A man in his fifties stands beside the table, wearing scrubs, looking over everything.
He looks up as we enter, his eyes scanning me briefly before nodding.
"You can have him sit there if he can," he says, gesturing to a chair beside the table.
I cross the room and lower myself into the chair. The nurse from the plane stands beside the doctor, ready to assist.
Elena follows me, stopping just behind the chair.
Lucian lingers in the doorway with Victor.
"I'll be downstairs," Lucian says.
"Me too," Victor says. "Call us if you need anything, and uh…" Victor stops and looks at Elena, who doesn't budge. "Okay, well, good luck."
They leave, pulling the door shut behind them.
The doctor moves closer, gloves on his hands now, and he reaches for the bandages on my shoulder.
"Let me see what we're working with."
He peels them away slowly, revealing the torn, blood crusted skin beneath. The entry wound is jagged, dark red and purple, the edges swollen.
"Bullet fragments still inside, I assume?"
"Probably," I say.
He nods and then looks at my bicep. "Well that's a through and through, so that's good news."
He turns away and grabs a syringe.
"I'll need to dig out the bullet in your shoulder. Stitch it up. Same with the bicep. This is going to hurt, so I'll give you something for the pain."
The doctor slides the needle into my shoulder and I notice Elena looks away.
When it's done she moves slightly closer to me and looks down at me.
"I'm not leaving, you know," she says.
"I know," I say with a small smile. "I wouldn't want you to."
The doctor looks at her and then back at me.
"Try not to move," he says and brings a pair of forceps to my shoulder.
The first probe is like fire but then it slowly dissipates, the anesthesia working.
The forceps slide into the wound, and I only feel pressure now and some discomfort, but damn does the metal scraping the bone not sound pleasant.
The doctor twists the forceps, digging deeper, and I feel that a bit. My breath hisses through my teeth.
"Almost there," the doctor says.
He pulls the forceps out slowly, a small, jagged piece of metal pinched between the tips. Blood wells up from the wound, thick and dark.
The nurse moves in with gauze, pressing it against the bleeding.
The doctor doesn't stop.