Clara
I wake with a crick in my neck and the ghost of a nightmare clinging to me. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Not my bed. The air smells sterile, and the surface beneath me is a thin, unforgiving cot. My office.
Trevor.
The name hits me like a jolt of caffeine. I scramble up, my heart hammering against my ribs. The blanket I don’t remember grabbing pools at my feet. I push open the office door and stare into the main examination room.
It’s empty.
The stainless steel table is bare, wiped clean. The floor is spotless. The basin with the bullet is gone. The bloody remnants of his suit and shirt have vanished. If not for the faint, lingering scent of antiseptic and the deep ache in my back from hauling him inside, I could almost believe I dreamed the whole thing.
But my hand is clenched around something hard and cool. I open my palm. The platinum lighter sits there, heavy and real. A snarling wolf stares back at me, etched in perfect detail. He was here.
He’s gone.
I check the front door. The deadbolt is still locked from the inside. The back door, too. How did he leave? A man with a fresh gunshot wound and stitches holding him together didn’t just vanish. But he did.
A shiver runs down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold. I shove the lighter deep into the pocket of my scrubs, the weight of it a secret against my leg. It feels dangerous to even hold it.
My eyes land on the stack of envelopes on my desk. The real world, waiting to collect. The electric company. The medical supplier. The notice from the bank, the one with the angry red border I’ve been pretending not to see. This clinic, my dream, is drowning, and I am going down with it.
The strange, violent night recedes, replaced by the familiar, grinding anxiety of failure. A man like Trevor, with his scars and his silent departure, is a story from another life. My life is this: dwindling funds and the quiet desperation of trying to keep the lights on.
I’m halfway through a cup of stale coffee when I hear a key in the front door. My body tenses. I didn’t give Mark a key so he could help. I gave him one so he would stop complaining about having to wait for me.
“Clara?” Mark’s voice bounces off the sterile walls. “Smells like a zoo in here. Did a goat die overnight?”
He walks in, looking like he stepped out of a magazine. His hair is perfectly styled, his suit is sharp, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He wrinkles his nose in distaste as he surveys my small, clean clinic.
“Morning to you, too,” I say, my voice flat. I don’t have the energy for this today.
“You look terrible,” he says, not unkindly, but as a statement of fact. He pecks me on the cheek, a dry, dismissive gesture. “Late night counting your pennies?”
“Something like that. What are you doing here so early?”
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.” He pulls a stool over, careful not to let his expensive trousers touch the pristine but, in his eyes, contaminated floor. “I was looking over your finances last night.”
My grip on my coffee mug tightens. “You were in my office? Going through my desk?”
“Don’t get defensive. I was trying to help. It’s a disaster, Clara. Worse than I thought. You’re hemorrhaging money. How is that even possible? You charge people to fix their cats.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Equipment is expensive. Medicine. Rent.”
“Right, right,” he waves a dismissive hand. “The point is, this place isn’t a business, it’s a charity. And we can’t afford it.”
“*We*? This is my clinic, Mark. I built it.” My voice is sharper than I intend.
“And it’s sinking,” he says smoothly, his tone placating, like he’s calming a hysterical child. “Which is why I have the solution. For both of us.”
Here it comes. The pitch. There’s always a pitch.
“I’ve got a new venture,” he leans forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s in tech. A new crypto-backed social media platform for luxury influencers. It’s completely untapped. We get in on the ground floor, we’ll be millionaires in a year. I have the contacts, the strategy, everything. I just need a little seed capital.”
I just stare at him. It sounds like a string of buzzwords he read in a magazine. It sounds like nothing.
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“It has everything to do with you. With *us*. This is our ticket out. Out of this leaky, pet-hair-covered life and into the one we’re supposed to have.”
“You mean the one *you’re* supposed to have.”
His smile tightens. “Don’t be like that. This is for us. I’ve even got a name for our company. MCH Holdings. Mark. Clara. Hayes. See? You’re a part of it.”
He says it like he’s gifting me the world. Naming a company I have nothing to do with after me.
“How much capital?” I ask, my voice weary.
“A hundred thousand.”
I almost laugh. It’s a bitter, ugly sound. “A hundred thousand? Mark, look around you. I have maybe three hundred dollars in my business account. I’m choosing between paying my electricity bill and ordering more antibiotics.”
“I know that,” he says, his voice softening again. The manipulative shift is so practiced it’s seamless. “I’m not asking you for the money. Not directly.”
I feel a cold dread creep up my spine.
“I want you to talk to your parents.”
“No.” The word is out of my mouth before he can even finish. It’s instant. Absolute.
“Just hear me out,” he presses on, ignoring me. “They’re sitting on all that money from your grandfather’s inheritance. It’s just sitting there. They won’t even miss it. It’s an investment. I’ll pay them back, with interest. Triple what the bank would give them.”
“No, Mark. I’m not asking my parents for money for one of your schemes.”
“It’s not a scheme!” he snaps, the charming facade cracking. “It’s a legitimate business opportunity. The kind you’re too scared and small-minded to ever see. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in this place, pulling porcupine quills out of dogs for fifty bucks a pop?”
Every word is a deliberate cut. He knows exactly where my insecurities live. My pride in my work, my fear of failure. He hones in on it all.
“I love what I do,” I say, my voice trembling slightly. “It matters to me.”
“Oh, it matters,” he scoffs, standing up and pacing the small room. “It matters so much you’re about to be evicted. Grow up, Clara. This is the real world. You need money to survive. I’m handing you a lifeline and you’re slapping it away because of some misplaced pride.”
“It’s not pride. It’s my family. I’m not going to them with my hand out so you can play businessman with their money.”
“So you’d rather fail? You’d rather let this whole place go under than ask for a little help? That’s not noble, it’s pathetic.”
My hand instinctively goes to my pocket, my fingers closing around the cool, heavy shape of the lighter. A silent thank you from a stranger. A piece of a world where things are simple. A life saved, a debt paid. No strings, no manipulation. Just a clean, quiet transaction.
Mark’s world is all noise. Demands, criticisms, endless emotional withdrawals from an account that has been overdrawn for years.
“I’m not doing it,” I say, and this time my voice is steady. The trembling is gone, replaced by a cold certainty. “The answer is no.”
He stares at me, his handsome face contorted with a mix of disbelief and fury. “You’re making a mistake. A huge mistake.”
“Maybe. But it’ll be my mistake.”
“Fine,” he spits out, grabbing his briefcase. “Stay here in your little shelter for sad animals. Drown in your debt. But when I’m closing this deal on my yacht in Monaco, don’t expect me to throw you a life preserver.”
He stops at the door, his hand on the knob. He turns back, one last attempt to get under my skin.
“Don’t forget about dinner tonight. My boss will be there. Try to look presentable. And for God’s sake, don’t mention this little… hobby of yours.”
Then he’s gone. The little bell over the door jingles mockingly in his wake.
I stand in the silence, my breath shuddering out of me. The smell of his expensive cologne hangs in the air, an invasive, artificial scent that doesn’t belong here.
My fingers are still wrapped around the lighter in my pocket. I pull it out, turning it over and over. The wolf’s head seems to watch me, its engraved eyes fierce and knowing.
Mark talks about saving me. Trevor, a man who nearly died on my floor, left me a thank you that could probably pay my clinic’s rent for a year.
I think about the two men. One who takes and takes and calls it love. The other who took my help and left behind a silent, stunning piece of gratitude.
I flip open the lighter. A strong, steady flame ignites with a satisfying click. It burns clean and bright in the dim morning light of my failing clinic. For the first time in a long time, it feels less like an anchor and more like a beacon.
