Sharon didn't go far before she stopped walking.
The hallway lights hummed above her, uneven and tired, casting everything in the same washed-out yellow that made faces look sick even when they weren't. Somewhere behind her, Evan's room made that sound again—fabric pulled tight, restraints testing their limits, the soft, awful rhythm of something that didn't know it was dead.
She let out a slow breath through her nose.
Then she turned around.
The doctors were clustered near the nurses' station, exactly where she expected them to be. Not talking much. Not touching anything. Each of them looked like they were waiting for someone else to say the thing none of them wanted to say out loud.
Nguyen wasn't there.
That absence sat heavy.
Patel stood with his arms crossed, staring at the floor. Reyes was pressed against the wall, knees pulled in slightly like she needed something solid behind her. McAllister was rubbing at his face, leaving red marks along his jaw where his hands lingered too long.
No one looked at Sharon when she approached.
She stopped in front of them anyway.
"We need to go back," she said.
The words didn't echo.
They didn't need to.
Reyes shook her head immediately. "No."
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't angry. It was flat. Final.
"No," she said again. "I'm done."
Patel looked up then, eyes bloodshot. "Sharon—"
"We don't have a choice," Sharon said.
McAllister barked a laugh that sounded more like a cough. "We absolutely do. The choice is to not walk back into a room with something that just tried to tear through restraints like they were paper."
"He's restrained," Sharon said.
"For now," McAllister shot back. "Those weren't designed for this. None of this was."
Reyes pushed off the wall, voice shaking. "You saw what happened to Nguyen. You saw how fast it happened. That needle stick—seconds, Sharon. Seconds. We are not equipped for this."
Sharon nodded. "I know."
"And you still want us to go back in there?" Patel asked. "To do what? Take more samples? Cut more tissue? So someone else loses a finger—or worse?"
"So it doesn't mean nothing," Sharon said quietly.
That got their attention.
Reyes stared at her. "What?"
"So Evan doesn't just become another death we couldn't stop," Sharon said. "So Nguyen doesn't wake up missing part of her hand for no reason. So everything that's already happened doesn't end with us sitting in a hallway waiting to be eaten."
Silence stretched.
McAllister looked away first.
"You're asking us to dissect a moving corpse," he said. "That was a child."
"I'm asking you to study what killed him," Sharon replied. "And what brought him back."
Patel ran a hand over his mouth. "We don't even know if it's a virus."
"Exactly," Sharon said. "And we won't if we stop now."
Reyes' voice broke. "Sharon, I deliver babies. I save infants. I'm not—" She swallowed hard. "I'm not built for this."
Sharon stepped closer.
Neither of them backed away.
"I know who you are," Sharon said gently. "I know what you do. That's why I need you."
Reyes laughed weakly. "You need me to do what? Hold his head while he snaps at us?"
"No," Sharon said. "I need you to help me understand how this thing moves through a body that should not be moving at all."
Patel shook his head. "This is insane."
"Yes," Sharon said. "It is."
She looked at each of them in turn.
"But look around."
She gestured down the hallway—toward the nursery doors, the closed patient rooms, the men dragging furniture into place, the women holding babies too tightly.
"This is the last safe place some of these people have," Sharon said. "And it's shrinking by the minute."
McAllister exhaled. "And you think Evan is the answer."
"I think Evan is the first clear question," Sharon said.
Patel frowned. "Explain."
Sharon didn't hesitate.
"He was bitten," she said. "Not grazed. Not exposed through the air. Bitten. And he turned faster than anyone we've seen."
Reyes stiffened. "Nguyen was stuck with a needle."
"Yes," Sharon said. "Direct blood exposure. And she hasn't turned."
Patel's brow furrowed. "Yet."
"Yet," Sharon agreed. "But she's still human. Conscious. Her vitals stabilized once we amputated and sedated."
McAllister looked sharply at her. "You're saying transmission isn't equal."
"I'm saying we're seeing a pattern," Sharon replied. "Bites escalate. Blood exposure behaves differently—at least so far."
Reyes whispered, "If that's true…"
"Then it matters," Sharon finished. "It matters how this spreads. It matters how fast. It matters what tissues it targets first. And Evan is the only one showing us that progression in real time."
McAllister dragged a hand through his hair. "You're talking about timing onset. Neural takeover. Postmortem reanimation."
"Yes."
Patel stared at the floor. "Jesus."
Sharon softened her voice. "Are we going to sit here and wait for whatever's behind those doors to break through? Or are we going to try to understand it while we still have the chance?"
Reyes shook her head. "You're asking us to risk everything."
Sharon didn't deny it.
"I already did," she said. "So did Nguyen. So did Evan."
No one spoke.
Somewhere down the hall, something banged once—hard enough to make a baby cry.
Reyes flinched.
McAllister closed his eyes. "If we go back in there…"
"We take every precaution we have," Sharon said. "Gloves. Face shields. Distance. No unnecessary exposure. Minimal personnel."
Patel looked up. "Minimal how?"
"Me," Sharon said. "One of you. One at a time."
Reyes stared at her. "You're not doing this alone."
"I am if I have to."
"That's not leadership," McAllister snapped. "That's martyrdom."
Sharon met his gaze. "No. That's responsibility."
Silence again.
Longer this time.
Patel was the first to move.
He sighed, shoulders slumping like the fight had finally left him. "What do you need?"
Reyes closed her eyes. "God help us."
McAllister nodded once, sharp and resigned. "We document everything. Every change. Every response."
Sharon let herself breathe.
"Thank you," she said—not lightly. Not easily.
They gathered supplies without speaking much. Gloves. Masks. Gowns. Instruments that felt heavier than they should in shaking hands.
At the end of the hall, Evan's door waited.
The sound inside was steady now.
Relentless.
Sharon stopped with her hand on the handle.
She looked back at them.
"This ends one of two ways," she said quietly. "We learn something. Or we don't."
Reyes swallowed. "And if we don't?"
Sharon turned back to the door.
"Then at least we didn't choose to die ignorant."
She opened it.
And stepped back into the room with the dead boy who refused to stay still.
Because waiting had already cost too much.
And refusing would cost everything.