Desmond
The third trauma of the night arrived intubated and unstable. “Talk to me, Beck,” I barked as the paramedics rolled the gurney in. Ezra Becker, good guy, he’d been running one of the best EMT teams I’d seen in a long time.
Younger than me, not by much, but his hair didn’t hold half the greys that mine did. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, and his tousled brown hair made him a hit with all the ladies he dragged in on EMT gurneys. To say he was a close friend was an understatement.
“Blunt force, high speed.” He shouted back, focused on the balloon delivering breaths. “Pelvic fracture suspected. Hypotension refractory to fluids.”
This was the case that demanded order immediately or swallowed a room whole. I took command without thinking.
“On my count,” and the team snapped into place, transferring the patient from the gurney to our trauma table. I felt a hand slap my back before Becker disappeared from the room.
“Let’s get a pressure line,” I barked as a tech rushed to help. “Massive transfusion protocol. Pelvic binder now.” The team moved. Good team. Competent. The monitors screamed their ugly numbers and then, slowly, began to listen.
I was chart-deep when Levin stepped in. “Where are we?” he asked.
I gave him the numbers. Concise. No fluff. My attention stayed on the patient, on the pattern forming beneath the noise. “She’s borderline,” I said. “We’re just buying time.”
“EFAST?” he asked.
“Pending.”
Then Anya spoke, her hands deftly guiding the ultrasound probe. “Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch,” she said, and while the machine was stable, I heard a flicker in her voice as her eyes flicked to Levin. “And around the spleen.”
My attention snapped to her so fast it was almost physical. She stood on the opposite side of the bed, probe steady, posture flawless. Calm. Focused. She’d already adjusted her angle, already compensated for artifact. She didn’t look at me when she spoke. She didn’t need to.
The room tightened around her voice.
“Call surgery,” I said.
Levin leaned closer to her, peering at the screen. “Why surgery, Doctor Volkov?”
Too close.
I told myself that was irrelevant. Proximity happened in trauma. Bodies overlapped. It meant nothing. Anya shifted her weight, just enough to make space — Levin didn’t take it.
She glanced up at me then. Brief. Intentional. Something in my chest went taut, like a cord pulled too far. “We can drain the blood, but she still needs surgical intervention.”
“BP’s dipping again,” a nurse called.
“Push another unit,” I said. “Get me the labs.”
Levin stayed where he was. “Are you comfortable taking the lead on this?” he asked Anya.
She smiled at him. Small. Professional. Controlled. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I am.”
I stepped in closer, my presence cutting the line of sight between them without touching either of them. “Doctor Volkov has already taken the lead, Levin,” I said evenly. “Keep up.”
Anya’s mouth twitched. She peeled off the probe and handed it to the nurse. “Someone call OR, there’s only so much we can do for her down here.”
“Agreed,” Levin said. “You’re impressive, Volkov.”
There it was.
The irrational, unhelpful surge of heat and irritation arrived fully formed, unwelcome and sharp. I kept my voice level. “She’s prepared,” I said. “My residents don’t miss.”
Anya finally looked at me. Really looked, and her eyes brightened, just a fraction. “Is there anything else you want to add, Dr. Vaughn?” she asked, voice clipped. A challenge — a warning — wrapped in clinical courtesy.
I met her gaze. Held it. “Not unless you’re asking for permission,” I said.
A nurse coughed. Someone shifted. The monitors continued their indifferent chorus.
Anya’s smile deepened. Dangerous. Entirely restrained. “Not tonight,” she said. “But I appreciate knowing you’re paying attention.” The gurney rolled out moments later. The room deflated. Gloves came off. Noise softened.
I stood there longer than necessary, jaw tight, pulse finally catching up to me. I hated how easily she got under my skin, and hated more that she knew exactly when it happened.
And I hated — deeply, viscerally — that I would happily let it happen again.
The next trauma rolled in mere moments afterward, because that was how emergency departments worked.
It was either flu and headaches stacked end to end, or it was catastrophe in clusters — back-to-back emergencies demanding more hands than existed, more certainty than anyone truly had. Tonight had chosen the latter.
Multi-vehicle collision. Chain reaction.
Too many patients, not enough staff. The bay split itself in half on instinct alone, bodies and roles sorting themselves with practiced efficiency, adrenaline carrying us where thought could not.
Noise rose and fell in waves — monitors screaming, voices cutting through, the wet, unmistakable sound of blood where it shouldn’t be.
Anya was brilliant in chaos. She always had been.
She pushed, the way she did when the room sharpened her instead of dulling her.
She stepped closer than she should have, leaned across the gurney for a better angle on a bleeding femoral line, her body stretching into the space without asking permission.
Too close. Too far over. Confident enough to forget that chaos bites.
“Anya,” I said, already moving.
“I’ve got it,” she replied, calm, focused, and then she smiled at me. Smiled. That wicked little tilt of her mouth she used when she knew she was testing the boundaries, when she wanted to see if I’d flinch.
She glanced up. Our eyes caught. A spark. Heat. A terrible, beautiful fraction of a second where the rest of the room fell away.
And she missed the patient’s sudden movement.
The gurney jerked hard. A panicked limb flailed. The needle slipped.
Blood sprayed.
“Shit—” someone shouted.
“BACK,” I barked, my voice cutting through the room like a blade. “NOW.”
The word landed heavily. Absolute.
Anya stumbled back as I lunged forward, hands already on the patient, pressure applied hard and fast, muscle memory snapping into place even as my pulse roared in my ears. Blood soaked my gloves. The world narrowed to control: stop the bleeding, stabilize, breathe.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I snapped, the words out before I could stop them.
The room went quiet in that particular, suffocating way — everyone pretending not to listen while listening, anyway. No one moved. Even the monitors seemed to hold their breath.
“I—” she started.
“You do not lean across an unsecured patient,” I said sharply, each word precise and unforgiving. “Not ever. That’s how people get hurt.”
Her face drained of color, shock flickering there before she masked it. “I was just—”
“I don’t care,” I cut in. “This is not a game.”
The words hit harder than I intended. I felt it the instant they left my mouth, felt the way they cracked against her instead of correcting, but it was too late to pull them back. Authority demanded its pound of flesh.
A nurse cleared her throat. Another quietly resumed compressions. The room exhaled and surged forward again, work reclaiming its territory, but something essential had already broken.
Anya nodded once. Small and controlled. Professional in the way people become when they’ve been hurt and try hard not to show it. “Yes, sir,” she said.
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 could check. 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 loudly behind 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 what this moment 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.