A quick glance finds the nurse in question on the ground, but conscious. While another helps him up, two more have the patient backed into a corner, brandishing the IV pole she’s still connected to as a weapon. Blood is beginning to spread through her hospital gown, matting it against her stomach, and her long, dark brown hair is a tangled mess. But it’s the wild glint in her golden eyes that has my heart suddenly lodged in my throat.
You can’t back a shifter into a corner and expect it to end well for anyone.
“Everybody out.”
“Dr. Garrison,” one woman argues, “you need another set of hands in order to sedate h-”
“I said out.” While I keep my voice calm and level, I leave no room for further arguments.
They tentatively back off, hauling the injured nurse with them as they slink out of the room, shooting several worried and displeased looks my way. Once they depart, I weigh my options, but opt to close the door. While I don’t want to make her feel any more trapped than she already does, I can’t risk anyone overhearing our conversation.
She white-knuckles the pole, her breathing ragged and legs trembling. Coming off of the anesthesia and morphine from surgery is hard enough, but add in a fever that high? The only thing keeping this woman upright is adrenaline, and when she crashes, it’s going to be hard.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I only want to talk.” Lifting my hands in surrender, I move away from the door, keeping the bed between us for her peace of mind.
“I didn’t mean to attack him. I woke up and he was...I-” Swallowing, she croaks, “I need to get out of here.”
Nodding, I drag one of the visitor chairs away from the far corner, snagging her chart on the return to my spot against the wall at the foot of the bed. “We want you to go home as well. First, though, we need to get that fever down and make sure there weren’t any complications from your surgery. Then you can be on your way.”
Her eyes become glassy with unshed tears. “Where are my clothes?”
Keeping my reaction on lockdown has gotten easier over the years with as many horrible cases as I’ve dealt with, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the flare of rage. Skimming the information in her chart, I use the excuse to buy myself a moment to compose myself before speaking.
“Looks like you were rushed in for emergency surgery, so they’d have been cut off and discarded. Your keys are in a sealed bag in the cabinet here in your room.”
Glancing up, I tread lightly with my next question. It’s rare for our kind to get sick, usually stemming from extreme cases of neglect, or when they’ve been beaten within an inch of their lives repeatedly to the point their bodies exhausted themselves from so much healing in a short span of time.
One of the papers rips at the edge beneath my tight grip. “It says here that you were stabbed in a robbery gone awry, but that doesn’t account for the fever you came in with. If there are any other exams we should do while you’re here, there are plenty of female doctors on staff I could schedule to come by.” When she shakes her head, I can’t hide the breath of relief that rushes from my lungs.
“I just... don’t like anyone touching me without permission,” she admits in a whisper. “When I woke up and he was checking my bandages, and I realized someone had stripped and dressed me, that who knows how many people touched me while I was unconscious and I would never even know-” her breath hitches, heart rate spiking and sending the monitor into overdrive “- I panicked. Lashed out without thinking. Please don’t press charges, I’m not going to hurt anyone else, I just want to leave.”
Kodiak will be happy to hunt down whoever’s responsible for instilling that fear. Might even be able to convince Raiden to come out of his office for a change and make an example of the bastard.
“Then it looks like the two of us have something in common.” I keep my voice as soothing as possible, and her rapid breathing slows a touch before she can lose herself in a full-blown panic attack. “I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to physical contact, myself.”
She sucks down a few deep breaths until her heart returns to a steadier rhythm. “You’re a doctor. That seems like a poor career choice for someone that doesn’t like touching people.”
Chuckling without humor, I lift a hand, showing one of the surgical gloves that I keep in place between hand washing. “There aren’t a lot of options that put me in a position to help people like us. And if they’re in bad enough shape to require a hospital, well, those tend to be the ones that need help the most. To me, that’s worth some discomfort.”
If it wasn’t for the fever keeping some color in her face, by the way she goes stock-still and her golden skin pales considerably, she’d have a better shot passing herself off as a ghost than a human. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
I’ve been through similar scenarios thousands of times, but the one universal truth is that you can never completely predict how someone is going to react when you call them out on the secret most take to their graves. Plenty deny it or go on the offensive, some burst into tears, and others are so broken, they can’t even bring themselves to care about potential consequences anymore. Praying I’m reading the signs right with this woman, I pull a business card out of my wallet.
“You don’t have to tell me your name, or what you are. But if you’re in a rough spot, there’s always a place you can go where people like us can be safe.” She doesn’t even glance at the card as I set it in the middle of the bed before backing off again. “If you’re ever in trouble and can’t make your way out there yourself, call that number and tell Carina that Stone sent you. She’ll arrange how to get you out.”
She’s forced to set the IV pole down and grip the edge of the bed when she wavers on her feet, but it does nothing to detract from the venom in her voice as she spits, “You can take Khalida, and shove it up your ass.”
The air completely freezes in my lungs, and I don’t have the first clue how to respond. We’ve never had any issues beyond a few scuffles that were swiftly broken up and handled after the initial growing pains of establishing the city, but that was nearly five hundred years ago.
With a groan, she finally accepts defeat now that the spike of adrenaline is wearing off and sits on the bed, chest rising and falling rapidly. “I appreciate the sentiment behind the offer, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll settle for some acetaminophen and one of those biohazard stickers to slap on my chest so I can get out of your hair.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek at the amount of blood staining the front of her gown. “How about we compromise?” She narrows her eyes, but in her current state, the silent warning falls flat. “You clearly tore some of your stitches out, and you really can’t afford to lose any more blood right now. So how about you tell me what I need to do to set your mind at ease enough that you’ll let me patch you up, and I’ll pass off my rounds for the rest of the day to make sure that no one bothers you while you get some much-needed rest?”
Several tense seconds pass by as she scrutinizes me before she reluctantly relents. “No bare skin. Gloves at all times.”
If I thought I couldn’t breathe before, it’s nothing compared to the vice my lungs are in now.There’s no way.
But if I ask her what kind of shifter she is after telling her she didn’t need to when she’s already this defensive, I’d lose the little ground I’ve managed to gain and send her running. With the shape she’s in, she’d very likely get herself killed as a result.
