The third-floor corridor of Apollo Hospital in Jaipur was almost deserted. The fluorescent lights hummed wearily, like insects trapped in a shell of light. The glossy paint reflected a pale white light, making the corridor seem longer, colder, and more lifeless.
Rohan Mehra walked quickly, his tie hanging loose, his shirt crumpled as if he had put it on in a hurry, and his heart pounding in his throat.
The nurse’s words still echoed in his head:
“Rohan, Ananya is restless… she keeps calling your name.”
He hung up immediately. Without thinking. Without hesitation. He left the meeting, turned off the phone in front of his colleagues’ astonished eyes, and sped off, treating every red light as a test between him and his daughter.
The smell of antiseptic hit him as soon as he stepped onto the third floor—a smell that had clung to his memory since the day the doctor had said Ananya’s tumor was “small,” “operable,” “not too scary.”
From that day on, the hospital became a place he visited more often than his home, and a harsh reminder of how fragile happiness can be.
But what squeezed his chest the most wasn’t her illness—it was the guilt that was eating away at him bit by bit:
Guilty for not spending enough time with her.
For staying too many nights at the office.
For leaving Ananya in the care of Veronica, his new wife, and convincing himself that it was “all right.”
The hallways of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago were nearly empty, lit by fluorescent bulbs that buzzed like trapped insects. The white light made the linoleum shimmer, the shadows stretch, and everything seemed colder than ever. The strong smell of antiseptic could not mask the distinct scent of fear and death that lingered in the air.
Robert Vance walked quickly, his tie loose, his Brooks Brothers shirt wrinkled, and his heart pounding in his throat. His expensive Italian leather shoes made a dry, echoing sound against the floor like the countdown of a ticking time bomb.
The nurse on the switchboard kept repeating in his head, like a broken record:
—“Mr. Vance, Emily is restless… she keeps asking about you. She’s getting worse. You need to come right away.”
He hung up without thinking. Canceling a $50 million merger meeting, turning off his phone while his finance colleagues stared at him in amazement, then driving like every traffic light on Lake Shore Drive was a barrier between him and his daughter.
Emily, his little 10-year-old daughter. The blonde angel with the toothless smile he hadn’t seen in two weeks because of his busy work schedule. He and his ex-wife, Sarah, had been divorced for three years. The custody battle was still raging, and Robert knew he was being a bad father. He compensated for his absence with expensive gifts and generous child support, but he knew Emily needed him.
And now, she was in there.
Robert stopped in front of room 304. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
He took a deep breath, trying to calm his shaking hands. He looked down at his appearance. It had been pouring rain on the way to work this morning. His SUV had hit something—a deer, he thought, or maybe a stray dog running across the suburban highway. The impact was so hard it dented the front bumper and shattered the headlights. He was so panicked and in a hurry to get to the meeting that he didn’t stop to check. He just wanted to get to work, sign the contract, and then call a mechanic.
But now, the impact was nothing compared to the shock he was facing.
Robert pushed open the door and entered.
The room was bathed in the dim blue light of medical equipment. The ventilator was huffing and puffing… steady but heavy.
Sarah was sitting by the hospital bed, her head in her bony hands. When she heard the door open, she looked up. Her eyes were puffy and red, and when she saw Robert, her gaze changed from pain to utter anger.
“How dare you show your face here?” Sarah hissed, her voice hoarse.
“Sarah… I’m sorry. The nurse called me…” Robert approached, ignoring his ex-wife’s hostility. He looked down at the hospital bed.
Emily lay there, small and lost in the tangle of wires. Her head was wrapped in white bandages. One side of her face was bruised and swollen. Her left leg was in a cast and slung high.
“Oh my God…” Robert exclaimed, his legs almost giving out. “What happened? Did she fall down the stairs?”
Sarah stood up, pushing Robert’s chest so hard that he backed away.
“Fall down the stairs? Are you kidding me, Robert?” she cried through sobs. “She was in a car accident! A hit and run! This morning! On her way to school!”
Robert’s blood froze.
“Hit… and run?” he stammered.
“That’s right! Some bastard hit her while she was riding her bike through the intersection near her house, in the rain! He threw her into the ditch and left her there to die! If a passerby hadn’t spotted her in time…” Sarah burst into tears, collapsing into the chair.
Robert felt a chill run down his spine, colder than the Chicago winter wind.
This morning. Rain. Suburban intersection.
He remembered the hard impact with his front bumper. He remembered the dry Rumble. He remembered reassuring himself that it was just an animal. He hadn’t stopped because he was afraid of being late for the meeting, afraid of ruining his suit, afraid of… being responsible.
No. It couldn’t be. It was just a coincidence. Thousands of accidents happen every day.
“What did the doctor say?” Robert asked, his voice trembling, not daring to look directly at his daughter.
“Traumatic brain injury. Fractured femur. Ruptured spleen,” Sarah listed like a verdict. “She woke up a little while ago. She was panicking. She kept calling your name.”
“She called you?”
“Yes. She said ‘Daddy.’ I don’t know why she called you, the heartless father who abandoned her. But the nurse said she might need the comfort of a man who protected her.”
Robert swallowed. He moved closer to the bed, took Emily’s small, cold hand. Her fingers were scratched.
“It’s me, Emily. It’s me,” he whispered, tears beginning to fall onto the bedsheets. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Remorse welled up in him. If he had caused the accident… no, he couldn’t bear the thought. He would hire the best doctors. He would pay for everything. He would do anything to make it up to her, even if he didn’t dare admit it.
Suddenly, Emily’s eyelids fluttered.
“Emily
? Can you hear me?” Robert squeezed her hand gently.
Her eyes fluttered open. They were the same blue as his, but now bloodshot and filled with fear.
She stared at Robert. Her breathing became labored. The heart monitor beside her began beeping faster.
“Dad…” Emily whispered through the oxygen mask.
“It’s Daddy, baby. He’s not going anywhere. “Daddy will protect me,” Robert sobbed.
Emily tried to pull her hand away from his. The fear in her eyes wasn’t pain, or death.
It was fear for him.
“Why…” Emily whispered, her voice weak but clear in the silence. “Why didn’t you stop?”
Robert was stunned.
“I saw your car… I waved… I called you…” Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. “I saw you through the windshield… You saw me… Why did you run over my bike and leave?”
The 10-year-old’s accusation hit Robert like a sledgehammer.
The world around him collapsed.
He hadn’t hit the deer. He hadn’t hit the dog.
He had hit his daughter.
This morning, as he drove his shiny black SUV through the suburbs to take a shortcut to work, he saw a shadowy figure in a raincoat yellow. He braked, but not in time. He felt the impact.
And in a split second of cowardice, selfishness, and ambition, he chose to run instead of getting out of the car. He had deceived himself that it wasn’t a person.
But deep down, his subconscious knew. And now, the victim was lying before him, looking at him not with the eyes of a daughter looking at her father, but with the eyes of a victim looking at a murderer.
“No… Emily… I don’t know… I swear…” Robert backed away, bumping into the medicine cart.
Sarah stood up, stunned, looking at Robert. She looked at her ex-husband’s horrified face, then at her daughter. The cruel truth slowly appeared in her mind.
“Robert?” Sarah whispered, her voice cold. “Which way did you take to work this morning?”
Robert couldn’t answer. He just shook his head, holding his head in his hands.
Just then, the door to the hospital room opened out.
But it wasn’t the doctor who came in.
Two uniformed police officers walked in, followed by a woman in a white blouse – the nurse who had called Robert.
But she wasn’t looking at Robert with the concern of a paramedic. She was looking at him with the cold eyes of a hunter who had trapped his prey.
“Mr. Robert Vance?” An officer stepped forward.
“I…” Robert stammered.
“You’re under arrest for serious hit-and-run and attempted murder.”
Robert looked around, panicked. “How… how did you know?”
The nurse stepped forward. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket – Emily’s phone that had been found at the scene, the screen smashed but still working.
“Your daughter wasn’t crying out for you because she missed you, Mr. Vance,” the nurse said, her voice firm. “When she first woke up an hour ago, she She was panicking and screaming, ‘Daddy did it.’ We thought she was delirious.”
“But,” the officer continued, holding up the phone. “The crime scene investigators found this phone in the bushes. Emily was filming TikToks on her way to school. The final video captured the entire incident.”
The officer pressed Play and turned the screen toward Robert.
The video shook. Emily was laughing and talking happily in the rain. Then the engine roared. Emily turned around.
The black SUV sped up. The license plate number was clearly visible in the final second before the screen went black.
The license plate: R-VANCE-1. Robert’s proudly personalized license plate.
And the last sound in the video wasn’t a crash.
It was Emily screaming, “DAD!”
Robert had heard that scream this morning. But he’d chosen to turn up the music in the car to drown it out.
“We called you,” the nurse said, “Not to see your son. But to lure you here, to confirm that you are the owner of that car, and to arrest you where you cannot deny it.”
Cold handcuffs were locked around Robert’s wrists – the hands that had held Emily when she was born, and the same hands that had run her over with the steering wheel this morning.
Sarah didn’t scream. She just looked at Robert with utter disgust, then turned around, holding her daughter’s head, protecting her from her monster father.
“Take him away,” Sarah said coldly. “Don’t let him foul the air in my daughter’s room.”
Robert was dragged down the long hospital corridor. The fluorescent lights still buzzed overhead, but now they no longer sounded like trapped insects.
They sounded like the siren of his conscience, the one that would haunt him for the rest of his prison years. He had raced against time to get to his daughter, only to realize that, he was the one who pushed the girl to the door of death.
And the only traffic light he actually ran this morning, was not a red light, but a border the end of humanity.
