"Jordan, this is insane. You can't just—she can't just—" The words crashed into each other, her fury making them clumsy. "You saved that kid's life!"
"Apparently, that's the problem." I coiled the stethoscope carefully, tucking it into my bag like I was putting something sacred to rest.
"Because he was an Orc?" Tammy's voice cracked, disbelief and rage warring for dominance. "That's seriously what this is about?"
I didn't answer. The silence said everything.
"This is bullshit." Tammy's palm slammed against the locker beside mine, the metallic bang punctuating her fury. "Complete and utter bullshit. You're the best doctor in this entire building, and everyone knows it. Half the staff would throw a party if Nadine got hit by a bus. You have to fight this! Don't you have a friend who's a lawyer? Sue her ass!"
"Tammy." I closed my locker with a soft, final click and shouldered my bag. "It's done."
"It doesn't have to be! We could go to the board, file a formal complaint, organize a petition—"
"I don't want to fight this." The words emerged quiet, but they rang with truth. I met her eyes, saw the genuine anguish there, and felt a stab of guilt for how peaceful I felt. "Honestly? I think this might be exactly what I needed."
Tammy gaped at me like I'd announced plans to join a circus. "What you needed? Jordan, you just lost your job!"
"I know." I moved past her toward the door, then paused at the threshold, glancing back. "But somehow, it feels more like a beginning than an ending."
Her expression melted from fury into something softer, more worried. "What are you going to do?"
Ruka's face flashed through my mind—the way his eyes had held mine when I left the settlement. Ardin's gap-toothed smile as he'd played. Ryhain's tears of gratitude streaming down her face.
"I have absolutely no idea," I admitted, and found myself smiling. "But I'll figure it out."
The nurses' station hummed with an unusual quiet when I approached, security badge clutched in my palm like a talisman I was about to surrender. A few heads swiveled my direction—some faces soft with sympathy, others carefully blank. Hospital gossip moved faster than IV drips.
"Jordan." Darla's voice carried the weight of genuine sorrow as she looked up from behind the desk. "I heard. God, I'm so sorry."
"Thanks." The badge hit the counter with a hollow clatter that felt far too final. "Just wanted to say goodbye."
A wave of murmured farewells washed over me, punctuated by tight hugs from the nurses who'd always had my back. As I stepped away, blinking against the unexpected sting in my eyes, my gaze snagged on something odd—a battalion of white office boxes lined up against the wall like soldiers. At least a dozen of them, half-stuffed with medical supplies, blankets, bandages, over-the-counter meds, sample packets of antibiotics.
"What's all this?"
Darla tracked my stare. "Care packages. Nadine's got us assembling them for rural clinics that are barely hanging on. Understaffed, under-resourced, the works."
My brain stuttered. "Nadine?"
"Right?" Darla's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "Plot twist of the century."
Nadine—the same woman who'd just axed me without blinking, who ran this hospital like a military operation and seemed to feed on other people's discomfort—thatNadine organized charity drives?
"Didn't know she had a heart buried under all that ice," I muttered.
Darla's laugh was dry as autumn leaves. "Jury's still out. My money's on this somehow padding the hospital's tax write-offs. We just haven't connected the dots yet."
"Well." I shrugged, oddly touched despite my cynicism. "Hope they make a difference."
As I turned to go, Darla's voice caught me. "Good luck, Jordan. Wherever the wind takes you."
"Thanks, Darla."
The automatic doors exhaled open, releasing me into the cool embrace of night. The parking lot sprawled before me, my truck a lonely island under the lights. Beyond it, the highway ribboned into darkness. Beyond that... everything. Nothing. The terrifying, exhilarating unknown.
And the first person I wanted to tell was Ruka.
Not my friends. Not my college roommate who worked in hospital administration. Not the colleagues who could forward my résumé. Ruka. I ached to hear his voice, to tell him I was finally, impossibly free. That nothing tethered me here anymore.