Page 4 of Brotan

"Five?" Her hands pause momentarily as she takes this in. "And yet here you are, bleeding all over my ambulance."

"You should see them." I bare my teeth in what passes for a grin. "One won't walk right for months. Another's going to be drinking through a straw for weeks."

She shakes her head, but I don't miss the tinge of a grin riding the corner of her mouth. "I bet they are." Her gaze drops to my knuckles, split and swollen from connecting with jaws and ribcages. She runs her thumb across them, a touch too deliberate to be purely professional. "These hands have seen a lot of fights."

The casual intimacy lands like a spark in my gut, sharp and unexpected. Something raw responds to the feel of her skin against my battle-worn knuckles—soft against hard, healer against destroyer.

She ties off the final suture on my thigh, cuts the thread, then applies a dressing over her handiwork. "Twenty-three stitches. That's going to leave a mark."

The wound addressed, she turns her attention to my ribs, taping them tightly, even when I growl at the pressure. Her fingertips brush against old scars: knife wounds, bullet grazes, the history of a violent life written in raised flesh.

"You should stay overnight for observation," she says, placing the final piece of tape. "That head injury could be worse than it looks, and these wounds need monitoring."

"Don't worry, Doc," I say, watching her hands work. "Orcs heal faster than humans. By tomorrow, these will be halfway closed."

She looks skeptical but continues her work, applying antiseptic to the smaller cuts and butterfly closures where needed. "At least six weeks before these ribs heal completely. I don't care how fast your biology works."

She reaches for a syringe filled with something else. "This should help with the pain that'll hit once the adrenaline wears off."

Before I can respond, she's jabbing the needle into my thigh, right next to the newly-stitched stab wound.

"Ouch, Doc," I hiss.

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh, you can take being stabbed and beaten half to death, but a little needle hurts?"

"Those assholes I saw coming. You, I'm still figuring out."

Doc cuts me a look, but I don't miss the amusement dancing in her eyes.

She's about to say something when a shadow falls across the ambulance's open doors. Two security guards stand in the doorway, expressions grim.

"Dr. Johnson," one says, "Chief of Medicine wants to see you. Now."

She doesn't look up from applying a bandage to my forearm. "Tell Dr. Ramsey I need two more minutes, and I'll be done."

"Ma'am—"

She levels a stare that says she'd have no problem putting her next needle somewhere painful. "Two. Minutes."

The guards exchange glances but step back, giving in to her request.

"They're going to fire you," I say quietly.

She shrugs, her focus never wavering from her work. "Maybe. Or maybe they'll just write me up again."

"Again?"

A small, tired smile crosses her face. "Let's just say this isn't the first time I've disagreed with hospital policy." She secures a bandage, her hands slowing momentarily. "I lost a patient six months ago. Jamie Matthews. Twenty-six, mother of two." Her voice drops, almost as if she's speaking to herself. "The hospital was more concerned with liability than finding out what really happened. I wasn't going to let politics get in the way of care again."

"Rebellious doctor with a thing for lost causes," I murmur, voice dropping to a rumble that has her hands pausing for just a moment. "Dangerous combination."

"Maybe I just don't like being told what I can and can't do," she replies, meeting my gaze with a challenge in her eyes that makes my blood heat. "Or who I can and can't help."

"You and me both, Doc."

She finishes securing the last bandage, then sits back, studying her handiwork. "The pain meds I gave you will help for a few hours. The antibiotics will stave off any infection. The ribs are definitely broken, but there's not much I can do except tell you to rest. The stab wound missed anything vital, but keep it clean. You'll need to see a doctor if anything changes."

"I'll live," I say. "The patch job will help speed things up."

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