"Doctor," I whispered in Russian, though I doubted anyone could hear it. "Need . . . help."
The lock turned with a click that cut through my fading consciousness. Light spilled out, harsh fluorescence that made me squint, and then there was a figure in the doorway—small, maybe five-three, backlit so I couldn't make out features. Just a silhouette that went very still when it registered the bloody mess collapsed against the door.
"Jesus Christ." A woman's voice, sharp with shock but not panic. Professional. The light shifted as she crouched down, and I could see her face—sharp features, dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, eyes that were assessing damage even as they widened. She was young, maybe thirty, with the kind of exhaustion written in her features that came from too many nights without sleep.
She was holding a scalpel. Smart. Opening doors at midnight in Brighton Beach without protection was a good way to end up dead.
"Doctor," I managed, though the word came out slurred, wet. Blood in my mouth now. When had that started? "Need . . . help."
My right hand was still wrapped around my gun, fingers locked in place. Couldn't let go. Letting go meant admitting weakness, vulnerability, and the monster in my chest—quiet as it was—still had opinions about that. But the gun was also why most people would have slammed the door, called the police, done anything except what she did next.
She looked at the gun, then at my face, then at the spreading pool of blood beneath me. Her expression shifted from shock to something else—calculation, medical assessment, the same look I'd seen on field medics who had to make split-second decisions about who could be saved.
"How many wounds?" Her voice had changed completely. Gone was the shock. This was pure clinical authority.
"Two. Maybe three." Everything was fuzzy. There'd been the knife. The gunshot to the shoulder. Was there another one? Hard to remember. "Knife in the . . . the side. Bullet in shoulder."
"How long ago?"
Time had become elastic, meaningless. "Twenty minutes? Hour? Don't know."
She stood abruptly, and for a moment I thought she was going to leave me there. Made sense. I was too big to move, too dangerous to help, too far gone to save. But then she was back, wedging herself under my arm on my good side.
"Get up," she commanded. Not a request. Not a suggestion. An order, delivered in a tone that cut through the fog of blood loss and pain. "Table. Now. You lie down or you die. Your choice."
Something about that voice—the absolute certainty in it, the complete lack of fear—made my body respond when my mind couldn't. I got one knee under me, using the doorframe for leverage. The world tilted sickeningly, but her small frame was there, surprisingly solid, taking more of my weight than should have been possible for someone her size.
"Leave the gun," she said.
My fingers wouldn't uncurl. Fifteen years of training, of never being unarmed, of the gun being an extension of my body—all of it fought against the simple act of letting go.
"Can't—"
"I'm not treating an armed patient. Drop it or bleed out. Choose."
The monster in my chest should have roared at that, at being given ultimatums by someone half my size. Instead, it just . . . agreed. Like it recognized something in her, some similar creature that understood necessary choices.
The gun clattered to the floor.
"Good. Now move."
The journey to the table might have been ten feet. Felt like ten miles. Every step sent fresh agony through my abdomen, and I could feel blood running down my leg with each movement. Her shoulder dug into my ribs, and she grunted under my weight but didn't buckle. Didn't slow. Just kept moving forward with grim determination.
The basement was exactly what I'd expected—industrial sink, metal shelving units packed with medical supplies, a surgical table that had seen better days. But it was clean. Obsessively clean. The sharp smell of disinfectant couldn't quite mask the copper undertone of old blood, but everything gleamed under the harsh lights.
"Up," she ordered when we reached the table.
I tried. Got halfway before my strength gave out and I collapsed onto the metal surface, rattling everything. She didn't waste time commenting, just grabbed my legs and swung them up, surprisingly strong for someone so small. Then she was moving, pulling scissors from somewhere, cutting through my blood-soaked shirt with efficient strokes.
"Jesus," she breathed when she saw the damage. The professional mask slipped for just a second, revealing something human underneath. "You should be dead."
"Probably." The word came out as barely a whisper. The fluorescent lights above her head were starting to halo, everything getting soft around the edges. “But it’s not my first rodeo.”
She worked fast, hands moving with the kind of precision that came from years of practice. No hesitation in her movements, no uncertainty. She pressed gauze to the knife wound, applied pressure that made me bite through my lip to keep from screaming.
"Intestines intact," she muttered, more to herself than to me. "That's lucky. Shoulder's through-and-through, looks like it missed the subclavian. Also lucky. You have a guardian angel or something?"
I almost laughed. Guardian angel. If she only knew the things I'd done, the people I'd killed. Angels didn't look after monsters like me.
