"And yet you gave us what we deserved." He tilted his head, studying me with an intensity that made me feel simultaneously seen and exposed. "You saw a patient who needed care. Nothing more, nothing less."
"That's my job."
"No." The word was granite-firm. "Your job is what the others did. Following orders. Protecting themselves. You did something else." Silence stretched between us, thick with meaning. Then, softer: "I wish all humans were like you, Jordan."
Hearing my name in that deep, resonant voice sent an unexpected flutter through my chest—warmth spreading like whiskey.
Before I could untangle my thoughts enough to respond, he turned and melted into motion, moving with that impossible grace that defied his size. Within heartbeats, he'd vanishedinto the shadows pooling at the parking lot's edge, leaving me standing there with my keys dangling uselessly from my fingers, staring at the darkness that had swallowed him whole.
My first real meeting with an Orc.
I'd expected... hell, I didn't know what I'd expected. Fear, maybe. Danger. Something that aligned with the stories, the warnings, the careful distance everyone maintained like an unspoken rule. Instead, I got gratitude. Dignity. A father clawing through desperation and bigotry to save his son.
I got someone who was just trying to protect his family.
I climbed into my truck, the gold nugget a warm weight in my pocket, and sat motionless for a long moment before my hands found the ignition. Through the windshield, the hospital entrance glowed with harsh fluorescent light bleeding into the soft dawn.
Everything I thought I knew suddenly felt uncertain, like discovering the ground beneath my feet had shifted while I wasn't paying attention.
I put the truck in gear and pointed it toward home.
Chapter 2
Jordan
I slept the whole first day off shift—almost 24 hours straight—which was normal for me coming off a 7-on, 12-hour nocturnal shift rotation. My body crashed the moment I got home, barely making it through the door before collapsing into bed still wearing my scrubs. The exhaustion was bone-deep, the kind that comes from running on adrenaline and caffeine for a week straight, making split-second decisions that mean life or death, and never quite getting enough rest between shifts.
They tell you in med school that you'll get used to it.
They're lying through their teeth.
Five years into my career as an ER doctor and my body still staged a full rebellion against the schedule every single time. Turns out the human body has opinions about being forced to flip between day and night shifts like some kind of circadian yo-yo, about staying sharp for twelve hours straight while processing one trauma after another, about surviving on vending machine food and coffee so old it might qualify for its own medical chart.
My instructors had painted such a pretty picture: it would become routine, they said. Your circadian rhythm would adapt, they promised. The exhaustion would feel less like being hit by a truck, they assured us with their well-rested, tenured smiles.
What they conveniently forgot to mention was how the fatigue doesn't just fade—it accumulates in your bones likesediment. How you start measuring your entire life in shifts instead of days, your existence carved into twelve-hour chunks. How you'll wake up sometimes in complete disorientation, your brain frantically trying to solve the puzzle: morning or evening? Going to the hospital or coming from it? What day is it?
And they definitely don't tell you about the crash afterward—the way your body presents an itemized bill for all those hours you pushed through on nothing but spite and willpower, and it expects payment in full.
Sleep claimed me like a debt collector finally getting what it was owed—no dreams, no tossing and turning, just the kind of profound unconsciousness that feels like falling into a black hole. The good kind.
When I finally clawed my way back to the surface, the bedside clock's digital glow announced 2:47 AM in accusatory red numbers. Nineteen hours. I'd been out for nineteen hours straight.
My mouth tasted like something had crawled in there to die and been mummified for good measure. My hair had apparently decided to stage its own rebellion, plastered to one side of my head in a gravity-defying sculpture that would've impressed a punk rocker. I stumbled toward the bathroom like a zombie extra who'd missed the memo about method acting.
The shower was salvation. Hot water cascading down, washing away not just the fog of too much sleep but that special hospital perfume—eau de antiseptic with notes of recycled air and other people's fear. That smell had a way of burrowing into your pores during a shift, setting up residence like an unwanted tenant. I stood under the spray longer than strictly necessary, letting the heat unknot my shoulders and remind my muscles they were allowed to relax.
Afterward, I pulled on my comfort uniform: soft flannel bottoms in a plaid pattern that had faded to the perfect level ofbroken-in, and the ratty Van Halen t-shirt Mom had given me. The shirt was more ventilation than fabric at this point, the 1984 tour dates on the back barely legible, but it was hands-down the most comfortable thing I owned. Mom had actually worn it to concerts back in her wild twenties before she traded mosh pits for hospital floors and became the dedicated nurse who'd raised me to follow in her medical footsteps.
My fingers traced the worn fabric, following the faded logo. This shirt was one of the few things I had left of her—of both of them. The car accident had happened three weeks after my med school graduation. Drunk driver, rainy night, wrong place at wrong time. All the clichés that sounded hollow because they didn't make the hurt any less sharp.
They'd been so damn proud at graduation. Dad had actually cried, which he never did—not at weddings, not at funerals, not even during the ending of Field of Dreams. Mom had hugged me so tight I'd barely been able to breathe, whispering that I was going to be an amazing doctor, that she couldn't wait to see all the lives I'd save.
I didn't know those would be some of the last words she'd ever say to me.
I pulled the shirt closer, inhaling even though I knew her perfume was long gone, replaced by years of my own detergent and the particular smell of well-loved cotton.
In the kitchen, I made myself a turkey sandwich with all the culinary artistry of someone building a brick wall. Mayo, mustard, cheese. Slap, slap, done. My stomach was still running on hospital time, thoroughly confused about whether this qualified as breakfast, lunch, dinner, or some cursed meal that existed outside the normal space-time continuum. But I knew better than to skip eating. Your body needed fuel even when it was staging a protest, especially then.
