Frank’s Patient (Monsters in Uniform #2)

Chapter 1

“I’m not letting a drunk driver crush my dreams. What I want to do with my life doesn’t just benefit me. I’m an asset to the human race—”

“Frank, you were dead ten minutes ago,” my best friend, Drake, says.

She removes her nitrile gloves with the snap of finality.

She’s been repairing my broken body for hours, and it shows in the way she sways on her feet.

I can’t judge the lines on her cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes, though, because I no longer have a face.

The minced hamburger I wear on my skull may never resemble a face again, but I never claimed to be handsome.

“Still look dead to me,” says my other best friend, Landyn.

“When the shock and drugs wear off, you will be in a world of hurt. Drake’s tapped out from repairing your internal organs.

I’ve got a little left in the tank and can wake Bracken to assist me if you want us to reconstruct your face.

Any other messiness we can cover with clothes, but you should probably have a face before we call your parents. ”

“I can be ugly—even hideous—as long as I’m still the greatest surgeon to ever live—”

“Frank, that ship has sailed. I have your hands in a bucket,” Landyn shouts, throwing his hands over his head. “They would still be at the crime scene if the police couldn’t use them to identify you.”

“Thank fuck for small miracles,” I grouse. “Without my surgical career, I have nothing. I am nothing. You don’t get it. I don’t date. I don’t want a family. You guys are my friends because I let you copy my shit through college and med school—”

“Hey! Hey!” They yell in unison.

“I’m going to let that remark go because I demonstrated my skills with the shock paddles on you a few hours ago. If I realized you were such an ass, I might have left you dead,” Landyn says, wagging his finger in my face. He stops when he catches my fixation on the digits.

Turning from my bedside, he rakes his gloved hands through his shaggy blond hair, completely breaking sterile protocol. Should I remind him, or will that change his mind about helping me?

I need hands. My life is nothing without hands.

My best moments were in this cadaver laboratory.

It was here that my gift for surgery went from top of the class to world-class.

I’d always loved science, but not people, so a surgical fellowship fit me like a glove.

Once I was through my rotations, life became easy.

My purpose for being on this planet was clear as glass.

With my three best friends at my side, I didn’t need a social life.

My world shrank to the number of people I could handle…

and who could handle my less-than-sparkly personality.

However, one night of forced socialization threatens to take it all away.

“I owe you guys my life,” I murmur with tears burning what’s left of my cheeks. “I’ve been an ungrateful bastard—”

“Unlike your usual bastard self,” Bracken says as he enters the dim lab.

He gives me a wink as if I’m one of his swooning, female patients.

Whether it's his good looks, laidback charm, or actual skill that makes him the best obstetrician in a one-hundred-mile radius, remains to be determined. “How are you doing, buddy?”

“He’s pissy about his hands,” Landyn explodes.

“All right, grumpypants, go to bed,” Bracken replies easily.

“Wait,” Drake shouts. “It’s my turn. You just got up, and grumpypants took his nap first.”

“I don’t need sleep. I need the patient to be realistic.

The police are looking for us. His parents are going to flip out when they see him.

He’s hanging onto life by a thread and only talking because he’s in shock.

We could be in deep shit with the university for bringing him here. What were we thinking?”

“That we needed to save our friend,” Bracken answers.

“We agreed he’d be too dead to save if we waited for an ambulance, ER protocol, and some boy-scout-doctor to check all the boxes.

He needed doctors who would do right by him—not some asshole rule-follower at a desk.

It had to be us. If it had been me, I’d hope that you would have made the same decisions. ”

“Operating while under the influence? We could lose our licenses after only having them for two months,” Landyn continues his tirade without thought to Bracken’s emotional plea.

Which is an example of why emotions are bullshit.

“Stop, stop this nonsense,” I shout as loud as my crushed vocal cords allow.

“Forget the face. My parents said I was an ugly baby anyway. If you will restore my hands, I’ll create my own damn face.

Then you can go home and sleep off this nightmare.

There’s no reason why all three of us should lose our licenses.

What good is my license if I can’t operate? ”

My friends won’t look me in the eyes—and not because I have no eyelids.

“Exactly,” I snap. “I could never be the friendly family doctor in a small town. My bedside manner—or lack of it—would make that position last a hot minute.”

“What about dermatology? You got high marks in that,” Bracken suggests.

“Because the hormonal teenagers and their overprotective parents would be a good fit for my blunt opinions?” I chuckle when all three of them wince.

“You know as well as I do that if I hadn’t been the best surgeon to work in this room, I’d be out on my ass.

Please. You helped me breathe again, my heart to beat again, and now I beg you to give me a life again. ”

“Damn it, Frank,” Drake says to the ceiling.

“You got it,” Bracken says, fist-bumping the sheets beside me…because I lack fists. “You got a plan for those hands in the bucket? We haven’t got time to create the robotics to animate them before they start to rot…”

“Landyn?” I whisper. Of my three friends, Landyn is the most talented surgeon by far. He and Drake became ER doctors because they’re adrenaline junkies. He could have easily challenged me for my internship and given me a run for my money. I hate to admit how much I need him.

“Come on, Landyn,” Bracken says. “If it were you, what would you want from us?”

“I’d want a new face and a giant cock before restoring my hands,” he says, tipping the bucket with my hands toward him.

His sly smile as he lifts a hand and allows it to splash back into the bucket shatters the tension between us.

I sigh with relief that he’s on board. “I’d want you bastards to restore my ability to do what I do best—women.

Oh, but I’d want to be enhanced for her pleasure if you catch my drift.

Implanted robotics, so I sport a baseball bat that spins, vibrates, and exudes cappuccino frosting as pre-fluid. ”

“What’s your point, you perv,” Bracken says with an eyeroll.

“He’s got a point,” Drake says. “To give Frank his life back, we can’t just sew on those hands with half-assed robotics.

He didn’t ask for human hands that are shit at surgery.

He asked for Frank—caliber hands. How many robotic hands does Frank have in our apartment?

What if we implant some neuros and use two of those with surgical instrument fingers? ”

“Because he will only be a surgeon,” Bracken argues, blowing open a nitrile glove. “He won’t be able to have a life without fingers. Typing, bathing—”

“Fucking,” Landyn says with a pointed look at me. “No woman will let those digits near her cunt, and taking yourself in hand will be like sticking your cock in a blender. You up for that?”

“If I can operate, I’ll gladly leave populating this planet to Bracken. He never seems to lack patients in OB,” I grouse. “Who needs an active sex life if you are fulfilling your purpose?”

“Well, Florence Nightingale,” Bracken deadpans. “Will you allow me to use the skin from your old hands to create a face while Landyn and Drake get some shut-eye at our place? When they return, they will bring robotic hands—ones made by you.”

“If I must wait—”

“Yes, you must,” Bracken says firmly. “Mrs. Stein has been like a second mother since my family disowned me. I owe it to her to tell her what’s happened to you.

Your mother won’t take my word for it when I say you’ve been crushed by a bus, but not to worry, because you are alive and talking.

She will be here in minutes, and that’s if she doesn’t go vigilante on the bus driver first. I’m not facing Bonnie Stein when you don’t have a face. ”

“Which is why we’re leaving,” Drake says as she squeezes my shoulder.

“Yeah, dude, your mom is more frightening than your lack of face,” Landyn adds as he pats my head.

“Two grown doctors are scared of a sixty-year-old woman no more than four feet tall,” I reply with a cough. My ribs burn, with more aches blooming over my body. I need to be knocked out before I’m consumed with pain.

“Damn straight,” Drake replies at the door. “You think we saved your ass for your sweet personality? No, sir, it was our fear of the dragon lady.”

“It hurts too much to laugh,” I call after them. “Take your jokes out of here and come back with hands, or I’ll sic the dragon lady on you!”

“Are you in agony?” Bracken whispers when they leave.

“No,” I lie. “I’m terrified of a life without—”

“Yeah, yeah, we heard,” Bracken says. “Think about your life—”

“It’s a trade. I get it, Bracken,” I say with a sigh. “Even when I get control of my robotics, there’s no guarantee I’ll get a place in a hospital.”

“Yeah,” Bracken says as he draws a cocktail of painkillers into a syringe. “Getting through an interview without a personality or a face is more than I would want to tackle.”

“What did I say about laughing, doctor?” The cold fluid burns as it enters my body, followed by vapid bliss.

“Not sorry,” he replies as he removes my collected parts from the bucket they retrieved from the scene.

I wince at the beer logo on the side. Ten hours ago, that bucket was filled with beers, ice, and reckless optimism.

My friends and I sat around it, trying to appear attractive while making eyes at the ladies in the bar.

I’m more grateful for him rinsing the flesh in alcohol than the coaching he gave me in the hopes that I’d pick up a woman tonight.

There’s more than one way to collect an infection when I go bar hopping, apparently.

“I’ll do my best—”

“Says the OB to the surgeon. How did I get stuck with you working solo again?”

“Because you used the big guns to save your miserable life,” he replies with a laugh. “It’s okay. I know you aren’t laughing because you’re a bastard, not because it hurts. You should be flying high any minute now.”

“Getting there,” I say before adding, “thanks for being you.”

“I’ve got the best bedside manner, no matter what Landyn says. He just has the better hair. Joke's on him, because you’re going to get the best face. His cheekbones will look like dull butterknives compared to the razorblades I’m giving you. Trust me. You’ll be a knockout.”

“I don’t want to be a knockout. I want to be me.”

“Yeah, we can’t fix your personality with surgery, so that's good you want to be yourself. You’re kind of stuck being you.

“Bastard,” I whisper.

“Wait until I call your mother.”

“Great, I’m going under with the fear of my mother as my final thoughts. Thanks, Dr. Bedside-Manner-of-a-Demon.”

“Okay, Dr. Stein,” he says, with real remorse written on his soft features.

“Dream not only of being Dr. Frank Stein, but also of having the body of Frankenstein’s monster.

You run the most successful surgery in the world of monsters.

This haunted hospital is known all over the magical world for the ugly SOB who saves all the monsters… .”

His voice fades into oblivion as my mind is wrapped in drug-induced cotton batting.

As the gas mask is placed over my mouth hole, I suck down the anesthesia.

My eyes drift closed, and my mind’s eye opens to the possibility of a hospital for monsters, run by monsters.

Shifters just came out last summer. What if all the other rumored creatures are real, too, with real medical problems?

Who takes care of the hideous? The rejected? The frighteningly wicked?

Why can’t it be us?