I walked away a moment later with my pulse just a little off, trying to convince myself that nothing had happened.
Nothing had.
But something had started.
Chapter 5
Anya
“Volkov,” Desmond said, already pulling on gloves. “With me.”
We were halfway down the hall before I asked, “What do we have?”
“Forty-eight-year-old male,” he said. “Found down at home. Hypotensive. Altered. No obvious external trauma.”
My mind snapped into gear. “Sepsis? GI bleed?”
“Good,” he said. “Keep going.”
“Stroke? Or an overdose?” I caught my hands shaking. It was just a twitch, but enough to draw my attention. Patel never looped me in like this, and my adrenaline shot through the roof as we moved.
“Let’s find out.”
The trauma bay was already full when we stepped inside, bodies moving with practiced urgency — nurses at the head of the bed managing airway, a tech cutting away clothing, another nurse calling out vitals in a steady, rhythmic cadence that anchored the room even as everything else felt like controlled chaos.
The monitors chimed and beeped, the kind of sound thatbecame background noise only after you learned to listen for what mattered. I felt the shift in the room immediately, that tightening in my chest that always came with real stakes, when someone’s life wasn’t theoretical anymore — it was right there, fragile and immediate and breathing unevenly in front of me.
“BP’s eighty over forty,” someone called.
“Heart rate one-thirty,” another voice followed.
Desmond didn’t raise his voice, didn’t need to. He moved into the space beside me like he belonged there — which he did — and angled his body just enough that I could hear him clearly without drawing attention away from the patient. “Volkov,” he said quietly, steady as ever. “What does that tell you?”
“Shock,” I said, the answer coming automatically now, shaped by repetition and long hours and the quiet confidence he’d been helping me build. “Likely hypovolemic or septic.”
“Good,” he said immediately, and the word felt like a small anchor dropping inside me. “What do you want to do about it?”
“Two large-bore IVs. Fluids. Labs. Type and screen,” I said, my voice steadier than my pulse.
“I agree,” he said. “Order it.”
The nurse beside me nodded and moved before I’d even finished speaking, my words turning into action, my decisions becoming motion in the room. Desmond stayed close — present in that specific way that made me feel like I had a safety net. One that I didn’twantto need but was grateful to feel beneath me, anyway.
“Watch his sats,” he murmured, low and close. “See how they dip when he shifts. That tells you the airway may not be stable for long.”
I followed his gaze, tracking the numbers, seeing what he saw now that he’d taught me how to look for it. The oxygen saturation wavered, subtle but real, a change that meant trouble if you ignored it for even a few minutes too long.
“Call respiratory,” I said, turning my head just enough to project my voice.
“Good,” Desmond said softly. “Keep thinking ahead.”
Around us, the room moved like a living organism — each person playing their part, voices overlapping, hands moving, equipment shifting, all of it familiar and still somehow overwhelming. But inside that, Desmond created this strange pocket of focus, where his voice cut through everything else, where his attention stayed anchored on me in a way that made me feel both seen and supported.
“Trust your read of the room,” he said. “You’re not just reacting. You’re anticipating. That’s the difference between surviving a shift and actually practicing strong medicine.”
When I noticed a subtle drop in pressure before the alarm even chimed, I called it out without hesitating, my voice firm, my hands already moving.
Desmond’s eyes flicked to mine, quick and bright with something that felt unmistakably likepride. “Nice catch,” he muttered, just for me.