Anya
The trauma bay doors slammed open with a force that rattled the frame.
“Pedestrian versus bus,” someone shouted. “Hypotensive. Unresponsive at the scene. Massive lower extremity trauma with superficial burns on the left arm and neck.”
The gurney rolled in fast, bodies clustered around it, voices overlapping, hands already cutting, already pressing, already moving.
I stepped forward on instinct, gloves snapping on, brain flipping into the familiar emergency pattern — airway, breathing, circulation — until the world narrowed to the patient and the rhythm of organized chaos.
“BP sixty over palp,” a nurse called.
“Heart rate one-forty,” another voice said.
“Get me large-bore access. Now.”
I moved with them, automatically, my hands already reaching, my mouth already forming orders—
And then I saw his face.
For a fraction of a second, my brain refused to translate what my eyes were telling it. The room blurred at the edges, sound dulling, as if I were underwater. The man on the table was bloodied, pale, his hair matted dark with sweat and something worse.
Desmond.
Not a patient who looked like him.
Not someone who reminded me of him.
Doctor Desmond Vaughn.
My Desmond.
My world tilted.
I stopped.
Not physically — my body was still standing there — but inside, something locked. My hands hovered uselessly in midair. The monitors kept beeping. The nurses kept moving. Someone was talking directly to me, and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
This wasn’t real.
This was wrong.
He didn’t belong here. He was supposed to be on the other side of the bed. Calm. In control. Calling out vitals. Telling me what to do.
Not bleeding.
Not motionless.
Not broken.
“Volkov!” The sharpness in the voice — Liza’s voice — cut through the fog. “Anya, we need you!”
I blinked hard, breath stuttering back into my lungs. My vision tunneled back in, snapping painfully into focus. The smell of blood hit me. The metallic tang. The copper. The antiseptic struggled and failed to cover it.
My eyes dropped.
His leg.
It didn’t even look like a leg anymore.
Crushed. Twisted at an angle no joint should ever take. Fabric soaked through, blood pooling faster than hands could contain it. Someone had a tourniquet on, but it was already slick, already failing. Bone. God. I could see bone.
My stomach lurched.
“Anya,” Liza said again, closer now. I could feel her hand on my elbow, grounding me. “He needs you.”
I swallowed hard. Once. Twice.
He was still breathing.
Shallow and uneven. But breathing nonetheless. That was all that mattered.
That was something I could hold on to.
“Airway’s intact,” I heard myself say, my voice sounding strange in my own ears. “But he’s losing too much blood. We need a massive transfusion protocol. Now.”
My words kicked the room back into sharper motion.
Someone repeated the order. Someone else moved for blood.
The rhythm returned, even though my hands were shaking as I stepped closer to the bed.
“We need Levin.” I said to myself at first, then louder for anyone to hear.
My voice shattered as I shouted, “Someone get Doctor Levin!”
Up close, it was worse.
His face was ashen, jaw slack, lashes dark against skin that had gone frighteningly pale.
There was blood on his temple. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven pulls.
He looked smaller like this. Not physically — he was still Desmond — but stripped of that commanding presence that usually filled any room he entered.
Vulnerable.
Human.
Breakable.
“Pressure’s dropping,” someone called.
“Pulse’s thready.”
“Get another line.”
I leaned in, forcing my focus down into the work. My hands should have known what to do, even if my heart didn’t. IV. Fluids. Blood. Pressure. Stop the bleeding. Keep him alive long enough for surgery to take over.
But I couldn’t move.
“Tourniquet’s not enough,” a tech said, voice tight. “We’re not controlling it.”
I nodded, jaw clenched so hard it hurt. I could barely see through the tears.
“We won’t.” Aaron’s voice cut through the screams of the machines. “Not like this. He needs the OR. Now. Trauma surgery, stat. Talk to me, Volkov.”
“Bus—” The word tasted like ash. I didn’t look at his face again. I couldn’t. If I did, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my hands steady. “His leg…”
Then his eyes fluttered. Just barely.
And for one terrifying, unbearable second, they focused.
On me.
Recognition moved through them like a slow wave. His lips parted. “Anya,” he breathed. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even clear. But it was my name, and something inside my chest cracked.
I leaned closer without thinking, my voice low, instinctive, the way he had spoken to me a hundred times before. “I’m here,” I said. “You’re in the hospital. We’ve got you. Stay with me, please.”
His brow creased faintly, like he was trying to focus, like he wanted to say something else. His hand twitched weakly against the sheet.
“You’re okay,” I told him, even though I had no idea if that was true. “You hear me? You’re going to be okay.”
The lie was a lifeline. For him. For me.
“Pressure’s critical,” someone said urgently.
“OR’s ready in two minutes.”
“Move, move.”
The bed began to roll.
As they pushed him out of the trauma bay, my hands finally stilled, hovering uselessly at my sides, blood on my gloves, adrenaline roaring in my ears. I stood there, chest heaving, staring at the empty space where he’d been.
Desmond Vaughn.
On a trauma gurney.
Bleeding.
Broken.
Gone down the hall, into surgery, with a leg that might not be salvageable. For the first time since I’d met him, I wasn’t sure who was going to talk me through this.