappear. I'd been practicing it for years.
When I passed the hallway again, he was gone.
Just like that.
Vanished. Dissolved into whatever perfect space people like him come from—confident, collected, magnetic. People who don't just take up space, but own it. People who make you feel like you're not just being seen—but watched.
And yet, the smile lingered.
It stayed with me like a ghost, following me down the hall, into the elevator, through the click of the scanner that opened the door to the labs. It hovered in the back of my mind while I collected Cassandra's blood samples, double-checked the labels, and filed everything away like I was supposed to. Like a good little phantom.
But that smile... it refused to be filed.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I tossed and turned in the narrow bed that had been assigned to me when I was transferred here. The mattress was thin, the sheets stiff, the radiator in the corner long dead. My room was tucked away in the far end of the East Wing, where people were sent when no one quite knew what to do with them.
It wasn't mine—not really. Just another temporary holding space dressed up like stability.
The walls were a sterile off-white, the corners gathering shadows like dust. A single metal desk sat beneath the window, and a half-broken chair leaned against it like it had given up trying to be useful. I hadn't unpacked much. There wasn't anything to unpack. Just a duffel bag, half-zipped, like I might need to leave at any moment. Like I was still waiting for someone to tell me I didn't belong here.
Because maybe I didn't.
And maybe he saw that.
The moment kept replaying in my head like a scene caught in a feedback loop. The tilt of his head. The way the corners of his mouth curled upward—so subtle, but undeniable. The glint in his eyes, curious, amused, something else I couldn't name. And that raised brow. Like I'd surprised him.
But with what?
My presence? My silence?
Had he seen a girl in hospital scrubs, out of place and under-prepared, stumbling through someone else's life?
Or had he seen something deeper?
Someone frayed at the edges. Falling apart, piece by piece, but holding it all in with a smile and a clipboard.
I stared at the ceiling until my eyes hurt. Until I'd counted every crack, every water stain, every imperfection I could find. I wanted the room to anchor me, to remind me where I was, who I was supposed to be. But it didn't.
Nothing did.
And still, I kept thinking of him.
Not just the smile, but the feeling that came with it.
Like, for a second, someone had actually looked at me. Really looked.
And I wasn't sure if I hated that...
Or needed it more than I wanted to admit.
But the memory of his smile—it didn't feel assigned.
It felt like a choice.
And choices… they meant everything to someone like me.
The next morning, I took the long way to the lab. I told myself it was just to avoid seeing Cassandra. But a deeper part of me—the foolish part, the dangerous part—wondered if I might pass him again.
And I did.
He was walking out of the elevator just as I turned the corner. This time, I tried not to trip over my own hope.
Our eyes met for half a second—and I panicked.
I ducked into a nearby alcove and busied myself with the nearest bulletin board like it was the Sistine Chapel.
Coward, I hissed at myself.
I could hear his footsteps fading down the hall. No pause. No conversation.
But maybe that was safer.
Maybe it was good to leave that smile in the hallway where it belonged.
A single, impossible moment.
Still, I couldn't stop drawing him.
Later that day, when the world was quiet and the walls stopped closing in, I opened my sketchbook—the one I kept hidden inside the linen cart—and began to draw.
Not him exactly. I wasn't that bold.
I drew hands.
His hands.