Chapter 3: Scalpel Silence

Her.,

5:03 a.m.

Aira Velyn hadn’t slept in thirty-eight hours. She didn’t need to. Sleep was for people who had the luxury of vulnerability.

She had none.

The operating wing stank of blood, antiseptic, and fear. But her boots clicked through the sterile hallway like she owned the place. And in a way, she did.

“Dr. Velyn,” a nurse rushed up to her, breath hitched. “GSW to the abdomen. Mid-30s. Brought in five minutes ago. No ID.”

Aira’s eyes didn’t flicker. “Prep OR two. Call in Dr. Jin as my second. I want full vitals and trauma panel in six.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am. Not Doctor. Not Miss.

They called her that like she was military. Like a storm in scrubs.

And she liked it that way.

---

The man on the gurney was slipping. Blood soaked through the makeshift bandage at his side. Vitals were crashing, but his eyes were wide—wild. She saw that look often. Men who'd danced too close to death and didn’t expect someone like her to be the one pulling them back.

Her voice didn’t rise. It never did.

“Liver’s hit. Maybe stomach. I want to see a bleed in the retroperitoneum,” she murmured, sliding on her gloves. “Scalpel.”

Cut.

His body opened beneath her like a page in a book.

The room froze in awe of her hands—how fast, how impossibly clean her incisions were. Blood pooled. She didn’t blink. Her fingers dived into flesh like it was memory. Like it was art.

“Clamp here. Retract. Another inch and he wouldn’t be here.” Her words came sharp and calm, in a rhythm that kept people alive.

And then—

a tremor. Not in her hand.

In her chest.

Why now? Why the chill slithering down her spine? Her eyes narrowed behind the mask.

Someone was watching.

Not from the gallery.

No. From somewhere closer. Somewhere unseen.

She didn’t flinch. Just sewed the artery shut with the kind of ease that made residents reconsider their entire career.

---

Outside the OR, two interns whispered:

“Have you ever seen her lose a case?”

“Nope. She once stitched a man’s gut back together in a moving ambulance. He coded twice. Still walked out a week later.”

“Dude, she’s terrifying.”

“She’s a fucking legend.”

And inside the scrub room, Aira peeled off her gloves. No sweat. No emotion.

She stared at herself in the mirror.

The reflection didn’t blink.

Only when she turned away did she notice it—

a single dark rose, lying across the top of her locker. No vase. No note.

But she knew the thorns. She knew his roses.

---

The hospital cafeteria buzzed that night, but went still the second she entered. Not out of respect—fear.

She sat down, opened her tablet, and started typing surgical notes like nothing mattered.

And maybe nothing did.

Until a voice cut through the murmur. Deep. Silk edged in gravel.

“You have beautiful hands, Dr. Velyn. Dangerous hands.”

She didn’t look up. Just said, “You’re not on my schedule.”

He chuckled once. Then silence.

She raised her eyes slowly.

But the voice was already gone.

Only his scent remained.

Smoke. Leather. Power.

---

Later, in the trauma ward, she stitched a young girl’s face, delicately, millimeter by millimeter. Not because the girl would remember, but because she deserved to be whole.

“Does it hurt?” the girl whispered.

Aira didn’t smile. She never did. But her voice dropped to something almost human.

“No. But even if it does... you’ll survive. Scars are better than silence.”

And when the girl fell asleep, Aira stepped into the hall, only to find a slip of black paper tucked into her coat.

One word. Silver ink.

~soon...

No name.

But she didn’t need one.

Because only one man knew how to haunt her without showing his face.

And he had just reminded her—

this wasn’t over.

It had only just begun.