The men behind him chuckle. My throat tightens. I try to swallow and it feels like swallowing sand.
“What, what is this?” My voice is thin, but it’s mine. “Why am I here?”
The president takes a slow step closer, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “You saved our enemy once,” he begins and I’m confused..
The words don’t make sense at first. They slide right off my brain like water off glass. I blink at him.
He tilts his head, like he’s surprised I’m not already putting it together. “Now you save our brother.”
The room feels like it tilts. My pulse spikes. “I don’t—” I start, then stop, because my mouth can’t keep up with my thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He sighs like I’m being difficult on purpose. “The Hellion you took home,” he says. “You kept him from bleeding out on the pavement.”
My lungs forget how to work.
Miles.
The memory flashes so bright it hurts: blood on my hands, his weight against my shoulder, the panic that night when I thought he might die in my living room, and the way he looked at me afterward like I’d done something holy.
They know.
They know about him. About that night.
My fear shifts—sharpens—because this isn’t random. This is connected. This is a chain of choices and consequences, and somehow I’m the link they decided to yank.
“I’m a nurse,” I state quickly, because my brain grabs for the one thing that might matter. “I’m not a doctor.”
The president’s mouth curls. “Oh, we know what you are.”
He gestures with two fingers, and a man behind him tosses something onto the table with a slap.
A folder.
My stomach drops again. My name is on the front. My badge photo printed out like a mugshot.
They did their homework.
The president leans closer, voice low enough that it feels like he’s speaking directly into my bones. “You’re gonna fix him,” he says, “and stitch him like the trash you cleaned up before.”
My skin prickles.
“I can’t,” I stammer. “I can’t treat someone outside the hospital. I’m not licensed?—”
Laughter erupts around the room, sudden and cruel. It hits me like a shove. Men snort, shake their heads, grin like I just told the best joke of the night.
The president smiles wider, and there’s nothing friendly in it. “Peaches,” he mutters sweetly but it’s all wrong, like the nickname is a hook he’s sliding under my skin. “Ain’t one man here worried about your credentials.”
My stomach twists.
“Please,” I whisper, and I hate the word the second it leaves my mouth, hate how small it sounds. “If your friend is hurt, take him to the ER. I’ll?—”
He cuts me off with a sharp flick of his hand. “Our brother can’t go to a hospital,” he says. “He needs the bullet removed and stitched up.”
Bullet.
The word lands heavy.
My mind tries to sprint away from it. Bullet means bleeding. Bullet means internal damage. Bullet means a hundred things that can go wrong, and I don’t have imaging or sterile supplies or a surgeon on standby if it goes wrong.
