Hannah: "After we got that text message, I was so afraid. I—I could barely even move."

Hunter: "You and me both, Hannah. You and me both."

Alejandro Roberto Gonzales-Santos:

The moment I made it inside the hospital, Sara was there to greet me.

"Alex!" She ran forward and embraced me in a shivering hug. "I'm so scared," she trembled. "I've searched everywhere, and I can't find Alma!"

The rolling, unceremonious click of high-heeled shoes rapped against the hospital's hallway floor. "That's because she's not here," came an arrogant and familiar voice.

Sara and I jumped in unison, turning suddenly to the figure standing mere meters from us.

Ashley?

She smiled. "Did you miss me?"

"What...what the heck are you doing here!?" I screamed, my words somewhere between indignant and terrified. "Hunter told me you fled the country."

Her only response was a slim and wicked grin.

Instinctively, I balled my hands into fists. "I don't have time for this. What have you done with Alma!?"

"Nothing." She crossed her arms. "I came here looking for her."

"Ashley, if you've hurt her, I swear—"

She sighed. "I didn't hurt her, Alex. I haven't even seen her." She uncrossed her arms and rested her left hand on her hip. "The only reason I came back to this stupid hospital was to tell her the same thing I'm about to tell you. Run."

I took a step back. "Huh?"

"You need to get out of here, Alex. You've seen what White Robe is capable of, and it's more than obvious that he wants you dead."

"Oh, shove it, Ashley!" I bit back. "Quit trying to play games with me. I'm sick of your lies!"

"Alex, will you just grow up already!? Even if I were 'playing games,' as you call it, just think—if you go after White Robe now, when he's this close to getting his revenge, you'll almost certainly be killed. And even if you don't try to stop him, with as big a loose end as you are, do you honestly think he's going to leave you alive?"

"That's a chance I'm willing to take if it means saving Azalea."

"How naïve," she sneered, eyes rolling.

"Why do you care!?" I screamed, throwing my hands into the air. "What does any of this matter to you anyway?"

"I care because you're innocent!" she yelled back.

I gasped, as did Sara.

Ashley exhaled a deep breath. "I know what you think of me, Alex. I know what your friends think of me. And honestly, I can't blame you." She hesitated. "But I also know that none of you deserve to be tangled up in this...and I know it's my fault that you are."

I froze. No way. Is she actually apologizing?

"I thought maybe I could catch White Robe if the four of you were clever enough. I thought I could surprise him, that he wouldn't see it coming—but somehow, he did. And now all of you are in danger." She paused, breathing deeply. "I dragged you into this, Alex, and I was wrong. But now I'm trying to make up for it." Her stony eyes darkened as she stared straight into mine. "You need to leave California."

"I—I can't," I said slowly. "White Robe is going to kill Azalea, and I can't let that happen. Whether you dragged me into this or not, I'm in it. It's too late to change that now."

Ashley sighed, then turned to Sara. "And what about you?"

"I'm with him," Sara answered firmly. "White Robe has to pay for everything he's done."

Ashley was silent. For the faintest of moments, it looked as though she might burst into tears. "I guess there's no dissuading either of you from this suicide mission." She sighed again. "Very well. If you're going to face White Robe, you might as well have all the evidence." She motioned for us to follow her. "Come on. I have something to show you."

We trailed Ashley through the double doors leading to the patient rooms, then cut to the right as she led us into the building's security room. It was a dark area whose charcoal ceiling and high-topped onyx walls, though towering, still felt far too cramped to be comfortable. Tiny television screens recording the hospital hallways illuminated the space in front of us as Ashley strode past them to unlatch a black box welded to the monitoring desk. Out of the box, she pulled a singular, silver disc.

"W-what's that?" Sara asked uneasily.

"Footage of that day White Robe attacked Alex's mom and dad."

"How is that possible?" Sara breathed. "When the police came by to make an official report, all the footage was destroyed." She hesitated. "...I checked the discs myself."

"No," Ashley shook her head. "Alma managed to save one copy."

Sara quirked an eyebrow. "How can you be so sure?"

"Back when I started trying to track down White Robe, I sneaked into this security room to see what I could find. All copies of that Saturday's footage were destroyed except for one—Alma's day-before disc."

"Hold on—Alma's what?"

"It's simple," Ashley said. "Alma always has three disc copies made of the security footage taken each day in this hospital. She marks two of them with the correct date, but she marks the third with the date of the previous day—and she does it just in case something like this happens.

"White Robe wasn't the first person to threaten one of the patients here. Back when I used to work at this hospital, some gang members murdered a man by stabbing him in his sleep. One of them threatened Alma at gunpoint to erase all the footage and made her destroy the discs in his presence. She only destroyed two of them, but because the third was marked with an incorrect date and filed away with all the other discs from previous days, none of the men suspected anything. She later anonymously turned over the one remaining disc to the police and had the entire gang jailed for their crimes."

"Whoa," I whispered. "That's genius."

"Yeah," Ashley nodded. "And wait 'til you get a load of this." She pulled a disc from its filing section and slid it into one of the monitors.

The screen cut first to black, switching away from its real-time view of the building's lobby, then faded to footage of an initially empty hallway. Moments of motionlessness played out against the backdrop of an undisturbed corridor before, almost as appearing from nothing, White Robe rushed into view from the upper leftmost corner. He slid open the door do my dad's room and bolted inside.

Ashley rewound the video and pressed the Zoom-Out button on the monitor's control panel. "Pay attention," she said. "Look where he comes from."

As the video played a second time, for only the briefest of seconds, I noticed a hole in the wall—one outlined by jagged edges and overlaid with a massive canvas poster—through which White Robe crawled to gain access to the hallway. With the video initially zoomed in, it had been difficult to spot; but with the entirety of the frame visible, I could see clearly how he'd pushed the canvas out of his way, replacing it discretely over the hole before returning his attention to the primary objective...my father.

"Oh my gosh," I gasped. "That's how he did it. When I was chasing him, I knew there was no way he could make it out of that alley so fast...unless he escaped through some secret tunnel."

"So what happened next?" Sara asked.

"Let's find out," Ashley said. "The one you just saw was the footage from the hallway camera." She pulled out a second disc. "This is the video taken from inside Roberto's hospital room." She slid the second disc into the monitor, ejecting the first.

As the video began, White Robe darted inside the room. He lunged at my mother as she screamed and injected her in the shoulder with a long syringe. As she fell to the floor, he walked over to my dad and held the syringe high.

But rather than inject Dad right away, White Robe leaned down slowly, positioning his face mere inches from my father's.

He's talking...whispering something to my dad.

The video was silent; we couldn't hear a thing being said—but I could definitely tell that my father was terrified.

"This must have been what White Robe was talking about earlier," I sighed. "He said he'd made a deal with my dad."

"A deal?" Ashley asked, perplexed. "What kind of deal?"

I paused. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

****

It wasn't a long trek from the security room to the patient area. Ashley led me and Sara outside along what she dubbed "the other way," a thin sidewalk strip obscured from the main road by manicured dogwood trees, to avoid running into any curious hospital staff who might ask why we were wandering the halls after visiting hours.

At the sidewalk's end, Ashley opened the glass door and led us back inside the hospital, where we strode the remaining few steps to my father's room.

I knocked tentatively before stepping inside. "Hey, Dad," I said as I entered, the others on my heels. "H...How is everything?"

He turned to me, eyes brightening. "Pretty good, Alex. They say they plan to discharge me tomorrow. They had to do another minor surgery, but the doctor says he expects a full recovery."

"Th-that's good, Dad." I smiled uneasily. "I'm...glad to hear it."

He shifted, bedsheets ruffling. "Is something wrong, Alex?"

"Well," I began, "it's...it's about this video I saw. I was just wondering if...maybe—"

"Did you cut a deal with White Robe?" Ashley blurted. "We need to know, Roberto. Yes or no?"

My dad's face grew instantly fearful.

"Dad," I tried, "we're not accusing you of anything. But we think White Robe's kidnapped Azalea and plans to kill her. And if you know anything about that...then you need to tell us."

He sighed heavily. "I was hoping this day would never come."

I froze. "W-what do you mean?"

"I never wanted you to get tangled up in all of this."

I shook my head. "All of what, Dad?"

He paused uneasily, his eyes darting away.

"Dad, please," I begged. "Azalea's life's at stake."

He shivered a moment, then stared into my eyes with pure terror. "A few weeks ago, the day you found that body in the storage shed, I saw something...a man. He was wearing a white silk outfit and carrying a bag."

I felt ice begin pulsing in my veins.

"I thought it seemed strange, but I brushed it off, kept walking...until I heard a heavy thud on the ground. I turned around and realized that he'd...dropped the bag. And everything inside had spilled out on the concrete." He paused. "Son, there were human bones in that bag. I watched him pick them up—and then he bolted. I didn't think he'd seen me, but then...." He trailed off.

"But then what?" Ashley prodded. "Roberto, what happened next?"

"I...got a text—whoever sent it impersonated my wife and asked to meet me in the forest clearing behind where my mother's house used to be. And then someone hit me on the back of the head. I started to run, but my attacker shot me in the arm. I'm still not sure how, but I managed to get far enough away to hide in a hollowed-out tree...then I texted Alma my location, and she came to get me."

"Dad," I interrupted, "you said you had no idea why anyone would attack you. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"Because I didn't want you in danger, Alex!" he shouted. "That robed madman came in here! He drugged my wife, and he threatened me—he said that if I ever told anyone what I'd seen, he would kill everyone I loved. You, Josefina, Gil, your grandmother—everyone, Alex! So of course I kept quiet! I didn't say a word! How could I?"

I sighed.

He stared up at me with remorse, his eyes pleading.

"Well," I said wearily, "I guess that's it then. All this, and we're still no closer to finding Azalea. We've hit another dead end—"

CLICK!

"...In more ways than one," came a deep and cynical voice.

Sara, Ashley, and I spun in unison. Standing in the room's doorway was a tall and domineering figure wielding a gun pointed at the three of us.

"Dr. Parham?" Sara asked. "...What are you doing?"

His only answer was a twisted, cruel smile.

"You're working for White Robe," I accused. "Aren't you?"

"Right you are, child," he returned.

"Why?" Sara demanded. "Why would you do something like this? Don't you know what a monster he is? He's going to kill a seventeen-year-old girl in the name of some stupid grudge!"

"My orders are my orders," he spoke unflinchingly. "It is not mine to question why." He turned to me, aiming the gun at my head. "You—you will be first."

Sara didn't give him the chance. She grabbed a scalpel off a nearby rolling table and hurled it through the air. It stabbed into Dr. Parham's hand, and he wailed in pain. Sara bolted forward on the balls of her feet and tackled him to the floor before jabbing him in the forearm with two fingers, forcing him to release the gun.

"Run!" she yelled to me and Ashley, just as Dr. Parham balled his free hand into a fist to punch up at Sara. She twisted left, blocked the strike with her elbow, then pounded him in the jaw with a fist of her own. She gripped the gun from the floor and stuck it straight in his face. "Don't move," she ordered as she rose to her feet.

As Ashley and I made it out of the room, Sara ran over to my dad, unstrapping him from the bed. She grabbed a wheelchair from beside the washcloth closet and rolled it next to him.

Dad climbed down and into the chair, and Sara wheeled him out of the room quickly, still gripping the gun in her free hand as she jetted past Dr. Parham.

Sara twisted left, then right, checking the hallway as she and Dad flew out of that hospital room. "We'll have to go through the lobby," she practically shouted to me and Ashley. "It's the quickest way to the parking lot."

The four of us rushed down the hallway and ran to the outside parking lot, nearly crashing into the automatic doors as they slid apart.

"Alex, go!" was the first thing Sara yelled at me the moment I made it outside. "I'll take your dad somewhere safe. Now go find Azalea!"

I nodded my head, pausing in the frigid night wind as it breezed all around.

As Sara hurried off, I turned to where Ashley stood solitarily on those thin high heels, dark asphalt undergirding her feet. "Thank you," I said. "I know we're not the best of friends...but thank you."

She half-smiled. "After all I put you kids through, it's the least I could do." She shook her head. "Now go. Find White Robe, Alex. Time is running out—for Azalea and for you."