Camille’s eyes went wide.
“…What?”
Kelly exhaled hard on the other end, the sound scraping through the line.
“You left just in time.
Not long after you drove off, a group of armed men showed up outside the bar.
Nobody knows who they were or what they wanted, but people started panicking.
Security locked the entrance, someone called it in, and within minutes the whole place was surrounded.”
Camille’s grip tightened around the phone until her fingers ached.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Kelly said, quick, brushing past it.
“Police brought everyone still inside to the station to give statements.
A few people got out before they arrived.
Most of us weren’t that lucky.”
Camille let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding since the words armed men left Kelly’s mouth.
“Thank Goodness.”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Cam.” The worry in Kelly’s voice cracked through the last of its composure.
“You just disappeared.
I checked the parking lot, I checked outside, I went back into the bar before they shut it all down—”
Guilt settled into Camille’s chest like something physical, heavy and immediate.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
She glanced toward the emergency room doors, at the hallway swallowing everything that had happened in the last two hours.
“I’ll explain when I get there.”
A pause stretched between them.
“Cam.” Kelly’s voice softened, all the frantic edges suddenly gone.
“You’re okay, right?”
“…I’m okay.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Another silence — shorter this time, like Kelly was deciding whether to believe her.
“Fine.
Just get to the station as soon as you can.
I’m tired of sitting here alone.”
“I will.
Just hold on a little longer.”
“Like I have a choice,” Kelly muttered, some of her usual bite creeping back in, and Camille almost smiled despite everything.
The call ended.
Camille sat there a while longer, staring at the dark screen of her phone like it might rearrange itself into something that made more sense.
Nothing about the last two hours felt real laid end to end — Brielle’s voice cutting into her like a blade dressed as small talk, the drive she barely remembered taking, a stranger’s weight collapsing against the hood of Kelly’s car, the particular warmth of blood on her own hands, and underneath all of it, the one fact she hadn’t told anyone yet — that the stranger wasn’t a stranger at all, that she’d stood two feet from him three weeks ago apologizing over a ruined jacket, and that everything she’d learned about him tonight, less than an hour before she found him bleeding on that road, made the whole night feel considerably less like coincidence than she wanted it to.
She caught herself rubbing her palms together, slow, absent, as if she could still feel it there under the skin.
“Miss Wilson?”
She looked up.
A nurse stood in front of her, holding a neatly folded, transparent package against one arm.
“We’ve finished cleaning your dress.”
Camille took it carefully, like it might still be fragile.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome to wear the hospital uniform home — Dr.
Devin already cleared it.” The nurse nodded toward the bundle in Camille’s arms.
“Thank you so much.
Really.”
“It was no trouble.” The nurse offered a small, tired smile before moving off down the corridor.
Camille looked down at the package in her hands.
Somewhere under that plastic was the same black satin dress that had been soaked dark just an hour ago — and now, cleaned, pressed, folded like nothing had ever happened to it.
If anyone saw it hanging in her closet next week, they’d never guess what it had been through tonight.
Funny, she thought, how some stains came out with enough water and patience.
And how others just settled in and stayed, no matter how hard you scrubbed.
She tucked the package under one arm and rose to leave — and two uniformed officers stepped into her path before she’d gotten three steps.
“Miss Camille Wilson?”
She stilled.
“Yes?”
The older one offered a polite, practiced smile.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions about the man you brought in tonight.”
Her stomach knotted.
“Is he alright?”
“He’s being treated.
We just need some details, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.”
The questions came steady, one after another — what time she’d found him, exactly where, whether she’d seen anyone else nearby, any strange vehicles, whether he’d given her a name.
She answered what she could without lying outright: how he’d appeared out of nowhere in front of the car, how she’d been certain for one horrifying second that she’d hit him, how she’d realized he was already bleeding before she’d even touched the brake, how the only thing he’d said clearly was the name of this hospital.
She left out the rest.
That he’d grabbed her wrist and begged her, with the last clear breath he seemed to have, not to call the police.
That he’d said someone was coming.
That she’d looked down the empty road afterward and seen headlights closing in, and driven away faster than she’d ever driven in her life.
None of that felt like something two officers with notebooks needed to hear, not tonight, maybe not ever — some instinct she couldn’t fully explain telling her that handing over those particular details might put her, or him, in more danger than either of them were already in.
She didn’t mention that she already knew exactly who he was, either.
The question had been whether *he’d* told her his name — and technically, he hadn’t, not tonight, not once.
She told herself that made her answer true.
Some quieter part of her recognized it for what it actually was: a choice, not an accident.
Combined with everything she’d learned less than an hour earlier from a bartender who’d lowered his voice like the name itself was dangerous to say too loudly, it all made her keep what she knew locked firmly behind her teeth.
The two officers traded a brief look she couldn’t read.
The senior one closed his notebook.
“Thank you for your cooperation.
That’s all we need.”
She let out a slow breath.
“I hope he makes it.”
“So do we.” A short nod, and they were gone, disappearing around the corner of the corridor.
She watched the space where they’d been for a second longer before letting her shoulders drop.
“Looks like the interrogation’s over.”
She turned to see a fair handsome young man, draped in white coat with a name tag reading Dr.
Devin.
He wore a smile as he approached, unhurried, his white coat still crisp despite what had clearly been a very long shift.
“I wouldn’t call it an interrogation exactly.”
“Fair enough.” He stopped in front of her, something warm and genuine in his expression.
“I wanted to thank you myself.”
She shook her head immediately.
“You don’t need to.
I nearly ran him over.
I only brought him in because I felt responsible.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Responsible or not,” Devin said gently, “you still saved a man’s life tonight.” He let that sit a beat before adding, almost as an afterthought, “We also had someone clean the bloodstains out of your car, by the way.”
“My car—”
“It was unlocked,” he said, with a small apologetic smile, “so a couple of the staff took care of the interior while you were waiting.
I hope that’s alright.”
Something in her chest loosened, unexpected.
“That’s more than alright.
Thank you.”
A pause settled, and her expression turned serious again.
“How is he?”
“Surgery went well.
He lost a lot of blood, but he’s stable now.”
Relief moved visibly across her face.
“Thank God.
I’ve been sitting here dreading the answer to that.”
“You don’t have to anymore.”
She nodded slowly, then hesitated as another thought caught up with her.
“The surgery — that must have cost a fortune.
I don’t have that kind of money, but if there’s a part of the bill I’m meant to cover—”
“The bill’s on us,” Devin said, cutting in gently, like he’d been expecting the question.
She blinked.
“What?”
“The hospital’s covering it.
You don’t owe anything.”
“But—”
“You brought him through those doors alive,” he said simply.
“That’s more than enough.”
She looked at him for a long moment, something in her chest easing that she hadn’t realized was still clenched.
Then she smiled — a real one, the first all night that didn’t cost her anything to produce.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He glanced at the package under her arm.
“Go on.
I imagine someone’s waiting on you.”
“She is.
I should get going.”
“Drive safe.”
“I will.”
She gave him one last grateful nod and headed for the entrance, the automatic doors sliding open to let the cool night air wash over her.
Her steps slowed for a moment when she spotted Kelly’s BMW sitting exactly where she’d abandoned it, and for a second the whole night rushed back at once — the collision, the blood, the drive here with her heart in her throat.
She climbed in.
The interior smelled clean, faintly of some hospital-grade solvent, not a trace of what had happened left behind.
She rested both hands on the wheel and let her forehead drop against it, eyes closed, just breathing for a moment before she made herself sit up and turn the key.
The city slid past in the dark as she pulled out of the lot, streets nearly empty this late, traffic slowly thickening the closer she got to downtown.
Almost twenty-five minutes later, the glowing blue sign of the precinct rose up ahead of her.
She parked across from the entrance, gathered the package holding her dress from the passenger seat, and took one slow breath before pushing through the doors.
The station was a wall of noise — officers moving fast between desks, phones ringing without pause, a cluster of familiar faces from La Cuisine Bar scattered across the waiting area giving their statements in low, shaken voices.
The moment Camille stepped inside—
“Camille!”
She looked up.
Kelly was already on her feet, relief breaking across her face, and she crossed the room without caring who was watching and threw both arms around her best friend, holding on like she’d been afraid, somewhere underneath all the noise, that she might not get the chance to.