The apartment door creaked open. Rodey stepped inside, shoulders heavy, shirt clinging to him, soaked with dark patches of blood. His eyes were hollow, his coat missing.
Alikae, lounging on the couch with her legs up and a bag of chips in her lap, nearly choked when she saw him.
"—Holy Jesus, WTH did you do?!" she blurted, pointing at his chest. "Why is your shirt soaked in blood? Rodey, please tell me you didn't go full Jack the Ripper out there."
Rodey didn't answer. He just dropped his bag on the floor and sank into a chair, his face buried in his hands.
Alikae stood up, chips forgotten. "Oh my god. You did kill someone, didn't you? You absolute psycho. This is why I don't date you—you'd probably stab me for eating your fries."
Her joke fell flat against his silence. His shoulders shook, not with laughter but with suppressed fury and grief.
Finally, he muttered, "There was a woman… in the alley. Five of them dragging her away. She was screaming. Everyone around just stood there. Watching. Pretending it wasn't happening."
Alikae froze, her sarcastic mask slipping. "…And you?"
"I couldn't walk away." His voice cracked. "I cut them down, one by one. Scalpel to the throat, to the chest. Until none of them were breathing."
Alikae pressed her palm to her forehead. "Jesus, Rodey… You're a doctor, not some… gangster from the movies."
He looked up at her, his eyes wet and blazing. "A doctor? What kind of doctor watches while people are broken and doesn't fight back? Hospitals only save the rich, Alikae. The poor bleed to death in hallways. Tonight—I couldn't just watch another life destroyed."
She swallowed, glancing at his bare shoulders. "…And your coat?"
Rodey's lips trembled. "I gave it to her. She was half-torn apart, exposed. I… I couldn't let her walk home like that. It was all I could give her."
For once, Alikae didn't have a comeback. Her gaze softened, though her voice still tried to lighten the weight.
"…You know, for a guy who just killed five people, you're way too soft. If Netflix makes a show about you, I'm voting they call it The Gentleman Butcher."
Rodey let out a bitter laugh, half-sob, half-growl. "Call it whatever you want. All I know is… something inside me snapped tonight. And there's no going back."
Alikae crossed her arms, her playful smirk gone. For once, she wasn't joking.
"You think this is noble, Rodey? That you can just cut people down in alleys and still call yourself a doctor?"
Rodey lifted his head, eyes red and burning. "I saved her."
"You killed five men!" she snapped. "That's not saving, that's bloodlust. Don't give me that protector crap. You're walking a line, and one day, you're not gonna know the difference between saving and slaughtering."
His hand trembled against the table. "You think I don't know that? You think I wanted this?" His voice cracked. "I wasn't always this way, Alikae. I wasn't always…" He trailed off, fighting the weight in his chest.
Alikae hesitated, then softened, but only slightly. "Then tell me. Because right now, you look less like a doctor and more like the devil himself."
Rodey's eyes darkened as memories surfaced.
"When I was thirteen, I had a sister. She was everything to me. Bright, loud, always dragging me out of trouble." He clenched his fists. "But one day… she got sick. Real sick. The doctors… they didn't care. They let her slip away because we couldn't pay what the rich could."
Alikae's lips parted, her arms dropping.
"I swore to my mother that day I'd become a doctor. That no family would suffer like we did. But I wasn't strong enough. Every hospital I worked at… every ward I walked through… it was the same story. The poor died on stretchers while the rich got miracles." His knuckles turned white on the table edge. "I tried to fight it. I reported corruption. I exposed the selling of organs. And you know what it got me?"
Alikae shook her head slowly. "…What?"
"Threats. Beatings. 'Stay quiet or lose your license.'" He looked down, his voice low and raw. "And then… my mother. A few days ago, she collapsed. Bad heart. I begged them to operate. But they told me, 'we have VIP patients ahead of her.' She died waiting for a bed."
The silence was suffocating. Rodey buried his face in his hands again, his voice muffled but breaking.
"I promised her I wouldn't lash out. When my sister died, I punched walls until my hand was shattered. My mother begged me never to go violent again. I swore it. But tonight… when I saw that woman screaming… I broke my promise."
Alikae's chest rose and fell, her usual sharp tongue caught between sympathy and fear. She walked closer, standing over him.
"You think I don't get why you did it? I do. But listen to me, Rodey—if you keep walking this path, you'll stop being the man your mother raised. You'll stop being a doctor. You'll just… be another monster in a world already crawling with them."
Rodey looked up at her with hollow eyes, whispering, "Maybe that's what the world needs now. Monsters to hunt monsters."
Alikae stared at him, her throat tight. "Or maybe it just needs you… before you lose yourself completely."