Page 1 of Any Means Necessary

Prologue: Lexie

I stare at my shaking hands, watching them tremble. These skilled, useless hands. Even now, after taking the gloves off and scrubbing them twice, I can still feel the blood coating them like a sickening second skin. The frigid night air whips around me, carrying the shrill wail of the sirens and chaos of the incoming traumas. The cold catches the blood on my scrubs, a chill reaching all the way to my bones. Huddled on the bench, I struggle to suck in shallow breaths against my breaking heart. Once the tears start, there’s no stopping them. The floodgates open and the first sob comes out.

Bringing my hands to my middle, I wrap my arms around myself for support. My helpless, pointless hands. They’re no good to anyone, they can’t fix this. Nothing can. What’s the point of them if they can’t help when I need them to the most? All I could do was sit and watch helplessly. And now all that blood—sweet, innocent blood—is on my hands.

My skilled, useless hands.

My eyes search the night air for a sign of hope, a distraction, anything. The blazing ambulance lights bathe everything in flashes of blue and red. My eyes catch on an object laying on the cracked concrete a few yards away, cast in the flashing light. Staring at it, something inside me fractures as a devastating sadness settles so deeply in my chest I’m not sure I’ll ever be without it again. It’s like the ground has opened into an abyss beneath me and I’m slipping into the darkness.

The child’s lunch box is stained with blood until the light blue color is barely visible. On it, the cartoon solar system sits in a cluster of stars with a tiny astronaut floating blissfully near a small rocket. The name Jack is written clearly across the front in sharpie. It sits there on the ground, trampled and forgotten—belonging to someone who will never come looking for it. The sinking feeling drags me deeper into the abyss.

“Lexie?” The voice saying my name behind me barely registers, even as a hand touches my shoulder. “Lexie, are you okay?”

“I can’t.” I shake my head with a sob. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay here.” I need to leave, and I don’t know how I’ll ever come back. How will I ever come back from this?

“Come on, let’s get her inside and cleaned up.” Several pairs of hands support me when I stand on unsteady legs, but I don’t recognize faces past my tears and despair. I allow myself to be led away from the bench, away from the flashing lights and the noise from the tragedy.

Away from the blood-stained lunchbox.

Chapter One: Lexie

“And when are you coming back, exactly? When you said the hospital accepted the nurse you recommended instead of extending your contract, I thought that meant I’d be getting my best friend back.” Mia’s attitude is broadcasted through the kitchen, her irritation echoing on speakerphone. “It’s already been four months, how long are you going to play hard to get? It’s rude to tease me like this.” I roll my eyes at her dramatics, grinning only because she can’t see me.

“Oh please, it’s not like you’re just sitting at home all day without me,” I shoot back. “You’re the busiest person I’ve ever met. I invited you to come visit me. But noooo, you’re too important to take the time off to come to New York.” I let the sarcasm drip from my voice. Now that the potatoes are sauteed and softened, I add the steak to the skillet. The recipe calls for two steaks—so instead of halving the ingredients, I’ll just have leftovers. The meat sizzles and sputters angrily in the hot pan, spitting grease and butter onto the stovetop and counter. Damn, I hate having to wipe up grease.

“You know I have surgeries, I can’t just run around playing housekeeper for strangers like you.” She's on the defensive now, but she has a point. That’s what I get for picking a surgeon as a best friend. Her job is a lot more demanding than mine, but I’m not about to admit that to her.

“Are you trying to say that surgeons are more important than nurses? Wow, tell me how you really feel.” I’m laying it on thick and she knows it. But she has to deny it, she can’t help herself.

“You know that’s not what I’m saying, Lexie.” she insists, but I continue to wind her up.

“It’s fine, whatever,” I miff. “I’m just not important enough to you. Just abandon me in this big city all by myself.” Opening the spice cabinet, I need to reach on my tiptoes to grab the seasoning I’m looking for. Fresh basil would taste a lot better, but that would’ve required thinking ahead far enough for this meal to buy ingredients. Which I did not.

“Oh, shut up.” Despite her best efforts, I can hear the smile in her voice. I’m about to laugh at her, but my teasing is cut short.

“Shit,” I mutter, looking down to see that I leaned into a puddle of grease.

“What?” Mia asks.

“I leaned on the counter and got grease on my new shirt.”

“That’s what you get for being mean to me. Karma used your own huge boobs against you.”

“Your boobs are big too.” She also carries some weight that creates dangerous curves. Hers less so than mine though.

“Not like yours.”

She’s right. My chest size borderlines ridiculous, making sense for my weight, but not my height. Being a well-endowed fat girl is a blessing and a curse. Right now they’re living up to the curse status—they tend to get in the way.

“They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” I grumble. “They better not have just ruined my new top.”

“Oh stop, you love your boobs. You can have an incredible rack or cook without ruining your shirt, but not both. It’s cosmic balance.”

There’s no arguing with her on that.

I pull off the shirt and take it over to the sink, treating it with a dose of grease-fighting dish soap. I’ve done what I can to save it. Now all I can do is pray that my new top lives to see another wear.

Standing in the middle of the large kitchen without a shirt on feels wrong, especially since I’m not in my apartment. I walked around my place back in Oregon without a top on all the time, but the unfamiliarity of being in someone else’s home creeps in and takes giant bites out of my comfort-based confidence. The wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that offers a magnificent view of the New York City skyline from this twenty-second-floor penthouse, while usually impressive, now makes me feel like a goldfish in a bowl. Each light illuminating the view like fireflies now feels like a pair of eyes staring with an unobstructed view as I stand here in my bra.

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