Even from deep within the basement of Konoha Regional Hospital, Sakura Haruno could hear the torrential downpour pounding against the building. She was thankful that she had made it inside just before the rain had begun and managed to stay dry. Wet clothes and the cold temperature of the hospital morgue she would be stuck in for the next ten hours was never a good mix.

She had arrived several minutes early for her shift, dreading the mound of paperwork she expected to have on her desk. It seemed that there had been a steady rise in deaths for the past few months, mostly from unnatural causes which added much more to her job than she'd like. The number of autopsies she had been through just this week was ridiculous.

Heaving a sigh, she pushed her way into the heavy, metal door of the examination lab and blinked at the three bodies lying on the rolling carts, white sheets draped from their heads to their feet. None had a tag yet, meaning either the other assistant examiner had been extremely busy, or extremely lazy the entire day. She was betting on the latter.

Sakura hurried into the cramped office in the back of the room, frowning down at the back of her partner's head. He was currently bent over his cluttered desk, headphones wedged in his ears as he nodded his head to the beat.

From three feet away, she could hear his music blaring as loud as it could go and she reached over, jerking one of the white headphones out of his ear. He jumped nearly a foot off of his chair and whirled around, glaring up at Sakura.

"For fuck's sake, Haruno! You can't creep up on a guy like that around here." Haru paused his music and spun around in his chair to face Sakura as she made her way around to her own desk. He had graduated with her from med school last year and she wasn't too thrilled about him following her to the next stage of her life. He was obnoxious, never serious, and ate like a pig. She would find crumbs and bits of chocolate stuck in the files on a daily basis.

"Are those new?" She pointed a thumb over her shoulder toward the examining room, ignoring his outburst. He didn't even look their way, instead reaching for the earbud that was dangling between his legs.

"Got here maybe half an hour ago. One man who the coroner said looked to be an OD and a woman with a broken neck." Haru turned back to his paperwork and ended the conversation by pushing the bud into his ear, music bumping loudly. His attention was immediately on his work in front of him though he spent several seconds drumming his pen over the papers and Sakura stood there, frowning down at him. She reached over and snapped her fingers beneath his nose, making him sigh in annoyance. He looked back up at her, pausing his music. "Yes?"

"There are three of them, you know."

Haru's eyebrows creased into a frown and he looked over his shoulder into the cold examination room beyond their office space. For a moment he stared at the third body laying across the table in the middle before giving a shrug. He grinned up at Sakura, his finger hovering over the screen of his phone.

"Must have slipped in when I wasn't paying attention." His music came back to life yet again and Sakura rolled her eyes.

It wasn't the first time they were surprised with a fresh decedent. The hospital staff that worked the evening shifts weren't as thorough as those in the day and thought just wheeling a body into the morgue was good enough.

Sakura took a seat at her desk and dropped her purse into the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, giving it a kick shut with her heel. The lamp on her desk clicked on and she pulled the first chart from the pile sitting in the wire basket on the corner of her workspace.

She had forgotten about leaving the death certificates unfinished and cursed herself for neglecting them. For the next hour and a half, she filled each one out as quickly yet as thoroughly as she could, making sure not to leave a single piece of information out.

Haru had gotten up to stretch his legs and fetch something from the vending machines upstairs, leaving her to herself. Judging by how long he was taking, Sakura figured he had stopped by the nurse's station to flirt shamelessly with the night shift girls.

Despite the initial creepiness of being alone in a morgue, Sakura had become so used to it by now that she barely noticed that she was surrounded by lifeless bodies. They were as harmless as a piece of furniture now. It was the living ones she wasn't too fond of.

Sure, she had her close friends, most of whom were shocked by her career choice. The day she announced that she was taking the job as an assistant medical examiner, her best friend Ino had looked at her from over a cup of frozen yogurt and said, you mean with dead people? It had never bothered Sakura like it did others, excluding her chief ME, Shizune. Haru didn't seem to mind either. Though, she didn't get quite the enjoyment out of it as her partner did.

Haru had a sick sense of humor and would conjure up backstories for each victim and decedent that was wheeled through the door. That, she did not partake in and had even scolded him several times for being disrespectful, to which he always replied, who's going to hear me?

Finishing up the last of the death certificates, she slid them into a manila envelope and laid them on Shizune's desk to be signed and reviewed in the morning. Sakura stood, cracking the bones in her neck before she crossed into the examination room to take a look at the three bodies. She washed her hands and pulled on a pair of blue gloves and face mask, stepping up to the first table. Lifting the sheet, she stared down at a woman's face.

Sakura pulled the tape recorder from her coat pocket and pressed the button on the side, lifting it to her face. "Sakura Haruno, autopsy. Middle-aged female around 40 to 45 years old. Current cause of death is cervical fracture." She set the recorder down on the rolling tray and pulled the sheet down to the woman's feet. "Female is overweight with excessive adipose tissue around hips and midsection. There is one scar across her lower abdomen-C-section-and another across the right, upper quadrant most likely due to gallbladder surgery-"

The door to the morgue slammed open and Sakura jumped back, her elbow knocking into the rolling table, tipping it over. The tape recorder and metal tray clattered loudly across the tile floor. Blowing strands of pink hair away from her eyes, she glared icily at a cackling Haru. He held onto the doorknob for support as he bent over at the waist, nearly dumping his soda into the floor.

"You asshole!" Sakura tried to calm her racing pulse but her anger was making her blood pressure rise.

"Oh, god! You should have seen your face." He mimicked the surprised look she had made with a dramatic gasp before falling into another fit of giggles. "That'll teach you to sneak up on someone around here."

Sakura bent down to scoop the metal tray up from the floor and frowned, her tape recorder nowhere to be seen. She stood, glaring at Haru as he danced his way back into their office. "You're not supposed to have food in here."

Whether he heard her or not, she couldn't tell. He was busying himself with his music again, too focused on wedging the headphones deep into his ear canal to hear her.

"He's lucky I don't strangle him with those before the night is over." She dusted her hands off on her lab coat and decided to forget the tape recorder. It was more time-consuming to continue on paper, but crawling around on the floor, reaching beneath the counters was not happening right now. Being bit by a spider would definitely make her turn homicidal to a certain chubby, insufferable coworker and as satisfying as that would be, she definitely did not want to go to prison for murder.

Grabbing a clipboard and the proper paperwork, she clicked her pen and continued on with the initial observations on the three bodies. The woman was fairly simple. The odd angle of her neck, with a few vertebrates nearly visible beneath the bruised skin, was evident that she had definitely died from the injury. Sakura switched to a fresh set of papers and turned the sheet down on the next one.

The first thing she immediately noticed was his hair. Thick, silver strands lay across his pale forehead, framing one eye that had a faint, pink scar running through from the eyebrow down to his cheek. Her eyes darted back up to the strands of hair and she lifted an eyebrow. She had never seen hair that silky and shiny on a dead guy before. Sakura blinked, glancing down at the man's face, half-covered by a black, fabric mask that stretched from his nose down past his chin.

With a frown, Sakura jerked the sheet down the rest of his body and threw her hands up in the air. He was fully dressed in a black leather jacket, zipped halfway up to his chest and dark pants.

Did anyone in this hospital actually do their job? If she wanted to undress people for a living, she'd have chosen a job in retail. She glanced at Haru and the corner of her lips lifted in an impish smirk.

This dead fellow would definitely be his responsibility tonight. It would be hilarious watching Haru undress this guy, especially when the decedent had at least a foot of height on her chubby coworker.

Sakura crossed to the last covered exam table and draped the sheet back across another man's chest. This one was already undressed at least. Thankful for small miracles, Sakura turned to grab her clipboard and clicked her pen, scribbling the basic description of the man. He looked young, early twenties. No obvious signs of trauma that she could see and she parted sections of his dark hair, looking for lacerations or blood splatters.

Maybe this one had been the OD that Haru had mentioned. She pulled the sheet back further and rolled the man's arms over, checking for puncture marks in the bends of his elbows. As she glanced to the other arm, noting the tattoo inked into his chest, a mark across his throat caught her attention.

Frowning, she set the clipboard down across his stomach and guided the man's head to the side with one hand while reaching above her to position the light closer to the body with the other.

Just below his jaw on the left side, between his chin and his ear were several puncture wounds. Did he really shoot up in his neck? It was right over the carotid artery and not necessarily unheard of but it seemed like an awkward place to jam a needle into. But the longer Sakura studied the marks, the less they looked like needle marks at all.

In fact, they looked more like... teeth marks.

"What the…" Sakura trailed off, standing up straight before glancing back at Haru. She could hear his music blaring loudly from his headphones even from several yards away. "Haru!" She shouted to no avail, her voice echoing off the cinder block walls. Raising her hand, she drew her arm back to throw her pen at him but never got the chance.

A hand snatched her by the elbow and gripped her with a strength that snatched her breath away.

Whirling around, Sakura stared wide-eyed at the pale fingers gripping her around the arm. Blackened, cracked nails squeezed her so hard she could feel them even through the sleeve of her lab coat. She followed the hand down to the arm she had just been examining all the way to a now smirking face.

The dead man's eyes snapped open, pupils so large they completely blacked out his irises with bright, red blood vessels streaking through the white sclera. He cut them immediately to Sakura, his grin widening and she felt a wave of panic seeping through her veins like ice.

A scream lodged tightly in her chest as her instinct to run began to kick in. She jerked her arm back but he held on with a strength that nearly crushed her bones, keeping her close to him. She tried again, with enough force that she could feel the joint in her elbow flare in pain. It was no use. The man sat up on the table, the sheet pooling around his naked waist and Sakura stared in horror, her heart pounding hard and fast against her chest.

Smacking his mouth open, he slid his tongue across his chapped, colorless lips, saliva dripping down his chin onto his chest. He opened his mouth to reveal a row of sharpened fangs where his teeth should have been, his jaw nearly unhinging completely as he pulled Sakura close to him. She could feel his deathly cold flesh against her elbow and she whimpered, struggling against him with all of her strength. The soles of her sneakers squeaked loudly across the tile floor as she resisted his pull.

Across the room, Haru's music continued on and he heard nothing despite Sakura finally finding her voice. She let out a scream that went ignored and suddenly remembered the pen still gripped tightly in her fist. She grabbed it with her free hand and with no hesitation, slammed it down into the man's eye socket as hard as she could.

His howl of furious agony echoed around the room as thick, black blood spewed from his wound, spraying across Sakura's face. She sputtered, gasping for breath before he jerked her across the table with strength a dead man should not have had. His hold on her released and she collapsed against the rolling tray, sending her equipment scattering across the floor for the second time. She barely managed to catch herself before smacking her head into the next table.

"What the fuck ?" Haru's voice cut through the chaos like a knife and both Sakura and the dead man whipped their heads toward him. For a moment that seemed to stretch on for hours, silence was all that could be heard in the morgue.

Draped across the second body lying on the exam table, Sakura stared between the two of them, eyes wide and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. She wanted to shout at him to run, to get help but no sound would come out. It was like she was living through a nightmare.

The man grabbed the pen still protruding from his eye and pulled it out of the socket with a sickening, wet sound that made Sakura's stomach turn. She put a hand to her mouth and pushed the table back as far as she could to put space between her and this inhuman creature.

With a sudden, gurgling cry from deep within his chest, the man lurched forward, teeth bared and black-stained hands outstretched. He was across the room before either Haru or Sakura could blink, taking the other assistant medical examiner by the shoulders. He sank his teeth into Haru's throat and ripped at the flesh, pulling muscle and veins away with his teeth.

Frantically, Haru beat his hands against the man's chest and shoulders but it did nothing to stop the onslaught. Blood sprayed like a fountain out of the wound and all Sakura could hear was Haru's strangled, terrified cry as she sank to the floor.

She clamped her hands over her ears, her eyes burning with hot tears as panic froze her in place. Her brain was torn between utter terror and the need to flee to safety. She darted her eyes to the door and back to Haru's body, still jerking and struggling in the man's arms. His feet twitched, dangling inches above the floor and Sakura knew she would be next if she didn't find the strength to leave.

Now !

She scrambled to her feet and used the table behind her to brace herself, knowing she would have only a few seconds to cross the room and reach the door. Before she could even move a single muscle, the sheet across the body behind her shifted and slipped down the edge of the table to pool across the floor. A cold dread spread down her spine, paralyzing her with fear. She managed to glance to her right where for a second time, she watched a dead man sit up from the examination table.

His eyes were opened but unlike the empty, soulless black of the other man's, his were bright red and swirling like the storm still raging outside. Without a glance at Sakura, he slipped off the table and pulled a black object from the inside of his leather jacket. He put a hand out, touching her shoulder to push her toward the door.

"You need to leave." He said quietly, inching closer to where the thing holding Haru was still devouring him.

Frozen to the spot, Sakura could do nothing but stare. Blood was rushing to her head and she could hear a quiet ringing in the back of her ears. She could only remember one other time she had ever fainted and it had felt just like this. Her knees trembled, nearly buckling beneath her and the edges of her vision grew fuzzy and dark.

She took a shaking step back, her heel pressing into something hard and plastic. A button clicked and her own voice echoed through the examining room. " Sakura Haruno, autopsy. Middle-aged female around 40 to 45 years old… "

With a gasp, Sakura jumped and caught the blood-red glare of the masked man. His irritated growl was low and terrifying, a sound that would haunt her nightmares. Across the examination room, the creature dropped Haru's lifeless body with a thump. He spun around to face them, tongue darting around to scoop up the bits and pieces of flesh dripping down his chin.

It let out a shriek and launched itself at her, ignoring the other man. She threw her hands up in front of her face at the sight of his blood-stained mouth. Before she could move, the creature snapped its jaws and the top row of his teeth sank into her forearm, slicing through her flesh until it hit the bone of her elbow.

She screamed through the blinding, searing pain as the creature slammed her down to the floor and sawed his jaws back and forth on her arm. Blood spilled out around his lips and she stared at his impossibly black eyes staring down at her. She'd never seen someone look so...animalistic and terrifying.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the man who she hoped was trying to rescue her throw one of the tables out of the way, reaching down to snatch the creature around the neck. The teeth sawing at her arm were jerked away and she sobbed in agony as the masked man slammed her attacker into the lockers.

Sakura propped herself up on her uninjured elbow, cradling her bleeding arm to her chest. The pain was excruciating and she could only watch the scene unfolding in front of her. The one in the mask twirled the object he'd pulled from his jacket deftly in his fingers before pressing the sharpened tip into the creature's chest. Without a word, he jammed it into the chest cavity, right where the heart would be.

One more animal shriek and the creature disappeared in a cloud of black ash. Sakura watched it rain down around her like ebony snow, her eyes wide, gasping for breath as she stared up at the masked man turning to face her. He kneeled down and cursed beneath his breath, reaching out to carefully pull her arm away from her body.

He studied the bite mark with his crimson gaze narrowed beneath pinched brows. She wanted to pull away but was having a hard time holding on. The room wobbled around her and tipped on its side.

"Shit," was all she heard before the floor fell away.

Sakura gasped for breath but it was no use. It was as if her lungs couldn't expand enough to take in air. She focused on the mask across his face and blinked as he rushed her out the door of the morgue into the long, narrow hallway of the hospital basement.

They reached the elevator faster than she had expected and he set her down gently into an old wheelchair, taking her face in his cold hands.

She could smell the blood on his fingertips and wanted to gag but her body refused to respond. "You need to get some antibiotics right away."

"What?" She frowned, the black fuzz around her vision blurring his face in front of her. The swirling red of his eyes sank into the black of his pupils and she couldn't stop staring at them. He tapped her cheek with the back of his hand and she blinked herself out of the daze.

"Just hold on. Get up to the first floor and tell them you've been bitten." He pushed the chair into the elevator, reached in to press the button for the first floor and suddenly Sakura felt as if she had been dropped into a bottomless fog.

The ding of the bell above her sounded as if she were hearing it from several rooms away. As the doors slid closed, she reached out with trembling fingers, finally finding the strength to call out to the masked man.

"Wait…"

It was too late. She was alone in the elevator. Several seconds passed and she sat limp in the discarded, broken wheelchair that someone had dumped in the basement. It had been sitting next to the elevator doors for the past two months. Every day, she walked by it and never gave it a second glance. And now, she was sitting in it, bleeding, covered in someone else's blood- Haru's blood- and barely conscious.

It didn't seem real.

This had to be a nightmare.

As soon as she gave in to the urge to slip into the darkness, she'd wake up in her bedroom and chalk this up to too much spicy food before bed. But she didn't wake up. The bell inside the elevator chimed cheerily and the doors opened to the first floor waiting area.

The gift shop sat to her left, bright baby pink balloons and ceramic cherubs sat behind a sheet of glass. Turning to the right, she could see the middle-aged woman sitting behind the receptionist desk, filing her fingernails with the phone cradled between her head and shoulder.

Sakura struggled to push herself out into the hallway, her right arm trembling in pain as warm, thick blood dripped down her fingers. She barely made it out of the elevator doors before the woman glanced her way and gasped, jumping to her feet so suddenly the phone shot back into the circular desk.

A rush of people flowed toward her, someone screaming for a doctor, and Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. She let the darkness slip over her, falling finally into unconsciousness.

Chapter 2: Don't Scream

Chapter Text

Sakura hadn't stayed unconscious for long. After being hooked up to an IV, her wound cleaned and bandaged, she had woken up in a room full of nurses. They had all been extremely careful not to mention much else, especially about what could have possibly happened to her. She begged them to talk to her, to answer her questions but they insisted that it was best if she got some rest first.

She had rested that night, but just barely. And now that the sun was up, shining brightly across the puddles that stubbornly stayed littered across the parking lot outside, she got her answers.

Or, well, as close to answers as anyone was going to get.

Her supervisor, Shizune, had been the first person Sakura had seen that morning, her slender face solemn and pale as she sat down on the edge of the chair across from her bed. The lump pressing hard against Sakura's throat made it difficult for her to speak. She swallowed it back and stared down at her hands in her lap.

"Is Haru…" The words stuck like glue on the back of her tongue but Shizune knew the rest of the question.

She gave a small nod, dabbing a tissue at the corner of her eye. "His wounds were just too traumatic. There was nothing that could be done."

That was a lie. There had been something that could have been done. Sakura could have done more to save him instead of standing back like a coward, petrified to the spot. She struggled for a deep breath, the tears stinging at her eyelids. She blinked down at her lap, glaring at the bandage wrapped tightly around her wounded arm.

"Listen, Sakura. I need to warn you about something." Shizune stood from the chair and stepped to the side of her bed. The look across her face made Sakura's stomach drop to the floor. "There's a few detectives here. They need to ask you some questions about the incident. Do you think you can answer their questions right now?"

For the past year, Sakura had been on the other side of homicide cases, working with the police department and forensic scientists to help solve the various cases. She had written countless reports, performed autopsies on the brutal deaths, and never could she have imagined she would be on this side of it all now.

Swallowing hard, Sakura tried to think of the questions she knew they would ask but her brain was shut off. She was operating on autopilot and could barely form a coherent thought of her own.

But she knew it was up to her to help them solve this. She couldn't save Haru, but she could help figure out what had happened to him and find answers to the endless questions of his death. She owed him that much. Pushing her hair from her face with her good hand, she nodded to Shizune, sitting up as straight as she could.

"Yes," her voice cracked. "Send them in."

Shizune squeezed her hand before making her way to the door. She poked her head out and said something too low for Sakura to hear. A moment later, two men stepped into the room and her supervisor slipped out. The first one she recognized immediately and her jaw dropped to her chest.

She had sat behind him in countless classes growing up, staring at the back of his head, fantasizing about him turning around to smile or speak to her.

Sasuke Uchiha had been the subject of too many of her hormone-driven fantasies during high school, with his strikingly pale skin, black hair, and quiet, intense demeanor. Of course, he had never given her the time of day and she could count on one hand how many times he had spoken directly to her. After graduation, she thought she'd never see him again.

Yet, here he was making his way into her hospital room with the same air of self-importance and indifference he had years ago in school. He barely looked her way then and now was no different as he led the other detective into the cramped space, stepping around her bed to peer out the window that overlooked the hospital parking lot.

Sakura realized her jaw was nearly sitting on her chest and she quickly clamped her mouth shut, turning to get a look at the other detective. This one, she did not recognize with his brown hair pulled into a ponytail and a somewhat bored expression set on his face. He was a bit older than her but still holding onto his handsome youth. He gave her a tight-lipped smile and held his badge for her to get a quick glance at.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Haruno. I'm Detective Nara with the Special Crime Unit and this is my partner, Detective Uchiha."

The latter of the two didn't turn around at the mention of his name and Sakura shifted uncomfortably on the bed, glancing between the men. Detective Nara slipped his badge back into the pocket inside his jacket and pulled out a small notebook and pen. "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about last night? It won't take up too much of your time, seeing as how you're still injured and in need of some rest."

"It's fine."

"Ms. Haruno," Sasuke started, making Sakura whip her head toward him. He kept his gaze on whatever he was staring at outside. "Walk us through what happened last night. We need to know as much detail as you can remember."

He tented his fingertips on the windowsill, leaning closer to the blinds until shadows ran sideways across his features. Momentarily distracted, Sakura realized she was staring at him and quickly shook herself from her daze.

"Well," She started, swallowing the tightness in her throat. "I got to work a bit early to avoid the storm. It was about ten till eight."

Detective Nara looked up from his notebook. "And was Mr. Tanaka already in the office before you arrived?"

"Yes, he works the swing shift from noon to midnight. He was sitting at his desk, listening to music and I asked him how long the decedents in the examination room had been there. And I remember him mentioning two bodies but there were three. Haru said that someone must have slipped one in when he wasn't paying attention." Both men glanced at one another and Detective Nara began writing once again in the notebook.

"And did that seem strange to you?" He asked, not looking up at her.

"Well, normally when someone is brought in, the transport from the coroner has to have one of us sign off on the paperwork. But on a Friday and with the storm, it wasn't too strange to think they would have been in a hurry to get out of there. It happens."

After a moment of quiet, Sasuke turned back around to the window but not before his eyes met Sakura. In just a brief moment, barely longer than a blink, she felt as if he had stared into her soul, and judging by the look on his face, he wasn't too impressed with what he saw.

"Continue," he commanded, gesturing to her with his hand to keep going. She cleared her throat and blinked, not liking how uncomfortable he was making her feel. Sweat had begun to bead up along her back.

"I worked on some death certificates, he was filling out his own paperwork, and about an hour after I arrived, he went to the vending machines on the first floor…" She ran through the rather boring stuff but it was those particular things that she could still see clearly in her mind.

Performing the initial observations on the woman, the masked man lying on the table, her annoyance at him still being dressed, it was as if she were watching a movie replaying over and over in her head. By the time she explained the third exam, the one on the man who attacked her, she paused.

Sakura glanced at Detective Nara, watching his pen come to a stop over the paper. He lifted his eyes to her, waiting for her to continue. It was difficult. The words grew heavy and thick in her throat. She took a deep, shaking breath and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose with her uninjured hand. "Take your time, Ms. Haruno."

She had no choice. The tightness in her chest was beginning to ache, making it nearly impossible to speak. And even if she could, she didn't think she could quite say what she needed to. Would they even believe her? Would they look at her like she was insane and chuck her headfirst into the nearest psych ward? She wasn't even sure she believed it yet.

"You're going to think I'm crazy." She laughed, swiping at the tears that built up in the corner of her eyes.

"Just take it slow and be honest."

They stood there and listened to her recount every detail she could remember, from finding what looked like teeth marks on the man's neck, to every word the masked man said to her. Whether they believed her or not, she couldn't tell. At least they knew her side of things by the time she was done.

She brushed away another tear that slid down to her chin before blinking up at them. Detective Nara was finishing up his notes and his partner was staring down at Sakura, arms folded over his chest and a look across his face that was impossible to decipher. It sat heavy in his dark eyes and she watched them narrow on her before speaking.

"Ms. Haruno." His voice broke through the silence. "Is it possible that you could have fallen and hit your head at any point during the struggle?"

She leaned her head to the side and blinked up at him. "No. What are you implying?"

"The things you described, as astounding as they seem, don't seem to match with the crime scene that we observed." He unfolded his arms from his chest and stepped closer to her. She had to fight the urge to shift away from him. "There was no sign of a struggle aside from the amount of blood surrounding Mr. Tanaka's body."

A faint ringing began in the back of Sakura's mind, growing until it was nearly deafening to her as she tried to wrap her head around what he was telling her. It was impossible that there was no sign of a struggle.

There had been blood everywhere, tables overturned and black ash covering the floor from when that thing had been killed. She shook her head. "That doesn't seem likely. I-I mean, it was a wreck. I remember that there was blood from one end of the room to the other." She held up her bandaged arm. "Mine included."

Sasuke lifted a shoulder in a small shrug and Sakura knew from that one, tiny gesture that he didn't believe a single word she had told him. Dread filled her to her core but so did anger. Were they truly suspecting her of murdering her coworker?

"Am I a suspect?" She whispered, barely able to force the words out.

"Unfortunately, we can't rule anyone out just yet." Detective Nara said, sending a quick, disapproving glare to his partner. He closed the flap to the notebook and clicked the pen before putting them both back into his pocket. He gave a quick bow of his head before nodding to the door. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Haruno."

"Don't you think you should be focusing on the man who got away? He should be your main suspect here."

"Ah, yes," Sasuke said with a nod and a smile that mocked Sakura's plea, whether he meant it to or not. "The mysterious masked man. If you can remember any more details about him aside from the color of his hair and eyes, please be sure to give us a call." With that, the two men made their way out of Sakura's hospital room, leaving her to stare after them with her jaw hanging open.

Was everyone going insane? How could they possibly think she was a suspect in this? More importantly, how could she have ever had a crush on a guy like that? She didn't remember him being such an asshole but it was entirely possible she had been too blinded by his good looks to notice how horrid his personality was.

She shook her head and raked her fingers through her hair, only now realizing that she was trembling from head to toe. Whether it was with anger or fear, she wasn't sure. The way he had been so flippant about her account of things made her feel as if she should have lied and said she had blacked out.

Just the brief encounter with the two detectives had left her exhausted and with a throbbing headache. She could barely keep her eyes open despite waking up only two hours prior. Once she was sure she wouldn't be interrupted again by annoying, asshole police officers, she slid down into the stiff sheets.

Sleep wasn't too far from her mind but as she slipped into it, all she could think about was the pair of red eyes of the masked man, staring at her through the thick fog of her mind.

.

.

"Excuse me, Ms. Haruno?" Both Sakura and her best friend, Ino, turned to stare at the door of the hospital room, the card game they were in the middle of momentarily coming to a pause. An older nurse smiled politely as she poked her head in. "Visiting hours are coming to an end."

"I've got ten minutes," Ino said defiantly, holding her cards to her chest. The nurse pursed her lips but said nothing before shutting the door behind her. Sakura couldn't help giggling behind the fan of cards in her hand, shaking her head.

She wasn't sure if it was the steady dose of painkillers that the doctor had her on or whether she was genuinely feeling better about her whole ordeal, but for the first time in the past few days, she was in a good mood.

Of course, having her best friend visit didn't hurt, especially when she'd snuck in Sakura's favorite take-out from across town. They had engorged themselves on greasy, unhealthy noodles and sweets and for the past hour had just been hanging out. It was nice having a conversation with someone without the constant questions that the nurses and doctors asked her, or the bombardment of calls and texts from her mother.

How are you feeling today?

Do you want to move back home?

Is that bandage too tight?

She was sick of repeating I'm fine over and over again to them. And each time someone came into her room, whether it was to bring her fresh sheets, her meal, or the doctor coming to check on her, they had the same expression on their face. It was as if they didn't know what else to do, so they smiled sympathetically and would pat her hand or shake their heads.

Having Ino there, even if it was for an hour or so a day, helped break up the frustration. Sakura was thankful that there was at least one person who could talk to her without treating her as if she were a victim. "Ugh," Ino said, breaking Sakura from her thoughts. "I think you win this round."

She tossed her hand of cards onto the bed and stretched her arms over her head, looking around at the cramped room that had been Sakura's home for the past four days. Ino stood and straightened her clothes before gathering the cards back into a stack. "So, how long are they going to be holding you prisoner here?"

Sakura fell back onto her pillows and shook her head. They had both been referring to her hospital stay as a prison sentence since that was exactly what it felt like.

After the first 24 hours, the walls had started to close in on her and though she was able to walk through the halls to stretch her legs, the IV drip attached to her arm at all times limited her. The wound on her arm required antibiotics and since human bites could be particularly nasty, the doctors wanted to ensure that no infection would set in.

"I'm supposed to find out tomorrow whether or not I'll be home by the weekend." Sakura pushed herself off the edge of the bed and stretched the stiffness from her back.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed that they parole you tomorrow," Ino said with a laugh.

"Thanks. I don't know how many times I can tell these people that I'm fine. Maybe they'll believe me tomorrow." Sakura pulled her IV pole behind her and followed Ino to the door. Outside, the nurse at the circular desk eyed them with a small scowl. Apparently, going one minute past visiting hours was extremely frowned upon.

"I'll call you in the morning."

"Okay, be careful going home. Night." Sakura watched her best friend pause just briefly at the desk beyond her room to stick her tongue out at the back of the pushy nurse's head as she busied herself at the copy machine. With a wave back to Sakura, Ino disappeared into the elevator and the good mood she had brought with her was gone.

Sakura stepped back and closed the door behind her, turning to face her prison cell. The thought of going to bed at eight o'clock seemed absurd to her but there was honestly nothing else to do.

The television perched on the wall across from her bed only had about twelve channels and nothing interesting was ever on anyway. Ino had brought some magazines for her to flip through but honestly, she could care less about the latest fashion trends or ridiculous sex tips they had anyway.

Going to bed was, at least, the fastest way to cure her boredom.

She swapped her pajama pants for a pair of shorts, knowing the blankets and sheets the hospital used weren't as cool as the ones she preferred at home. And spending another night drenched in sweat didn't sound appealing. She slipped into the sheets and adjusted her pillows before pressing the button on the side of her bed to turn the light above her off.

Despite falling asleep rather quickly, she didn't stay that way for long. It was close to midnight when Sakura's eyes snapped open to the darkness of her room. The blinds of her window were closed, letting in very little light from the parking lot though it was enough to see a shadow in the corner of the room that she couldn't immediately recognize. It stood perfectly still but she could clearly make out the shape of a person around the dark edges.

Cold sweat covered her body as she slowly reached up to the light switch. Her fingers trembled as she pressed the button and blinked in the sudden blinding light. The shadow was gone and there was nothing in the corner of the room that could have even made the shape of a person. She breathed a sigh of relief and pushed a hand through her hair, falling back against her pillows.

Being terrified awake from a deep sleep was something she wished to never experience again. It had left her shaking, covered in a cold sweat, and with a suddenly dry mouth. Sakura sat up and grabbed the plastic cup she had been drinking out of earlier but it was empty.

She pushed the button to call for the nurse. She hated forcing people to do things for her, especially when she was more than capable but she was too tired to fight with the IV to get herself something to drink tonight.

A minute passed with no answer and she pressed the call button once more, waiting for a response. After ten minutes, she gave up trying. It was possible that they were busy or on a break which meant that she would just have to get up and do it herself.

Sighing, Sakura grabbed the cup and pushed herself out of bed, pulling the pole behind her on its squeaky wheels. Out in the hallway, she was surprised to find the nurse's station empty. There was a faint beeping coming from a room down the hall but other than that, there were no sounds. No talking, or papers shuffling, no televisions blaring like usual. It made chills cover her arms and she hurried across the hall to the water fountain.

As she stood there, she glanced nervously around the halls, the silence growing more unnerving the longer she stood there. The ancient water fountain barely put out a trickle, making it impossible to hurry the process along. Sakura kept her attention on her surroundings, not comfortable with how tense she suddenly felt.

From where she stood, she could see down to the very end of the hallway where the elevators were and she stared, waiting for someone to poke their heads out of one of the doors. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling at the end of the hall flickered and she let go of the button on the fountain.

Holding her water cup tightly to her chest, she felt frozen to the spot. An emergency exit sign blinked a few times and Sakura felt the hair across her arms stand on end. Panic pricked at the back of her neck, freezing her to the spot.

"There's nothing here. You're safe," she whispered to herself but it did little to help. No matter what she told herself, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

From one of the rooms down the hallway, she heard a door shut and it sent her heart racing into a frenzy. She grabbed her pole and rushed back to her room. She shut the door and pressed a hand to it, letting her forehead rest against the cool surface as she tried to catch her breath.

The longer she stood there, the more the creeping sensation she had felt out in the hallway began to grow until it was nearly suffocating. Sakura blinked in the darkness of her room and realized all too late that she had definitely left her lights on. She turned slowly, fear gripping her heart with icy fingers, and could see the shape of a person standing in the corner of the room again but this time it didn't disappear.

It took a step and in the faint, yellow light from the streetlamps outside, she could see a man's features come into view. His silver hair made him seem like a ghost stepping toward her but it was his masked face and crimson eyes that made Sakura stare in horror. And as she opened her mouth to scream, he moved behind her as fast as lightning. His hand curled around her mouth and he pulled her back, holding her tight against his chest.

Sakura thought about biting his hand but it was covered in a leather glove and she didn't think she'd be able to bite through it. She couldn't move, couldn't scream or think as he whispered against her ear.

"Don't scream."