Page 6 of Guarding the Doctor
I resisted rolling my eyes at his attitude.
Darla went into action, listening to his chest. “Lungs clear,” she reported. “Pulse ox and pressure look good.”
At least the knife hadn’t hit a lung. I used a forceps to gently remove the gauze that the paramedics had pressed against the wound to staunch bleeding. It was a clean cut, but a long one, at least six inches. I got to work irrigating the wound with saline to remove blood and debris so I could stitch it up. Darla stood across from me, watching carefully and dabbing the edges of the wound to keep the blood from seeping down his chest.
“It looks like you got lucky, Mr. James, the wound isn’t too deep.”
I must have hit a particularly sore spot, because suddenly the large man shot up, knocking me away. I stepped back quickly, ready for an attack, but I didn’t have to worry. Darla’s hand shot out, pressing against the other side of his chest and pinning him to the bed so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. He struggled for a few seconds before sagging back against his pillow.
The man looked at Darla in shock. “You’re pretty strong for a chick.”
She gave him a look that made him flinch. “I’m pretty strong,” she said firmly. “Now be still for the doctor before you get sepsis.”
Sending her a look of thanks, I finished cleaning the wound, then stitched up the patient. I could have waited for Plastics, but it was more important to seal it up and stop the bleeding than it was to have a nicer looking scar.
“You handled yourself well in there,” I said to Darla as we left the now sleeping man.
“I’ve mostly practiced in battle,” she said. “Shifter strength and not having regular access to anesthesia teaches you real fast how to subdue a patient without hurting them.”
The next ten hours flew by in the usual chaos of the ER, but having Darla by my side made everything go easier. She was incredibly fast at everything she did, and she seemed able to anticipate what I needed before I did. Her military experience transferred well to a busy city emergency department.
“We make a good team,” I told her as we grabbed a shitty coffee in the staff lounge. “Our nursing team is great but it’s nice to have someone with more higher level medical experience.”
“I forgot how much I like medicine,” she said, looking almost sad for an instant before her face smoothed again. “Maybe it sounds weird, but I’m having fun today.”
It seemed like a rare personal admission. I noticed that she wasn’t super chatty, her words typically economical and focused on the task at hand. I didn’t mind too much though. Most of us who worked in emergency medicine were exactly the same.
As we exited the lounge, we ran right into Dr. Xi, the doctor who was running the trial that had killed Seth.
“Oh there you are, Doctor O’Brian.”
The doctor was a tiny Asian woman, but she had a coiled energy around her that told me she was not fully human. She was impeccably dressed in designer clothes and impracticably high heels, her shiny black hair in a perfect bob despite the late hour. Xi’s gaze pinned on me and even though I had six inches on her, it felt like she was looking down her nose at me.
“What did you need, Dr. Xi?” I asked, carefully keeping my expression neutral.
“I was reviewing the access logs for my lab and saw that you were trying to scan in last night. Did you need something?”
Darla didn’t move a muscle, yet somehow I felt her stiffen beside me.
“I was looking for my friend Seth, he’s the social worker here?” I raised my voice into a question, pretending I didn’t know she knew him. “He wasn’t feeling well and mentioned that he was going to see you. When he didn’t come back, I decided to see if he was still there. I guess I must have missed him though, because y’all were all gone by then. No one answered when I knocked.”
Xi stared at me, clearly trying to decide if I was lying or not. I heard her make a sniffing noise, her nose wrinkling slightly.
“Seth told me he was quitting,” she finally said. “He said it was too much for him, working in the Emergency Department. It’s so much stress. In fact, he asked if he could work in the lab with me, but unfortunately I don’t have any openings right now. I suggested maybe he go work in a school or something.”
I knew that was a lie. My friend loved working in the Emergency Department and thrived on the stress of something new happening every day, the same as me.
Her attention shot to Darla, and I saw her nostrils flare, as if she was sniffing her too. What was up with that? We were at the end of a ten hour shift, but I didn’t think either of us smelled that bad. No one had even thrown up on us.
My bodyguard didn’t say a word, but she was radiating menace.
“Who are you?” Xi demanded.
“This is Darla, my new MA. Today’s her first day,” I said quickly. “Darla, this is Dr. Xi, she heads up the hospital research program.”
“Nice to meet you, Doctor.” Darla’s tone was polite, even though I knew she’d figured out who Dr. Xi was.
“Welcome to Seattle Memorial,” Xi said, her eyes appraising. “It’s good to see that we’re getting more diversity here in the hospital. Have a good evening.”
