Chapter one
Wrong Number, Right Darkness
Lena
I'm standing in my mobile medical unit at 11:47 PM, extracting bullets from a sixteen-year-old like they're particularly stubborn splinters, wondering how exactly my life became a medical dramedy directed by Tarantino with a nursing degree.
Three 9mm rounds, anterior thoracic cavity, missed the subclavian artery by two millimeters—someone's guardian angel went to medical school. Mine's on permanent sabbatical, probably day-drinking with my better judgment.
The blood won't come off my hands, which feels diagnostically significant for my entire existence. I'm scrubbing at the fold-out sink in my definitely-not-illegal van that absolutely-doesn't-treat gunshot wounds without proper documentation. The waterruns pink—hemoglobin dilution, approximately one part blood to three parts denial.
My patient will live.
Prognosis: scarred but breathing.
Treatment plan: pretend the bullets didn't have Iron Talons rifling patterns.
Side effects: crushing existential dread and a desperate need for tequila.
Classic Thursday.
My scrubs are destroyed—forty bucks down the drain, but whatever. I'll steal new ones from the hospital supply closet like a medical Robin Hood, if Robin Hood worked weekends and had questionable coping mechanisms. The girl looked at me with eyes that said 'save me' and 'let me die' simultaneously.
I saved her. My therapist would call this a hero complex. Good thing I don't have a therapist. Can't afford the copay or the judgment.
Díos mío, I need a drink. My liver is already filing a formal complaint, but my executive function is in committee reviewing other poor decisions.
The tequila is for sterilization. That's what I tell myself when I take a pull straight from the bottle—Herradura Silver, because even my disasters have standards. It burns less than the knowledge that a child had three bullets in her chest. Nursing school prepared me for trauma. It didn't prepare me for the philosophy of pulling gang bullets from trafficking victims while stone-cold sober.
My phone buzzes. Ray, probably—my sixty-two-year-old mechanic-slash-enabler-slash-father-figure who keeps this van running with duct tape and pure Vietnam-veteran stubbornness. He lost his son to gang violence. I lost my parents to drunk driving. We're a match made in therapy-avoidance heaven.
I text without looking, muscle memory and exhaustion creating honesty I can't afford:
Just performed emergency surgery in a van held together by prayer and WD-40. Three bullets extracted with the precision of a trained trauma nurse and the legality of a back-alley abortion. Patient survived. My faith in humanity didn't. Stealing your tequila for medicinal purposes. All the purposes. Every single purpose that exists.
The response arrives faster than Ray’'s arthritic thumbs allow.
Unknown:Angels shouldn't have to see hell. But sometimes hell needs angels.
I stare at my phone like it's presenting abnormal lab results. My prefrontal cortex and my vagina are having a conference about this development. Neither is reaching sound conclusions.
Who is this?
Three dots appear—tachycardic rhythm, irregular intervals. My emergency response training kicks in, by which I mean I take another shot of tequila.
Unknown:Someone who knows hell intimately. Wrong number, but maybe right timing.
My self-preservation instinct files a formal protest that's immediately overruled by my dopamine receptors, who are apparently staging a coup.
Fantastic. I'm texting either a serial killer or a philosophy major. With my dating history, probably both. Should I be concerned that I'm not more concerned?
Unknown:Philosophy majors don't text back at midnight.
Valid diagnostic criteria. So just a serial killer then? At least you're punctual.
Unknown:I've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it.
My brain attempts to process this like a medical chart. Symptoms: homicidal honesty. Diagnosis: danger. Treatment plan: immediate cessation of contact. What I actually do: keep texting like my frontal lobe is on vacation.
