Descent Into Darkness: The Bloody Tulip – Part 18

In “Emergency Protocol,” dark revelations unfold in a blood-soaked confrontation as three women’s fates intertwine beneath gathering storm clouds. Olivia discovers the horrifying truth about the Hartman sisters’ surgical artistry too late, while Dima’s precise blade work leaves more than physical scars. Talia’s hands may have saved a life, but the whispered code “Bloody Flower Fields” suggests the sisters’ monstrous legacy lives on. Meanwhile, Gabriel’s rage builds as the truth about his beloved begins to surface – but he may be transforming into something far more dangerous than the monsters he hunts.

A Vigil of Shadows: Dark Evolution

The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor had become a familiar companion to Room 420, marking time in mechanical breaths like a metronome, a repetitive constant while the rest of the world moved on. Six months of steady beats, six months of silence. One hundred and eighty-three days of Olivia lying still as death, kept alive by machines that hissed and beeped. 

The January dawn crept through the hospital windows, the morning sun filtering through half-drawn blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across Olivia’s still form. Gabriel stood in the doorway of her ICU room, his appearance as altered as hers was static. A stark contrast to the man who had stormed out half a year ago. 

His usually clean-shaven face now bore several days of stubble, and dark circles shadowed his eyes like bruises. His once-warm smile had hardened into something dangerous. The pressed shirts and neat slacks had given way to worn jeans and a black hoodie that hung loosely on his frame. Both carried the dust of too many roads searched, too many dead ends pursued. 

His eyes swept the room with practiced efficiency, checking that his careful arrangement remained undisturbed. Between the monitors and IV stands, hidden from casual observation, a newspaper clipping hung in the shadow of the equipment. Its edges, yellowed with time, had been cut with careful precision. The headline glared in bold type: “LOCAL WOMAN FOUND CRITICALLY INJURED IN APPARENT HOME INVASION.” The article itself was heavily annotated in red ink, key phrases underlined multiple times: “surgical precision of the wound,” “no signs of forced entry,” “weapon believed to be medical grade.” Beneath the text, Gabriel’s normally flowing handwriting had grown sharp and angular, cramped notes filling the margins with questions and connections.

Everything had changed, only his hands remained the same – steady, controlled, though now they often drifted to his chest, unconsciously touching the spot where Frank’s heart beat beneath his ribs. 

He moved to Olivia’s bedside with the careful steps of someone who had rehearsed this moment. The machines continued their electronic vigil as he settled into the familiar vinyl chair, its cracked surface telling stories of countless worried visitors. 

“Hey, Liv,” he whispered, his voice rough from disuse. “I know it’s been a while.” His fingers found the edge of her blanket, straightening it with obsessive precision. “I’ve been… looking. Following leads. “I’ve been… looking. Following leads. Dead ends, mostly.” He paused, his fingers finding hers, cold and unresponsive, thumb brushing over her knuckles. “But I’m getting closer. I can feel it.”

Movement in the window caught his attention – his own reflection ghosted against the dawn sky, a stranger’s silhouette overlaid on the city below. For a moment, he didn’t recognize the man staring back at him. The hard set of unfamiliar jaw, the predatory stillness in shoulders that once carried nothing heavier than sketchbooks and art supplies. Even the way he held himself had changed, body angled unconsciously between Olivia and the door, like a guard dog expecting threats from every shadow. Something was bleeding through. Something new, dark, learned during months of hunting through society’s edges for any trace of Ayuna.

The machines continued their electronic vigil as Gabriel leaned closer, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. “I promise I won’t stop until I find her, Olivia. Just don’t give up. Please come back to me.”

Hidden Patterns: Dangerous Changes

The sharp click of a shoe softly echoed in the sterile hallway—Dr. Talia Hartman froze mid-step, clipboard clutched to her chest. She’d started coming in early to check on Olivia, a habit born of both professional duty and gnawing guilt. Now she stood watching Gabriel through the doorway, noting how grief and rage had carved new lines into his face.

The raw emotion in his voice made Talia’s surgical fingers twitch. She’d heard similar tones before. It was the sound of someone being unmade, of someone finding their own capacity for darkness.

She pushed into the room, clipboard held like a shield. “Gabriel?” Her voice was carefully neutral, professional. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

He didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge her presence beyond a slight stiffening of his shoulders. The morning light caught his profile, highlighting changes that sent a chill down Talia’s spine. There was something different in the set of his jaw, something harder in the lines around his eyes. 

“Doctor Hartman.” 

“How… how are you?” The question felt inadequate even as she asked it. 

“Fine.” The word fell between them like a surgical blade.  

Talia stepped further into the room, her eyes tracking the vital signs displayed on the monitors – an old habit, a way to avoid the weight of Gabriel’s presence. “Have you heard anything from—”

“Do you know where she is?” Gabriel cut her off, his voice carrying an edge that hadn’t been there six months ago.

“I have no idea, Gabriel. I haven’t seen you or my sister in months.” Talia’s fingers traced the edge of her clipboard. Her eyes darted to Olivia’s latest charts, medical training noting patterns that made her stomach tighten. Slight variations in the intracranial pressure readings, subtle changes in the EEG patterns during the night shift. Small deviations that together painted a concerning picture.

Talia moved closer to the monitors, pretending to check routine vitals while her mind raced through possible implications. The latest readings suggested increased neural activity, but not the kind they’d been hoping for. Something was changing in Olivia’s brain, following a pattern that felt uncomfortably familiar. She’d seen similar charts only once before – in her father’s private files, documenting the effects of certain combinations of drugs and surgical trauma.

“I’m worried about her. Do you know where—”

“No.” his response cold and metallic.

The silence that followed felt charged, dangerous. Talia found herself studying Gabriel with the same clinical detachment she used in surgery, noting signs and symptoms: the subtle tremor in his left hand, the way his jaw clenched and unclenched, the predatory stillness of his posture. Something had changed in him during these missing months, something fundamental. Just as something was changing in Olivia, hidden beneath the surface of medical charts and monitoring equipment.ebf 

His phone buzzed, shattering the tension. Gabriel glanced at the screen, his expression unchanging. “I’ll be there,” he said simply, then ended the call.

Rising from the chair, he pressed his palm against Olivia’s one last time, the gesture achingly gentle compared to the coiled violence evident in every other movement. Without another word, he strode past Talia and out into the corridor, his footsteps echoing like distant thunder. Like a countdown to something that was set in motion that could no longer be stopped.

Talia watched him go, her mind racing with questions she hadn’t dared to ask. What had her sister unleashed? What had their father’s legacy created? This man moved like a hunter, each step measured and purposeful. She recognized that walk, had seen it in her father… in Ayuna. The familiar scent of antiseptic seemed suddenly cloying, tainted with memories of other sterile rooms where precision and violence had danced together.

Deadly Chess: Hunters and Prey

In a non-descript hotel room hundreds of miles away, Ayuna sat perched on the edge of a meticulously made bed, with blackout curtains drawn against the morning light. The walls around her told a story of obsessive vigilance – surveillance photos and medical records formed a web of red threads. Each connection marked with the same careful attention she once gave to surgical plans.

Her eyes lingered on the newest addition: a grainy security camera image of Gabriel entering a medical supply warehouse in Tampa three days ago. His new predatory stance was evident even in the poor resolution, and something about his posture made her blood run cold. He moved like father used to, like a hunter studying prey. Next to the photo, a list of supplies reported missing from the warehouse: surgical tubing, propofol, specific gauges of needles – items that painted a disturbing picture of expertise being assembled.

Her blood-resin bracelet caught the glow of her phone screen as it lit up with an incoming call. Her hand moved automatically to answer it, muscle memory precise like a viper. Behind her, a coffee cup from the café across from Olivia’s hospital sat on the nightstand, steam still rising – she was closer to him than she’d allowed herself to be in months. But who was hunting whom?

“Hello, little flower.” Dima’s voice purred through the speaker, intimate as a lover’s whisper, rich with malicious delight. “I love this little game we’re playing. It reminds me of when we played hide and seek as children.” A soft laugh, gentle as a heart monitor’s beep. “Keep up now, you wouldn’t want me to have too much alone time with Gabriel, once I find him.”

Ayuna’s eyes drifted to another photo as Dima spoke – a close-up of Gabriel’s hand from recent surveillance. His fingers were wrapped around a coffee cup, but it was his fingernails that held her attention. Pristine, perfectly maintained, almost surgical in their precision. Just like father had insisted upon. Just like she and Dima had been taught.

“You’re not the only one playing games, Dima,” Ayuna whispered after the line went dead, her fingers tracing the red threads connecting Gabriel’s movements across the country. Each location marked with a small black tulip, each one closer to her current position than the last. The pattern was clear, but not comforting – Gabriel wasn’t searching randomly. He was hunting with methodical precision.

Outside, storm clouds gathered on the horizon, battling the sunlight, promising unencumbered violence. In the growing darkness, Ayuna could no longer tell if she was the hunter or the hunted. The game had changed, and she recognized the elegant violence of its new rules. Gabriel had developed something beyond the predatory grace her father had taught her and Dima – something colder, more precise. A surgical intensity honed by grief and rage, untethered from any pretense of healing. And he was out for blood.

The question that chilled her wasn’t whose blood he was after.

It was whether anyone could stop him once he started.

…

» Learning to Hunt: The Bloody Tulip – Part 19:
In this twisted chapter, an artist teaches himself the precision of predators, while a doctor realizes she may have unleashed something beyond anyone’s control. Not all monsters are made, some are self-taught and evolve from pain.