The Ghost Doctor

CHAPTER 3 – The Betrayal at Dock 47

Gunfire split the air.

“Down!” Lydia dove, dragging Justin behind an overturned cart. Shells clattered, echoing through the concrete chamber. Patients screamed; someone knocked over an IV stand that shattered against the floor.

Justin’s heart hammered. “They’re shooting at civilians!”

“They’re not aiming for them,” Lydia hissed. “They’re aiming for you.”

He peeked out, two of Rafe’s men advancing, weapons raised, their faces calm, professional. Assassins, not guards. Justin’s hands itched, that strange current surging again. Not now, he thought. Not like this.

Lydia yanked a metal tray from the floor and tossed it toward the lights. The reflection flared, one shooter flinched.

Justin grabbed a rusted pipe and slammed it against the second man’s wrist. The gun clattered away. “Move!” Lydia shouted.

They sprinted toward the back corridor. Bullets sparked off the steel walls. Justin gasped, “Why would Rafe set me up?”

“Because power like yours doesn’t stay free,” she answered. “He wanted to own you.”

They burst through a door into the rain-soaked alley behind the dock. Cold wind whipped their faces; the smell of the harbor mixed with gunpowder.

A black SUV screeched to a stop ahead, headlights cutting through the downpour. More men spilled out, Rafe among them, umbrella in hand, expression smooth as glass.

“Doctor Forbes,” Rafe called, his voice calm over the storm. “You misunderstand. I only need to make sure you belong to the right side.”

“The right side doesn’t start with a gun,” Justin shot back.

Rafe sighed. “You’ve cured a politician’s daughter and a dying child. Imagine what that’s worth, if controlled.”

“I’m done being someone’s experiment.”

Rafe nodded to his men. “Then we’ll take what we need from your corpse.”

The agents lifted their weapons. Lydia whispered, “Any brilliant ideas?”

Justin clenched his jaw. “Just one.”

He raised both hands. The air trembled. Light bled from his palms, blue-white, electric, humming like a living thing. The rain around them turned to steam. The men froze. “What, what is he”

The blast hit like a shockwave. Lights burst, glass shattered, and the SUV’s alarms wailed. When the smoke cleared, Rafe was gone, dragged away by his surviving guards.

Lydia blinked through the haze. “You… did that?”

Justin stared at his hands, terrified. “I didn’t even touch them.”

They stumbled into the narrow side streets, half-running, half-limping. Justin’s glow faded, leaving only exhaustion. “Congratulations,” Lydia muttered. “Now the entire underworld wants your head.”

“Add them to the list,” he replied.

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “You really are insane.”

“Maybe. But I’m alive.”

“For now,” she said.

Thunder rolled overhead. In the distance, sirens wailed closer, no longer looking for a myth, but for a fugitive with proof he could defy death itself.

Lydia glanced back toward the docks, where flames licked the rain-slick pier. “You’ve just started a war, Doctor Forbes.”

Justin looked at the burning warehouse, his reflection flickering in the puddles. “Then let’s make sure I finish it.”

Rain blurred the city into streaks of silver and smoke. Justin followed Lydia through a labyrinth of backstreets, both panting, soaked, and reeking of gunpowder.

“Down here,” Lydia said, pulling open a rusted grate. The stench of damp earth and decay rose from below.

“The sewers?” Justin asked.

“You got a better idea?”

He hesitated, then climbed down. The metal rungs were slick; his palms still burned faintly from the power that had erupted earlier.

He didn’t know what scared him more, the people hunting him, or what his own hands could do. The tunnel echoed with dripping water.

Lydia lit a small flashlight, cutting through the dark. “Keep quiet,” she whispered. “The city’s scanners can’t track us down here.”

Justin wiped grime from his face. “Who was Rafe working for?

She sighed. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. He’s ex-government. Used to run medical contracts for the Prime Minister’s security division.”

Justin stopped cold. “You mean, he worked for the same people whose daughter I saved?”

“Exactly.”

He clenched his fists. “So saving her wasn’t luck. It was a setup.”

Lydia nodded slowly. “Looks that way.”

They walked in silence, the air thick with mold and secrets. Then Lydia added, “Justin… that blast you unleashed back there, if anyone recorded it, you’re not just a fugitive anymore. You’re a weapon.”

“I don’t even know how it happened,” he said. “It’s like something inside me decided to protect itself.”

“Then you need to learn to control it before someone else does.”

They turned a corner, and a faint glow appeared ahead, a flickering light through the cracks of an old service door.

“Someone’s there,” Lydia whispered.

Justin crouched, peering through the slit. Inside, a group of people huddled around a radio, their faces gaunt and tired.

Medical equipment lay scattered, makeshift beds, IV lines, and a cracked monitor still blinking weakly. He pushed the door open. The group jumped to their feet.

A woman with streaks of gray in her hair stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“Just passing through,” Lydia said quickly.

The woman’s eyes narrowed at Justin. “You’re him. The doctor.”

Justin froze. “You’ve got the wrong”

She cut him off. “We saw what you did at the docks. We have sick here, dying. If you can help, do it.”

Lydia whispered, “We should move on.”

But Justin was already walking toward the nearest cot. A teenage boy lay there, feverish, barely breathing.

He reached out, pressing his fingers gently to the boy’s temple. That same hum began again, soft at first, then rising like a storm beneath his skin.

Light flared, illuminating the entire room. The boy’s chest rose with a deep, steady breath. Color returned to his cheeks.

The others gasped. Someone dropped to their knees. Lydia stared, awe replacing skepticism. “You just, again?”

Justin staggered back, clutching the table for balance. “It’s not healing. It’s rewriting.”

“What does that mean?”

He looked at his trembling hands. “Whatever this is, it’s not medicine anymore.”

The radio crackled suddenly. “Target located, Dock 47 explosion confirmed. Subject classified as Tier One Biological Threat. Orders: capture alive or terminate.”

Lydia’s face went pale. “They’re talking about you.”

Justin exhaled slowly. “Then we don’t run anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ve spent my life saving people who wanted me gone. Maybe it’s time I learn who’s trying to erase me, and why.”

Lydia shook her head. “That’s suicide.”

He looked back at the boy breathing peacefully on the cot. “No. It’s purpose.”

He turned to her, eyes steady. “You still want your sister cured?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Then help me find the people who made me this way.”

Somewhere above them, sirens wailed again. The hunt was on. And for the first time since his fall, Justin Forbes stopped running.