"We should go back to the exam room."
Alex stood there in the hospital hallway, looking way too calm for someone who'd just figured out I was there to kill him. Nurses bustled past us, pushing wheelchairs and carrying clipboards, like this was just another normal Tuesday afternoon.
It wasn't.
"Why would we do that?" I asked.
"Because standing in a hallway talking about death gods probably isn't the smartest move." Alex glanced around. "And because I wasn't finished examining you."
"You examined me plenty."
"Not even close." His eyes met mine. "If I'm right about what you are, then what just happened to your heart shouldn't be medically possible. I want to understand it."
I should have walked away. Should have left the hospital, called Marcus, and figured out a new approach. But something about the way Alex was looking at me—not afraid, not disgusted, just... curious—made me hesitate.
"Fine," I said. "But this doesn't change anything."
"Of course not."
We walked back to room 7 in silence. Alex closed the door behind us and flipped the lock. The small click seemed way too loud.
"Sit on the bed," he said, washing his hands again at the little sink.
"This is ridiculous."
"Humor me."
I sat down on the narrow exam table, the paper crinkling under me. "What exactly are you planning to do?"
"Full cardiac workup. EKG, echocardiogram if needed." Alex pulled on latex gloves. "I want to see what's happening inside your chest."
"And then what?"
"Then maybe we'll both have some answers."
He wheeled over a machine I didn't recognize—lots of wires and a small screen. "I'm going to attach some electrodes to your chest. You'll need to remove your shirt."
"Excuse me?"
"It's a medical procedure, Raven. I'm a doctor."
"You're also my target."
"Which makes this interesting for both of us." Alex started untangling the wires. "But right now, I'm more interested in your heart than my impending death."
This was insane. I was letting the man I was supposed to kill run medical tests on me. But my curiosity was stronger than my sense of self-preservation.
I pulled off the hospital gown, leaving me in just my bra. Alex's movements stayed professional, but I caught him glancing at the spot over my heart where my skin looked slightly different—paler, with faint marks that might have been scars if I'd been human.
"Interesting," he murmured, placing the first electrode.
"What?"
"Your skin. Right here." His finger traced a line just below my collarbone. "It's like there was trauma at some point, but it healed completely."
"I wouldn't know."
"No memory of it?"
"I don't exactly remember being made."
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Alex paused, another electrode halfway to my chest.
"Made?"
Shit. "I meant born."
"No, you didn't." Alex attached the rest of the electrodes, his touch gentle but efficient. "You said made. Like manufactured."
"You're hearing things."
"Am I?" He flipped on the EKG machine. "Let's see what your heart has to say about that."
The machine started beeping immediately. Alex frowned at the screen, adjusting dials and pressing buttons.
"That's... weird," he said.
"What's weird?"
"Your heart rhythm. It's showing up on the monitor now, but..." He pulled up a chair next to the machine. "See this pattern here?"
I looked at the screen. Lines zigzagged across it in what looked like random spikes. "I see squiggles."
"These squiggles show electrical activity in your heart. Every heartbeat creates a specific pattern." Alex pointed to different parts of the reading. "This is what a normal heart looks like. This is what someone with heart disease looks like. And this..."
He tapped the screen showing my results.
"This is what someone's heart looks like when it's starting up for the first time."
My mouth went dry. "That's impossible."
"That's what I said." Alex leaned back in his chair. "But the evidence is right here. Your heart muscle shows signs of never having been used before today."
"Hearts don't just... start working."
"No, they don't. Hearts start beating in the womb, around six weeks into development. They beat every day for an entire lifetime. They develop wear patterns, microscopic changes that show decades of use." Alex looked at me. "Your heart has none of that. It's like a brand new engine being turned on for the first time."
I stared at the machine, watching the lines dance across the screen. Each spike represented a heartbeat—something I'd never had until last night.
"How long?" Alex asked quietly.
"How long what?"
"How long since you've been alive?"
The question hit harder than I expected. "I've always been alive."
"Have you? Or have you been something else?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't answer.
Alex made some notes on his tablet, then started removing the electrodes from my chest. His fingers were warm against my skin, careful not to pull too hard.
"I want to try something else," he said.
"What?"
"An echocardiogram. Uses sound waves to take pictures of your heart." Alex wheeled over another machine, this one with a wand attached to a cord. "It's completely painless."
"Why?"
"Because I want to see if the structure of your heart matches the electrical activity."
He squeezed gel onto the wand—cold and slippery. "This will be cold."
Alex pressed the wand against my chest, moving it slowly around the area over my heart. The machine's screen showed grainy black and white images that looked like nothing to me.
"Fascinating," Alex murmured.
"What now?"
"Your heart chambers. They're perfect. No wear, no calcification, no signs of aging." He moved the wand to a different position. "How old did you say you were?"
"I didn't."
"Right. Let me guess—older than you look?"
I stayed quiet.
"Your heart looks like it belongs to a newborn," Alex continued. "Perfect valve function, ideal chamber size, optimal muscle thickness. But the electrical system shows it's never been active until recently."
He set down the wand and wiped the gel off my chest with a warm towel. "Put your shirt back on."
I pulled the hospital gown over my head, my mind racing. "What does all this mean?"
"It means," Alex said, cleaning up the equipment, "that you're not human."
"I never said I was."
"No, but most people who aren't human don't walk into emergency rooms asking for heart exams."
"Most people who aren't human don't suddenly develop working hearts either."
Alex paused. "Is that what happened? Your heart just... started?"
"Last night. When I touched someone."
"Who?"
I hesitated. "A patient. Harold Morrison."
"Harold Morrison in room 314?"
"You know him?"
"I was consulting on his case yesterday. Terminal lung cancer, scheduled to die..." Alex stopped. "Oh."
"Oh what?"
"You were there to collect him."
The words hung in the air between us. I nodded.
"But you couldn't do it," Alex continued. "Because when you touched him, your heart started beating."
"How could you possibly know that?"
Alex sat down on the rolling stool, suddenly looking tired. "Because Harold Morrison should have died last night at midnight. His cancer was too advanced, his organs were shutting down. There was no medical reason for him to survive."
"But he did survive."
"He did more than survive. This morning his numbers are better than they've been in months. It's like someone hit a reset button on his entire system."
I stared at Alex. "That's impossible."
"So is a three-hundred-year-old death god developing a heartbeat, but here we are."
The casual way he said it made me flinch. "I never told you how old I was."
"You didn't have to. Everything about you screams ancient power trying to figure out how to be human."
"I'm not trying to be human."
"Aren't you?" Alex leaned forward. "When's the last time you felt anything before yesterday?"
"I don't feel things."
"You felt pain when you touched Harold."
"That was different."
"How?"
"It just was."
Alex was quiet for a moment, studying my face. "When I touched your wrist earlier, and your heart started beating—what did that feel like?"
I didn't want to answer. Didn't want to admit that for just a moment, touching him had felt like coming home after centuries of wandering.
"Painful," I lied.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Because from where I was sitting, you looked like someone who'd just remembered what it felt like to be alive."
He was right, and that terrified me.
"This doesn't change anything," I said. "I still have a job to do."
"Killing me."
"Yes."
"In about sixty-four hours."
"Sixty-three."
Alex nodded. "Can I ask you something?"
"You've been asking me things all afternoon."
"This is different." He moved closer, close enough that I could see gold flecks in his brown eyes. "Do you want to kill me?"
The question should have been easy to answer. Of course I wanted to kill him. It was my job. It was what I was made for.
But looking at his face, at the way he was watching me like I was something precious instead of something deadly...
"It doesn't matter what I want," I said.
"It does to me."
"Why?"
"Because I've been waiting my whole life for someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
"Someone who understands what it's like to be different. To be alone." Alex reached out slowly, giving me time to pull away. When I didn't, his fingers brushed against my cheek. "Someone whose heart beats because of mine."
That electrical sensation shot through me again, stronger this time. My heart responded immediately, speeding up until I could feel it against my ribs.
"See?" Alex smiled. "You do feel things."
I jerked away from his touch. "I have to go."
"Wait."
"No." I stood up, backing toward the door. "This was a mistake."
"Raven—"
"Don't." I turned the lock and yanked open the door. "Whatever you think this is, you're wrong."
"Am I?"
I paused in the doorway. "Yes."
"Then why is your heart still beating?"
I looked back at him. Alex was still sitting on that rolling stool, looking at me like he could see straight through all my walls and defenses.
"Sixty-three hours," I said.
"I'll be here."
"Don't be so sure about that."
I walked out of room 7 and down the corridor, my heart doing that weird fluttering thing the entire time. Doctors and nurses moved around me, going about their normal lives, having no idea they'd just witnessed a death god get a cardiac exam from her target.
But as I reached the elevator, one thought kept nagging at me:
If Alex Chen could make my heart beat just by touching me, what else could he do?
And more importantly—what did that make him?
End of Chapter 4