Chapter Six
Madison
12 YEARS LATER
"Tell me what you see."
Marsh didn't answer right away. Across the table, he went rigid—that frozen-in-headlights look of a resident who isn't sure if he’s being tested or helped. With me, it was usually both.
I kept my hands steady, waiting.
"Bleeding at the margin," he said finally. "Left side."
"Good. And?"
A pause. "And—it's faster than it should be."
"It's faster than it should be," I agreed. "So what are you going to do about it?"
He did it. Slow, a little tentative, but he did it right. I didn't say anything for a moment—let him feel that he'd gotten there on his own, because that was the part that mattered. Not being told. Finding it yourself with someone steady at your shoulder.
"Good," I said. "Just like that."
The OR was quiet. Everyone in their lane, the monitors doing their thing in the background, nothing asking for my attention that wasn't already getting it. Twelve years in these rooms and Istill felt it sometimes, a low hum of something that wasn't quite disbelief. That I was here. That this was mine.
"Dr. Clarke." It was Reyes, across the table, eyes above her mask. "You want music?"
"What have you got?"
"Whatever you want."
"Surprise me."
Something came on low through the speakers—something with a piano in it, unhurried and clean. The room settled another degree.
"Okay," I said, more to myself than anyone. "Let's finish this."
We closed at eleven-forty. I scrubbed out, rolled my neck until something cracked, and stood at the sink longer than necessary with the water running cold over my wrists.
“Dr. Clarke.” Patrice appeared in the doorway. She wasn't moving. In a trauma center, people usually moved with a purpose, but she was just vibrating in place. “MVA coming in. They’re saying it’s—it’s a bad one.”
“Who’s on?”
“Donovan. But—” She stopped, her mouth working like she was trying to swallow a stone.
“Patrice.” I turned off the tap. “Take a breath. What is it?”
“It’s bad,” she said again, like she hadn’t found any better words yet.
I looked at her for a moment, measuring her reaction against the clock. Donovan was a machine; he didn't need me hovering.
“Donovan’s got it,” I said. “Let him work.”
I dried my hands and moved on.
The corridor outside the OR was busy at this hour—orderlies cutting through, a gurney being wheeled fast toward trauma. I moved through it on autopilot, badge swinging, shoes squeakingon linoleum that never quite came clean. The afternoon light came in flat through the windows at the end of the ward.
I liked this hospital. Big enough to be serious, small enough that you knew the nurses by name. I’d moved back to the state three years ago, trading the frantic humidity of Baltimore for this sharp, thin mountain air. I told myself it was for the career move, the elevation, the fact that this place was a hub for the kind of trauma cases I wanted.