The blood was already drying under my nails when they pushed him through the double doors.
I’d just finished charting on a ruptured appendix, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like a hive I could never escape, when the crash bar slammed and two orderlies stumbled in with a gurney. The metallic smell hit first—sharp, copper, wrong. Then I saw the shirt.
Black, shredded, soaked through with red.
“GSW, lower chest, maybe upper abdomen,” one of the orderlies panted. “Found outside, no ID. They dumped him.”
My heart tripped. Gunshot. Which meant cops, questions, forms, attendings, protocols. Which also meant the attending on call—Dr. Kline—was nowhere to be seen.
Of course he wasn’t.
“Trauma bay two,” I said, because someone had to say something. “Let’s move.”
We shoved the gurney down the corridor. It was nearly two a.m., the corridors half-asleep, monitors beeping slow night-time rhythms. Tonight smelled like antiseptic, old coffee, and the faint tang of fear that never quite left this floor.
The man on the gurney didn’t move. He was tall—his feet hung off the end—dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood. There was an ugly, blooming stain over his left side, spreading with every bump.
“Page Kline again,” I snapped at the nurse jogging beside me. “Tell him it’s a penetrating trauma, unstable vitals.”
“He hung up on me the first time,” she muttered.
“Call again.” I shoved the doors open with my shoulder, throat tight. “And tell him I said if he doesn’t get his ass down here he can sign the death certificate himself.”
The nurse’s eyes flicked to me, then away. She did as she was told.
We slid the gurney into trauma two. A resident from ortho poked his head in, grimaced at the blood, and backed out without offering help. I forced my lungs to slow. I was only an intern, but interns could run the basics until someone with more letters next to their name materialized.
“Sir?” I leaned over the man’s face, my gloved fingers brushing the side of his neck, searching for a pulse.
It hammered against my fingers, fast and stubborn. Not dead. Not yet.
His eyes snapped open.
They were dark, almost black under the harsh lights, the kind of eyes that shouldn’t belong to someone half-conscious and bleeding out. They locked on to mine so sharply it felt like a physical touch.
“Don’t…” His voice was a ragged scrape. “No cops.”
“Good evening to you too,” I muttered, more to keep my hands steady than anything else. I raised the head of the bed a fraction, ignoring how his lips tightened with pain. “You were shot. You need surgery. We don’t have a choice.”
He caught my wrist.
Even half-dead, his grip was like iron. His hand was slick with blood, warm, terrifyingly human.
“No cops,” he repeated, eyes boring into me. “No name. You understand?”
I tried to jerk free, but his fingers held. The monitor I’d just attached beeped unevenly. He didn’t look at it. He didn’t look at anything but me.
“I understand you’re going to die if you don’t let me do my job,” I snapped, louder than I’d intended. “Let go. Now.”
Something flashed in his gaze—approval? amusement? I couldn’t tell. Slowly, he released my wrist.
The nurse reappeared, breathless. “Kline says if it’s gang-related, he wants security to handle it first. He’s not coming until they clear the scene.”
