Page 75 of Doc

“There’s a graze on the top of his shoulder, and the other shot was a through and through. I’ll check it for particulates though.”

“Rose, monitor him and assist Soren as needed. Kail, help me with field of vision.”

“Jayden will kill you if you fuck him up too much,” Kail tells me.

“Well, I’m not a fucking surgeon,” I bite back as I go digging around for the bullet in Jude’s hip.

“What happened to asking the Boss to find one?” he snaps.

“Because surgeons are just walking around on the street, waiting to be picked up as a mafia associate,” I bitch.

Kail grumbles something under his breath but I ignore him, letting out a hiss of victory when I finally extract the bullet.

“I know someone,” Soren says.

Looking up from where I’m suturing up the wound in Jude’s hip, I meet Soren’s eyes for a moment. “Really?”

He shrugs a little. “One of my best friends is in his second year of med school. He wants to be a surgeon. I think he said he was going to try pediatrics?—”

Focusing back on my task, I interrupt him, “Tell him to expect a call from Doctor Aidan Murry, to discuss his future internship.”

“Good luck with that,” Soren says absently. “Vonny doesn’t take phone calls.”

“Clean and bandage this, K, I’ll get to work on his thigh.” At his affirmative, I shift my focus. “How’s it going up there, Soren?”

“All done, I’m changing out his blood bag and then I can assist.”

“Stats, Rose?”

“Not in critical danger, for now.”

“Perfect. Back to your friend, Soren, why don’t young people take phone calls anymore? It’s much more personal than a text. I don’t like talking to people much either, but for something so important, he’ll have to get over that.”

Kail snorts. “That’sifthere’s an open spot for him, and you can get Murry to agree to mentor him. He didn’t seem to be a big fan of yours, Doc. Doubt he’d do you another favor.”

“I can be persuasive,” I respond, put out.

“It’s not that,” Soren says as he comes back from getting more blood. “He’s deaf. Theoretically, his CIs connect to bluetooth, but according to Vonny, he’d rather cut his implants out himself than try to understand someone on a phone call.”

“Impressive,” Rose says. “I thought nursing school was hard enough, I can’t imagine being deaf or hard of hearing and going all the way through med school.”

Soren chuckles a little. “Vonny’s ambitious.”

“Skype then?” I muse, moving aside when Soren sidles up to suction the blood out of the wound, so I can see what I’m doing. “I’ll make sure Murry knows to have an interpreter.”

“I’ll start cleaning and closing the wounds on his torso,” Kail says.

“Good. How’s he looking, Rose?”

“Well, he’s not going to die tonight,” she replies. “Blood pressure’s a little low, but that’s to be expected. Everything else is normal range for his condition.”

“I don’t know if Vonny will go for it,” Soren says, going back to our previous conversation.

“Get the pan, I have the bullet, and am pulling it out now.” Soren holds the tray with the other bullet steady and in reach, so I can drop the one from Jude’s thigh into it as well. “Why? You know Cristian pays well. The hours will be more manageable than working in a hospital, and so long as he doesn’t mind patching up guys at the clinic when there’s not an emergency like this that needs his attention, it’s a good gig.”

“He has two brothers; he won’t go anywhere without them.”

It’s a feat not to roll my eyes and mess up my stitches. “Everybody leaves the nest eventually.”

---