Doctor's Deadly Secret

7503 words

The hum of the fluorescent tube overhead buzzed like a trapped wasp, casting a sterile glare across the tiled floor of the Dharavi lab. Priya Kapoor stood frozen, her breath shallow, the antiseptic sting of the air biting at her nostrils. Her fingers hovered near the edge of the metal table, not quite touching it, as if the cold steel might burn her. On the other side of the room, Arjun Desai—though she didn’t know his name yet, only the whispered title of “Doctor”—adjusted a headset wired to a machine that looked like a cross between a medical scanner and a torture device. His hands moved with a precision that belied the faint tremor in them, the kind of shake that comes from too much coffee or too little sleep. Or guilt. Priya’s gut screamed guilt. “You’re sure about this?” His voice was low, clipped, almost swallowed by the hum of the equipment. He didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on the dials he was twisting, the screen flickering with waveforms she couldn’t begin to understand. “Once it starts, there’s no stopping. You get what you came for, or you don’t. No refunds, no do-overs.” Priya forced her jaw to unclench, her tongue dry against the roof of her mouth. The undercover persona she’d crafted on the fly—Rina, a...