It gutted me.
Worse than anger. Worse than argument. Worse than tears would have been. Because it meant she believed me. Because it meant she folded herself smaller to fit the moment, and the room heard it, and I’d put her there.
I kept my hands steady. I kept my voice level. I finished the trauma as though nothing had happened. As though I hadn’t watched the fire leave her eyes right before mine.
But the image stayed with me long after — the blood, the spark, the way her shoulders drew inward as if she’d learned that shape somewhere long before me. And the sickening truth that I’d been right… and still done damage, anyway.
Once everything had calmed down, I found her in the supply hallway, standing too still, like she’d been told to freeze and was afraid to thaw.
She stood like a statue, hands clasped in front of her. Her shoulders were rigid. She stared at the shelves as if they might tell her what to do next.
“Anya,” I said.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she replied immediately. Too fast. Too practiced. I didn’t miss the tear she swiped off her cheek. “I know I screwed up.”
That was when the fear finally caught up to me. Not during the spray of blood. Not when the bay went silent under my voice.
Now.
I crossed the distance between us in two strides and caught her face in my hands.
My palms curved over her cheeks, thumbs braced under her eyes, tilting her up so I could see her properly. So I couldcheck. So I could make sure she was still here. “Look at me,” I said.
She sucked in a sharp breath, eyes snapping to mine. Shock flared there, then something softer, unguarded. “Did any blood get into your eyes?” I asked, scanning her pupils. “Your mouth. Your nose.”
“No,” she whispered. “Desmond?—”
“Did it touch broken skin?” My voice was low and urgent now, the rest of the world reduced to this narrow corridor and her pulse fluttering under my thumbs. “Tell me.”
“No,” she said again, steadier this time. “I’m okay. I promise.”
I exhaled hard, my forehead dipping toward hers before I realized what I was doing.
Her eyes lifted to mine. Shiny. No longer crying, but close. “I was trying to show off. To get to the bleed before you did,” she admitted quietly. “I didn’t think?—”
“I know,” I said. “And that’s why it terrified me.”
Only then did the world creep back in. The murmur of voices. Footsteps slowing. Someone clearing their throat a little too loudlybehind me. I didn’t let go. “I shouldn’t have yelled,” I said, my voice rough. “But you scared me.”
Her hands lifted, hovering at my wrists, not quite touching. As if she wasn’t sure she was allowed, she wasn’t sure whatthismoment was.
My thumbs brushed beneath her eyes, almost a check for tears, almost a caress. I wasn’t sure which. I didn’t care. For a heartbeat longer, I stayed there — openly, undeniably holding her — before reality finally clawed its way back into my spine.
I lowered my hands. The hallway exhaled. “Don’t — don’t scare me like that again, please.”
Anya’s cheeks were pink; her eyes bright. “Yes, Dr. Vaughn,” she said softly. As she walked away, I became acutely aware of the stares I’d collected. I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single one.
Chapter 25
Anya
By the time the night finally released its hold on the hospital, everything felt washed thin and pale, as if the world had been scrubbed down to its essentials and left to dry. Morning light slipped in through the tall windows in narrow bands, catching on the scuffed linoleum and stainless steel, making the place look gentler than it ever felt at three in the morning. The worst of it was over. That didn’t mean it was gone.
I was charting because it gave my hands something to do. Because if I stopped, if I let myself sit too still, my mind would wander right back to the trauma bay — to blood on the floor, to his voice cutting through the room, to the wayyes, sirhad left my mouth before I could catch it.
“Anya.”
I looked up.