Haelstorm1

Dr. Nora Keane returns to Westbridge Médical with a flawless record and a buried identity.
A decade ago, her ten-year-old sister died in that hospital  not by fate, but by failure.
Now she's back with a new name, a sharpened scalpel, and a single goal: to make them pay.
But between buried secrets and a dangerously observant Chief of Cardiology, revenge won't be surgical.
It will be personal.
Some wounds don't heal. Some doctors don't forgive.

PULSE REVENGE

She hadn't seen him in weeks. Not since the last statement was made public, not since the board officially settled, not since the air around Westbridge became breathable again, but somehow colder too. The chaos had died down, but in its place, something worse had crept in silence. Nora didn't need noise to feel unsettled anymore. Quiet was enough. Quiet was honest.

It was in that quiet that Elias returned.

She saw him first through the reflection of a window. He was standing near the vending machine, coat off, sleeves rolled, posture relaxed as if nothing had happened, as if the storm hadn't torn through everything they knew and left something else behind. He didn't smile. Neither did she. But their eyes met. And neither looked away.

She didn't call out. He didn't wave. Instead, they walked. Together, wordless, through the hallway like people heading toward the same verdict. No destination, no conversation, just footsteps echoing in a corridor that had seen too much and forgiven too little. When they reached the far end where the tall windows swallowed the last of the sunlight she stopped.

Her voice came first. Low. Controlled.

Elias didn't deny it. He didn't pretend to misunderstand.

She kept her gaze on the floor at first, like the words might shatter if she looked him in the eye.

"The day you walked into Westbridge. I didn't have your real name, but I had a file. And a face. Lily's file. Your eyes were the same. It wasn't hard to guess."

The hallway felt smaller now. Tighter. Like the walls were leaning in.

"And you said nothing," Nora whispered. Her voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.

Elias shifted slightly, not from guilt but from the weight of knowing that guilt was no longer enough.

"I thought I was protecting you," he said quietly. "Or maybe I was protecting myself. I told myself you had to choose who you were here. That interfering would make it worse."

Her jaw clenched. Her breath thinned.

"And when they came for me?" she asked. "When Brenner tried to bury me alive, where were you then?"

"I stood still," he said. "Because I was afraid of making it worse. And because... you were already doing what I never had the courage to do."

That silence returned. Thicker now. Almost unbearable.

Nora looked at him then. Not with hatred. Not even with anger. Just with a kind of ache that lives where trust used to be.

"You're a coward," she said. The words were simple, but they struck harder than any scream.

She waited for something else. An excuse. A justification.

"I'm not here for forgiveness," he finally said. "Just the truth."

She stared at him. And then, with the last breath of whatever bond had once existed between them, she gave it to him.

"Then here's mine," she said. "I'll never thank you. But I'll stop needing to hate you."

44.POST MORTEM