“Were you even going to tell me?” I demanded. “Before…”
I couldn’t even make myself say the word wedding. I was fairly sure I’d vomit if I did.
He didn’t answer.
Which I supposed was actually answer enough.
“Get out,” I whispered. “Actually, no. You know what?I’mgoing to get out. I hate this fucking place.” I swept my arms out in a wide and violent arc, indicating the small, sterile, windowless station quarters we’d lived in for the past two years. The apartment I’d tried so hard to make feel like home with candles and wall art and knickknacks, never quite succeeding.
“Wait!” He was starting to look panicked now. As if the reality that I could leave him was only just starting to sink in. “Lu-”
I cut him off by going right back out the apartment door and shutting it firmly behind me.
Outside our living quarters, I walked briskly down the brightly-lit corridor. The forward motion was invigorating. And it gave me space to make plans.
I wouldn’t ask for my old job at the med bay back. They’d already hired my replacement, and the idea of staying on Elora Station now made me want to stick a scalpel in my own eye. But the thought of going back to Terratribe II was equally unappealing. I’d sold my small practice there. I’d have to start all over again. And I’d be doing it on my own. Completely alone.
I knew I was capable of all the work involved, but even just imagining it made me want to collapse into a pathetic little puddle of depressed Lualhati goo.
I didn’t want to stay here.
I didn’t want to go back.
There was no other choice but to continue with what my body was doing on instinct right this very moment – pushing forward. The same way I was currently power walking my ass through this bright and shiny station, I would throw myself onto a new path. I had to maintain some kind of inertia. If I stopped for too long, I might realize that my life was rather rudely falling the fuck apart.
I needed something different. Somewhere people didn’t know me, where I could just focus on myself and my work without going through the rigamarole of reopening my own clinic on Terratribe II. A job I could distract myself with would be ideal, like at someone else’s clinic, or a hospital. At least for a little while. Until I figured out what the hell came next for me.
My comms tablet vibrated with an incoming message. I halted, stewing on the fact that it was probably Bryson. I yanked the device out, only to see that the message was from Tasha instead.
Thanks so much again for your help, the message read.Please let me know the second you come across a viable candidate who might be interested in the position.Anycandidate. Seriously.
I’ve got a candidate for you, I typed back, thumbs flying furiously over the screen.She’s experienced, ready to start immediately, and has a great bedside manner. Also great hair. And a great butt.
Tasha’s reply came in at once.
Oh my God! Thank you! The great hair and butt truly aren’t necessary, but I guess I’ll make a note of that…Who is it?
My stomach tightened with resolve. Or maybe it was just that sweet halo-halo giving me the strength I needed to take the leap. I typed my final reply.
Me.
2
HALLUM
Isupposed it was just as well that Tasha was having such a hard time enticing a human doctor to join us here, considering how long it was taking to get the new hospital built. I’d expected that the small structure would have been completed by now, but this spring had been a surprisingly wintry one, slowing our progress with freezing temperatures and heavy snow that not only hadn’t melted yet from previous falls, but just kept coming. It had snowed again overnight, and today was another bright, cold day that promised no improvement in temperature, despite the sun beaming down over the scene.
“Good morning, Warden,” Shiloh, Rivven’s wife, said, walking through the freshly fallen snow from the nearby saloon. We’d chosen to build the hospital near Rivven and Shiloh’s place as the saloon was a central point between my property and that of the other men in my province.
“It’s so pretty out,” she said, a small smile playing about her lips, her breath turning to silvered smoke in the air.
“Greetings, Shiloh,” I said. I followed her gaze to the place where the hospital should have been standing right now and feltimpatience prick in my claws. “Pretty means very little to me when there are things to be done.”
“Well, whether you can get your things done or not, it’s pretty all the same,” Shiloh said with a little laugh. “Might as well appreciate it.”
I had not met enough humans to understand if this sort of attitude was a common one or not. I supposed it made a certain amount of sense that Shiloh might be interested in the aesthetics of the scene rather than the utility, since she was an artist.
But Shiloh was also not responsible for getting the blasted thing built.
