“ETA?” I ask, turning back toward the nurses’ station.
“Two minutes,” someone answers. “Maybe less.”
Two minutes is nothing. Two minutes is forever.
I move to the trauma bay entrance, positioning myself where I’ll see them first. My eyes stay fixed on the doors, even as my mind insists on replaying the last moments of the call.
Whoever intercepted them didn’t need speed. They needed access. They needed to know exactly where Ethan would be, where his attention would be directed, and how close they could get before he understood what was happening.
That realization takes hold with sickening clarity.
The bay doors slam open, and the waiting ends in a rush that feels almost violent. Sound rushes in first. Shouting. Footsteps. Wheels clattering against tile. The noise hits all at once, shattering the quiet like glass.
“Trauma incoming!”
The gurney breaks through the threshold, followed by a second one close behind. Red and blue lights strobe across the bay for a brief moment before the doors slide shut again, sealing us off from the outside world.
I see Ethan immediately. He’s conscious.
Relief hits first, loosening something tight and painful beneath my ribs. He’s upright enough to follow movement, his eyes scanning the room. Blood streaks his temple, drying along his hairline, and his uniform is torn at the shoulder. One arm is held protectively against his side, but he’s breathing on his own.
He’s alive, and the relief is immediate, but it doesn’t last.
His uniform has already been cut open, the fabric peeled back to expose his chest and ribs. He moves carefully, guarding one side without thinking about it. The bruising along his ribs is dark and contained, not spread out the way it would be if this had been random. Nothing pushed him far enough to take his consciousness.
The second gurney rolls in beside him, and my attention snaps there without effort.
His partner is worse off, unconscious, blood soaking through the front of his uniform and into the sheets beneath him. His chest rises unevenly under assisted oxygen, his face ashen beneath the grime. The angle of his head is wrong, his neck secured in a rigid collar.
“Dr. Hale,” a nurse calls, already moving into position. “Vitals dropping on the second patient.”
“I see it,” I respond, stepping in without hesitation.
The room fills around us. Staff take their places. Orders overlap and resolve into motion. IV lines are placed. Scissors cut the fabric away. Monitors chirp and then escalate as numbers settle into view.
I work on instinct, my hands finding their roles without conscious thought. My focus narrows to pulses, breath sounds, and responsiveness.
Ethan watches me from his position, his jaw tight, his expression held in check. He doesn’t call out to me or reach for me. He knows better. He’s been around this long enough to understand what space means here. But his eyes don’t leave my face.
I catalog injuries without emotion, the way I was trained to do. Blunt force trauma delivered at close range. Enough to incapacitate, not enough to kill. No wild strikes. No unnecessary damage.
As we stabilize his partner and move him toward imaging, I turn toward Ethan. A nurse steps in beside me, already cleaning the blood from his temple.
“Talk to me,” I tell him, my voice firm but low. “Any dizziness? Nausea?”
“No,” he replies. His voice is even, but there’s tensionunderneath it now that wasn’t there before. “They didn’t want us to leave the scene.”
“Tell me what happened,” I say, keeping my tone neutral even as my stomach hollows.
He exhales slowly, his eyes lifting toward the ceiling for half a second before returning to me. “The scene was staged. No signs of a struggle and no civilians. We stepped out, and they were already there.”
“How many?” I ask.
“At least three,” he answers. “Maybe four.”
I nod once, already understanding what that implies.
“They moved fast,” he continues. “Not frantic. Coordinated. One of them spoke to me.”
