Or at least, that's what she told herself.
By the time her shift ended, she was exhausted in ways that had nothing to do with the physical demands of surgery. Her hands were steady, as always, but something inside her was shaking. Something that felt like the beginning of an earthquake, the first tremors before the ground gave way entirely.
She drove home through the Los Angeles traffic, the city lights blurring past her windows, and tried to convince herself that nothing had changed.
But she knew it had.
Marianne Cole had called her exceptional. Had admitted that professional objectivity was difficult to maintain. Had looked ather with eyes that held something far more complicated than clinical assessment.
And Isla, who had spent years avoiding entanglements, who had built her life around the clean simplicity of work and nothing else, wanted to know what would happen if they stopped pretending.
It was the worst possible timing. The worst possible person. The worst possible complication to a career that was already under siege.
But as she pulled into her apartment building and sat in the darkness of the parking garage, Isla couldn't make herself care about the consequences.
She was tired of being careful. Tired of protecting herself from everything that might hurt her. Tired of the loneliness that had become so familiar she barely noticed it anymore.
Maybe it was time to stop playing it safe.
Maybe it was time to find out what happened when she let herself want something other than survival.
Her phone pinged when she arrived home. A new email from Marianne. Her heart skipped a beat.
Documentation Request - Protocol Deviation Review.
Isla stared at her phone screen. Marianne's message was clinical, professional, stripped of any warmth:
Dr. Bennett,
Per our discussion at the board meeting, I am requesting detailed justification documentation for the attached case files. Please provide:
- Clinical reasoning for each protocol deviation
- Risk assessment at time of decision
- Outcome data supporting the chosen approach
Due date: [Two weeks from now]
Please let me know if you have questions.
Marianne Cole
Director of Risk and Compliance
Seventy-two cases. Two weeks. Every decision she'd made over five years, now requiring justification to a woman who had never held a scalpel.
Isla deleted the draft response she'd started typing—something angry about bureaucratic overreach—and simply replied: "Acknowledged."
Then she opened the first file and began to write.
6
ISLA
The stack of files Marianne had requested ten days ago had barely diminished. She had chosen to go back into the hospital in the evening, and lose herself in the quiet for the administrative wing. The offices were dark except for the one where she sat surrounded by the chart reviews scattered around her.
Seventy-two cases, each one requiring a detailed justification of every decision that fell outside the standard protocol. Marianne had given her two weeks to complete the reviews, but Isla was determined to finish sooner. To show that she could work within the system even when the system felt designed to crush her.
