Chapter 1

God, this shift sucks monkey balls.

My feet hurt, my evening is far from over, and this is shaping up to be one very long night.

Coffee. I need more coffee.

Starting for the vending machine, I nod at Patricia, the other medical resident on call covering the wing with me, and she offers a weak smile.

She's been stuck with an elderly woman with an impacted bowel for, like, two hours, and I do not envy her.

The smell of fresh cleaning solution wafts up as I step past the Wet Floor sign to the coffee dispenser.

I choose the largest cup it offers and wait less than patiently while it doles out twenty ounces of mediocre caffeinated juice.

"Stewart!" I look over my shoulder to see the attending, Dr. Carter, rushing down the hall. "Multiple arrivals incoming. Altercation in a warehouse. We've got code blues, lacerations with heavy gashes, and stab wounds. Move!"

Snapping into action, I leave the coffee and run after her to the emergency room.

Several patients are being wheeled into rooms on gurneys by paramedics, and nurses and physicians are already scurrying about numerous bedsides.

I follow my attending until we split ways, with her heading to a serious thoracic injury on the opposite side of the room.

I go to a patient with a nasty slice through his side, donning my gloves and utilizing the necessary sterilization tools. Then, I get to work dealing with the bandage transfer and sutures.

"Fucking hell!" I snap my face up to the guy, not changing a thing about the pressure I've applied to his wound.

"Got yourself pretty good there, Mister…?"

"Shaw. But please," he hisses as I get more of the clotting agent and some disinfectant going. "Call me Luke."

I nod. "Okay, well, I'm Dr. Stewart. You've got a pretty bad gash here, so I'm going to have to suture the injury. Can you tell me what caused this?"

The patient's dark eyes track over toward my attending, then to another person from the warehouse incident on the bed across from us.

I take just a second to note his attire, comparing it with the several professional criminals I've treated before. Curious.

When I turn back to Mr. Shaw, I notice his clothes are much nicer. He doesn't come across as a thug for hire in the slightest, and I have to assume he was the "victim."

Not that it matters. Everyone gets the same treatment.

"Pretty sure it was the pointy end of that guy's switchblade, but I could be wrong."

I crack a smile, nodding as I prep his wound for stitches.

When I glance up at him, I see the numbing agent is doing its job and relaxing him, and I have to actually shake my head to refocus. Between this guy's sandy-blond hair, hazel eyes, and toned muscles, he's beyond distracting.

It's been a hot minute since I've treated anyone so…attractive, especially since I'm working on my cardiology specialty, and most of those patients are elderly.

His hair is ruffled, with bumps and bruises covering his face and arms. I can tell he's been in a fight, and still, his eyes are practically sparkling, his obvious good looks not remotely dimmed.

Mr. Shaw holds my eyes momentarily before I track mine back down to his side and start sewing.

"I'll get you all patched up. No need to worry."

My voice sounds decidedly tight, and I try to ignore it.

"Oh, I'm not concerned, Dr. Stewart. Chicks dig scars, right? Though, I do think I'm supposed to be wearing that red stuff on the inside. Still, do you think it's my color?"

I chuckle, trying not to jiggle too much as I continue stitching.

"Hmm, I don't know. It's hard to tell when your hue is so off."

I sneak a glance up at his face to offer a smirk, and Mr. Shaw grins wider.

"Well, shit. Here I was, trying to impress you with my rosy glow. Sallow and washed-out is cute, though."

Most of the way through sewing up his laceration, I muscle the needle harder through the flesh to make sure I'm sewing up all the layers of damaged tissue.

"Doc?" His voice is full of exaggerated worry. "Oh, no. Tell me it isn't so. Please. Have I lost my…"

He doesn't finish, and when I'm through another stitch, I look up. The performance is perfection, that knitted brow of his so expressive.

I fight back the smile. "Lost your what?"

Mr. Shaw dramatically looks to the side, putting the back of his hand to his forehead like he's going to faint.

"My sparkle."

Barking out a laugh, I have to immediately quiet myself as several other doctors and patients glare in my direction.

With a shake of my head and a roll of my eyes, I go back to the sutures.

"I assure you, Mr. Shaw, your sparkle is intact. Unless you kept it in your abdominal muscles."

He sighs loudly.

"Oh, thank God. And no, no. I don't keep it there. I keep my sparkle in the moneymaker. Obviously."

I snort, another eye roll taking over.

"The abs are the pulse pounders."

But then, he groans a little.

Snapping up to look at him, I raise my brows. "Are you all right?"

He nods. "Yeah, that just feels…really fucking weird."

It's only been a few minutes, Mr. Shaw's distractions not affecting me too much, thankfully, and I'm nearly done with the stitches.

"Oh, yeah. They can, I guess. I don't have personal experience receiving them. Just giving them out. But as long as I'm not hurting you, Mr. Shaw."

"You could never, darlin'."

My heart skips, and I have to blink twice as I process what he just said.

When I look back up at Mr. Shaw's face, he just smirks.

"And it's still just Luke."

Something behind my ribs pulls, and I swallow hard, finishing up the last few stitches. I'm not sure what that was, but my skin feels hot and clammy all of a sudden.

Oh, no, no. You do not have time for that. Nose down, work hard, stay unattached.

"Oookay," I say as I thread the last stitch. "You're all good to go. You'll need to hang out for a while so we can administer antibiotics. But you'll be receiving discharge instructions and signs to watch for infection or any potential complications. I'll just?—"

"Stewart!"

I turn my attention to Dr. Carter. She raises the rails on bed four, and the nurses move like lightning to get the patient she's seeing rolling out of the room.

"OR. Scrub in as my assisting. Possible cardiac laceration. We need to get in there."

A nurse comes up behind me, taking over with Mr. Shaw, and I hurry after Dr. Carter.

* * *

"Blood pressure is dropping.He's going to code."

The OR nurse calls out from the monitor, and I hold steady, retracting for Dr. Carter.

"I can't find the damn leak. I need more suction!"

Another nurse comes in to clear the area of blood. Our patient is losing the stuff way too fast, and we all know that somewhere in the heart, there's a bleed we can't see.

Suction comes, giving us a bit more visibility, and Dr. Carter finds the injury at the bottom portion of the organ.

"Got it." A nurse dabs her forehead as another switches her to the suturing implements. "Come on. Get suction in here."

We struggle with the laceration for seven more minutes, but the blood loss is critical, and the patient codes on the table. It's twenty more minutes of fighting tooth and nail for this guy, trying our hardest to keep his heart beating and stabilize him after the severe oxygen depletion thanks to the hemorrhage.

It doesn't work.

"Time of death 7:17 p.m."

After that, I don't hear much of what the nurses say. Exhaustion hits both me and Dr. Carter like a damn freight train.

I can see it in her eyes, just like she can probably see it in mine.

We hate to lose patients. It doesn't matter who it is, and I can see she's especially pissed about this one.

Pulling her toward the sink to get cleaned up, I help take off her mask and remove her gloves, tossing them in the surgery bin with mine.

"Hey, you did everything you could. You know that. You always do."

Dr. Carter nods. "I know. I just…damn. If I'd caught the bleed earlier."

The sound of the rushing water as we scrub our hands is a gentle whoosh that fills the otherwise silent area.

"You can't start that." I meet her eyes hard. "Like you've told me—you do the best you can, and you live with it."

She nods, sighing.

"How about I tell any next of kin?" I offer.

With a tired smile, she puts a hand on my arm. "Thank you, Clara."

"Any time, Linda."

I exit the operating room, finding the nurses who've been manning the visitors associated with the warehouse incident. It doesn't take long for them to point me in the direction of what I have to assume is the deceased's crew.

They are a grim, downright terrifying group, and I thank my lucky stars that I'm in the hospital with security guards just a few feet away.

As I look away from them, I notice Mr. Shaw smile in my direction. Then he spots the group of people I'm about to talk to, his grin quickly fading.

Yeah, this is going to be rough.

"I'm very sorry, gentlemen." I meet the eyes of the group, freezing as I make eye contact with one particular individual who glares at me so hard I shiver. "Um, your friend didn't make it. We tried everything we could, but?—"

"But nothing, bitch!"

I flinch as the man in the dark trench coat snaps at me. He's banged up like the others, but not as much.

"You let Dante die. You didn't do shit in there."

The man isn't screaming at me, but the harshness of his tone tears through me, filling my heart with cold dread.

He steps forward.

"Please, I don't?—"

"That's enough, fellas." I whip my attention to the right and see Mr. Shaw has somehow walked up beside me. "We wouldn't want a round two so soon, would we?"

"H-hey. Keep it civilized, gentlemen."

I sputter over my words, and then security is approaching from the other direction.

Trench Coat eyes me hard, yanking on his jacket with too much force.

"This ain't over—" his stare goes to my name tag "—Dr. Stewart. We'll be seeing you."