CHAPTER THREE: Code Blue

I stared at the message long after the screen began to dim.

Look closer.

The words were as meaningless now as they had been thirty seconds ago. There was no contact name, no profile picture, no previous conversation—nothing that suggested who had sent them or why. My thumb hovered over the keyboard before curiosity got the better of me.

Who is this?

I pressed send and waited.

The message delivered instantly, but no reply came. I watched the screen for another minute before letting out a quiet sigh and slipping the phone into my pocket.

"That was stupid."

Who sends a cryptic message to a complete stranger and then disappears?

Probably someone who had watched the birds fall before I did and decided it would be funny to frighten the first person they could find. New York had more than enough people with too much time on their hands. By lunchtime, I'd probably laugh at myself for even responding.

At least, that was what I wanted to believe.

I pulled my attention away from the window and walked into my bedroom. There was no point standing there trying to make sense of something that refused to be explained. If the city was descending into chaos, I'd hear about it soon enough.

The woman who looked back at me from the mirror appeared calmer than she felt. My dark brown hair had escaped the loose ponytail I'd tied it into earlier, and a few stubborn strands had fallen across my face. I tucked them behind my ears before gathering my hair into something neater. My blue eyes looked tired, though years of working overnight shifts had made exhaustion seem almost permanent. At five foot six, I had never been the tallest person in any room, but height had never mattered much in an emergency department. Confidence, quick thinking and a steady pair of hands counted for far more.

I changed into a pair of dark trousers, a light blue blouse and a charcoal jacket before reaching for my bag. My phone remained silent.

"Didn't think so."

Locking the apartment behind me, I slipped the keys into my pocket and headed toward the elevator. The familiar sound of a soft meow stopped me before I reached it.

"There you are."

A ginger cat emerged from around the corner with all the confidence of someone who paid rent. He stretched lazily, then walked straight toward me as though we'd arranged to meet.

"Morning, Politician."

He rubbed against my leg, purring loudly.

The elderly woman in 12B had named him almost two years earlier after joking that he could convince every tenant in the building to feed him without ever choosing sides. Somehow, the name suited him perfectly. He belonged to everyone and no one at the same time.

I crouched to scratch beneath his chin, earning an even louder purr.

"I'd stay and spoil you, but some of us have jobs."

Politician blinked slowly before wandering toward another apartment door, no doubt hoping breakfast would appear there instead.

"I see your campaign strategy hasn't changed."

The elevator doors slid open behind me with a soft chime. As I stepped inside, another ambulance siren echoed through the street below. Then another followed less than ten seconds later.

I frowned.

There were always sirens in Manhattan.

There weren't usually this many.

The elevator reached the lobby, and I stepped outside just as another emergency vehicle sped past the entrance, its lights flashing against the surrounding buildings. A security guard standing near the reception desk watched it disappear before shaking his head.

"Busy morning," I said.

"You could say that." He looked up from the small television mounted behind the desk. Every news channel seemed to be showing the same thing—crowds gathering behind police tape somewhere in Midtown. "Feels like the whole city's losing its mind."

"What happened?"

"They're still trying to figure that out."

He sounded as confused as everyone else.

I gave him a polite nod before stepping onto the sidewalk.

The air felt unusually heavy despite the clear morning sky. Traffic crawled through the streets, interrupted every few moments by another ambulance forcing its way through the congestion. People stood outside cafés instead of going in, their eyes fixed on their phones as news alerts appeared one after another. Others were looking upward, scanning the sky as though expecting something else to fall.

The pigeons were gone.

Not one circled above the buildings.

Not one perched on a traffic light.

For the first time since moving to New York, I couldn't hear birds.

The silence settled uneasily in the back of my mind.

My phone vibrated.

Emma.

I answered before the second ring.

"I was just about to call you," I said.

"I figured you would be on your way."

"I am."

"Good."

There was something in her voice that hadn't been there earlier. It wasn't panic. Emma was too experienced to panic.

It was strain.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

She didn't answer straight away.

"When I called you earlier, we had three unexplained deaths," she said quietly. "We're well past three now."

I stopped walking.

"What do you mean?"

"More ambulances keep arriving. Some patients are unconscious before they even reach the emergency department. Others are awake one minute and gone the next."

I felt my stomach tighten.

"The same symptoms?"

"Every single one."

"And the bleeding?"

A brief silence followed.

"Yes."

People brushed past me without slowing, each one absorbed in their own conversation or the news flashing across their screens. Somewhere behind me, another siren rose above the morning traffic.

"I'm about ten minutes away," I said. "Has anyone from the CDC been contacted?"

"Not yet."

"What about the Department of Health?"

"They've been notified."

"And the medical examiner?"

"They're already here."

That answer alone told me how serious the situation had become.

"What aren't you telling me, Emma?"

She drew a slow breath.

"The hospital just activated its mass casualty protocol."

I looked across the street toward the line of ambulances racing downtown.

Mass casualty protocols weren't activated because of three unexplained deaths.

Whatever had begun less than an hour ago...

...was spreading.

Emma's words lingered in my mind long after the call ended.

Mass casualty protocol.

In all the years I'd worked in emergency medicine, I'd only seen it activated during large-scale disasters—major pileups, building collapses, terrorist threats. Hospitals didn't disrupt their entire system unless they believed they were about to receive more patients than they could safely handle.

I slipped my phone into my pocket and picked up my pace. Every instinct I had as a doctor was urging me to get to the hospital as quickly as possible, yet another part of me couldn't stop replaying the message I'd received.

Look closer.

The timing was too precise.

Whoever had sent it knew something was wrong before I did. Whether it was a cruel coincidence or something far more unsettling, I couldn't shake the feeling that the message hadn't been random.

A loud engine roared past as another ambulance raced through the intersection ahead, narrowly missing a taxi that had frozen in the middle of the road. The driver leaned on his horn, but no one seemed interested in arguing. The usual impatience that defined New York mornings had been replaced by confusion. People stood in clusters outside office buildings, watching the emergency vehicles speed toward the same destination.

My destination.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital came into view less than ten minutes later.

Even from across the street, I knew something was terribly wrong.

Ambulances lined the entrance bumper to bumper, some still idling while paramedics unloaded patients onto stretchers. Security officers struggled to keep the growing crowd of reporters and anxious family members away from the emergency department doors. Nurses hurried in and out carrying equipment, their expressions tense, while police officers barked instructions that disappeared beneath the wail of sirens.

This wasn't organized chaos.

It was chaos desperately trying to become organized.

I crossed the street, weaving between parked emergency vehicles until I reached the ambulance bay. One of the paramedics looked up as I approached.

"Dr. Sinclair?"

I nodded.

"They've been asking for every available physician. Go straight inside."

"What are we dealing with?"

He hesitated, as though he wasn't sure how to answer.

"I don't know."

Those three words unsettled me more than they should have.

Paramedics always had an idea. Trauma. Stroke. Cardiac arrest. Overdose.

They never said they didn't know.

I thanked him and hurried toward the entrance, but something caught my attention before I reached the doors.

One of the stretchers had been pushed off to the side while the paramedics rushed another patient inside. The woman lying on it couldn't have been older than thirty. Her eyes were closed, and oxygen tubing rested beneath her nose. Apart from the dark streaks of blood trailing from the corners of her eyes and nostrils, she looked as though she were asleep.

Then her eyelids fluttered.

I stopped.

She wasn't dead.

Slowly, she turned her head. Locked her hand to my wrist. Which brought me very close to her.

Her eyes opened.

They locked onto mine with startling clarity.

Her lips moved.

At first, I couldn't hear anything over the sirens.

Then she whispered two words.

"Look... closer."

The cardiac monitor beside her emitted one long, continuous tone.

She was gone.