Chapter 1
Frank, 5 years ago
“I’m not letting a drunk driver crush my dreams. What I want to do with my life doesn’t just benefit me. I’m an asset to the human race—”
“Frank, you were dead ten minutes ago,” my best friend, Drake, says. She removes her nitrile gloves with the snap of finality. She’s been repairing my broken body for hours, and it shows in the way she sways on her feet. I can’t judge the lines on her cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes, though, because I no longer have a face. The minced hamburger I wear on my skull may never resemble a face again, but I never claimed to be handsome.
“Still look dead to me,” says my other best friend, Landyn. “When the shock and drugs wear off, you will be in a world of hurt. Drake’s tapped out from repairing your internal organs. I’ve got a little left in the tank and can wake Bracken to assist me if you want us to reconstruct your face. Any other messiness we can cover with clothes, but you should probably have a face before we call your parents.”
“I can be ugly—even hideous—as long as I’m still the greatest surgeon to ever live—”
“Frank, that ship has sailed. I have your hands in a bucket,” Landyn shouts, throwing his hands over his head.“They would still be at the crime scene if the police couldn’t use them to identify you.”
“Thank fuck for small miracles,” I grouse. “Without my surgical career, I have nothing. I am nothing. You don’t get it. I don’t date. I don’t want a family. You guys are my friends because I let you copy my shit through college and med school—”
“Hey! Hey!” They yell in unison.
“I’m going to let that remark go because I demonstrated my skills with the shock paddles on you a few hours ago. If I realized you were such an ass, I might have left you dead,” Landyn says, wagging his finger in my face. He stops when he catches my fixation on the digits.
Turning from my bedside, he rakes his gloved hands through his shaggy blond hair, completely breaking sterile protocol. Should I remind him, or will that change his mind about helping me?
I need hands. My life is nothing without hands.
My best moments were in this cadaver laboratory. It was here that my gift for surgery went from top of the class to world-class. I’d always loved science, but not people, so a surgical fellowship fit me like a glove. Once I was through my rotations, life became easy. My purpose for being on this planet was clear as glass. With my three best friends at my side, I didn’t need a social life. My world shrank to the number of people I could handle…and who could handle my less-than-sparkly personality. However, one night of forced socialization threatens to take it all away.
“I owe you guys my life,” I murmur with tears burning what’s left of my cheeks. “I’ve been an ungrateful bastard—”
“Unlike your usual bastard self,” Bracken says as he enters the dim lab. He gives me a wink as if I’m one of his swooning, female patients. Whether it's his good looks, laidback charm, or actual skill that makes him the best obstetrician in a one-hundred-mile radius, remains to be determined. “How are you doing, buddy?”
“He’s pissy about his hands,” Landyn explodes.
“All right, grumpypants, go to bed,” Bracken replies easily.
“Wait,” Drake shouts. “It’s my turn. You just got up, andgrumpypantstook his nap first.”
“I don’t need sleep. I need the patient to be realistic. The police are looking for us. His parents are going to flip out when they see him. He’s hanging onto life by a thread and only talking because he’s in shock. We could be in deep shit with the university for bringing him here. What were we thinking?”
“That we needed to save our friend,” Bracken answers. “We agreed he’d be too dead to save if we waited for an ambulance, ER protocol, and some boy-scout-doctor to check all the boxes. He needed doctors who would do right by him—not some asshole rule-follower at a desk. It had to be us. If it had been me, I’d hope that you would have made the same decisions.”
“Operating while under the influence? We could lose our licenses after only having them for two months,” Landyn continues his tirade without thought to Bracken’s emotional plea.
Which is an example of why emotions are bullshit.
“Stop, stop this nonsense,” I shout as loud as my crushed vocal cords allow. “Forget the face. My parents said I was an uglybaby anyway. If you will restore my hands, I’ll create my own damn face. Then you can go home and sleep off this nightmare. There’s no reason why all three of us should lose our licenses. What good is my license if I can’t operate?”
My friends won’t look me in the eyes—and not because I have no eyelids.
“Exactly,” I snap. “I could never be the friendly family doctor in a small town. My bedside manner—or lack of it—would make that position last a hot minute.”
“What about dermatology? You got high marks in that,” Bracken suggests.
“Because the hormonal teenagers and their overprotective parents would be a good fit for my blunt opinions?” I chuckle when all three of them wince. “You know as well as I do that if I hadn’t been the best surgeon to work in this room, I’d be out on my ass. Please. You helped me breathe again, my heart to beat again, and now I beg you to give me a life again.”
“Damn it, Frank,” Drake says to the ceiling.
“You got it,” Bracken says, fist-bumping the sheets beside me…because I lack fists. “You got a plan for those hands in the bucket? We haven’t got time to create the robotics to animate them before they start to rot…”
“Landyn?” I whisper. Of my three friends, Landyn is the most talented surgeon by far. He and Drake became ER doctors because they’re adrenaline junkies. He could have easily challenged me for my internship and given me a run for my money. I hate to admit how much I need him.
