I wake up in bed with a headache that feels like my skull was cracked in two. I can barely move. It takes me a moment to realize this bed is not my own. I'm not at home. I'm in a hospital bed.

It starts to make sense. I remember that I was shot. Things get pretty hazy from that moment on. The good thing is I'm alive. I know that because the headache tells me this isn't heaven. If it's hell, it's far less than I deserve.

Through the haze in my eyes, I see a nursing station. I try to yell out, but my throat is so scratchy I can barely hear myself. I feel around me for a nurse call button, but moving causes a fireball of pain in my gut to shoot right down through to my feet.

I guess the bright side is that I can feel my feet. I should still be able to walk, even if it's going to hurt a bunch to do it.

After some searching, and excruciating pain, I manage to find a nurse call button. From the nursing station, one of the nurses with her hair tied up into a tight knob at the back of her head, tells me she'll be with me soon and goes back to whatever she was doing.

I'm not sure what hospital I'm at, but I know I'm not at one of the better ones. Clearly.

It takes her a few minutes of jabbing at her tablet and walking around her nursing station before she remembers to come to me.

"What can I do for you, dear?"

I try to tell her I need water, but it's not coming out like that. She looks at me, puzzled and a bit frustrated. I motion like a cup to my lips and, fortunately, she understands my primitive sign language. She puts a finger up to tell me one second. I guess she also forgot how to speak.

She comes back with a cup of water. It's the best cup of water I've had in my life. I feel it go from my mouth all the way through my body. I try to talk, feeling minimally lubricated. It goes a little better.

"Where...am...I?"

I make sure to sign it a bit, even with the horrible pain, just to make sure she comes through.

"Delcor Labs."

"What?!"

I say it a little too loudly and it feels like I swallowed broken glass.

She fluffs the pillow behind me.

"You were a little disoriented after the trial. It's normal. You hurt yourself when you were in that state, so we put you on some painkillers in the meantime."

"Trial?"

"Yes. Why else would you be here?"

The more I try to think about it, the more my head spins.

"I'm a...cop. I was here...to investigate..."

"Well, thank you for your service," She says to me like she would a little girl saying she wants to be a spacewoman when she grows up. "Just rest up."

She walks back to her nursing station. I try to piece the past few hours together. The ones she was conscious for, at least.

I was brought here. Lured. Did they send Joe out, knowing what would happen to him, just to get my attention? Did they know I wouldn't drop this? Maybe they were hoping that he'd take me with him. Maybe.

Or maybe whatever they got me hopped up on is making me paranoid.

I try to think back and I realize I heard the nurse say something. I'm here as part of a trial. I know for sure that I never signed up for any damn trial. I would never make myself a Delcor labrat voluntarily. I check to see if my chart is hanging somewhere nearby. Of course, it's not. Everything is digital and there's nothing tangible to identify me from the person next to me.

Maybe they got it wrong.

I was shot. I wasn't a part of a trial. Unless the trial is for new bullets - from my own gun. None of it adds up.

It takes a ton of effort, but I push myself to sit up. I feel like I'm strapped to a board covered in glass. That pain goes right from my spine to my belly button. I'm in bad shape, but it could be a lot worse.

I'm about to try and slide off the bed onto my feet when the nurse runs over to stop me.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

"I want to see...my chart."

"I'm sorry?"

"My chart!" I yell, tearing my throat to shreds. "Show me. Now."

The nurse does not like to be bossed around. I can see that in her expression, but I don't back down. I don't like to be bossed around either. Even for my own good.

"Fine," She says, pointing a finger in my face. "Stay here."

I stop moving, which somehow hurts just as much as moving. I can't get very far without her catching up to me anyway. She comes back with a tablet. It lights up and I see my face with a bunch of numbers and figures. She holds it so I can see.

I try to grab it and she pulls it out of reach.

"Look with your eyes. Not your hands."

If I had the strength, I'd slap her, but instead I nod. I look back at the chart.

My heart sinks.

There's my name, my fingerprint and a digital signature just under a consent statement for the trial for the caloviridae vaccine. The same one Joe, and what I suspect Dr. Winslow, were a part of. I never signed anything. I never consented to anything.

"I need...to speak...to...Groth."

"Doctor Groth?" She corrects me, as though I'm not being respectful enough.

"Yes...him. Please."

"Well, he's not in, but I'll let him know you'd like to speak to him."

She puts a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back into the bed with relative ease. I try to push back, but she's got a lot more strength than me right now. I fall back into the bed, unable to stop her from putting me there.

"Please. Tell him," I plead, no longer too embarrassed to grovel. "I need...to talk."

The nurse nods her head as she pulls something from her apron. She pumps it into my IV and everything around me starts to fade. I reach out to tell her one more time, but I pass out before I can get a word out.