27. -26-
Dorian
Zyon’s voice was still echoing in my head when the shrill ring of the hospital phone cut straight through the tension like a scalpel through skin.
I stood behind my desk, jaw clenched, hands planted on the wood hard enough to feel the vibration travel up my arms. My brother’s final words hung in the air between us like the promise of a war postponed.
He wanted her gone. Permanently. I wanted time to think, to understand why the idea of never seeing her again wrapped around my heart like a chain.
I glanced at the screen, my brows furrowing.
Head Nurse. Trauma.
She didn’t even give me a chance to answer it properly.
“There’s an incoming trauma,” she reported. “Pediatric. ETA forty seconds.”
“I’m on my way.”
I grabbed my coat, my brain switching tracks with ruthless efficiency. Zyon’s presence lingered like cold smoke behind me, but there was no time to explain. My body moved on instinct. A child’s life depended on how quickly I took control.
The elevator ride felt too slow, my foot tapping against the floor as my thoughts snapped into clinical alignment.
Pediatric trauma was a different beast. Smaller bodies crashed faster, with less warning.
And fear alone could push them over the edge just as quickly as blood loss if it wasn’t handled right.
The doors slid open on the ground floor just as the ambulance screeched to a halt outside the ER entrance, and chaos spilled in with it.
The paramedics burst through the doors, boots slick with blood and rain, a stretcher between them holding a small, trembling shape covered with a silver thermal blanket that did nothing to hide the red seeping through.
“Six-year-old female,” the paramedic shouted. “Fell down a staircase; glass wall shattered on impact. Conscious but hysterical. Multiple lacerations, possible head injury, abdominal wound. Vitals unstable but holding.”
The girl looked impossibly small on the gurney, her head secured in a pediatric collar and her body trembling beneath the straps.
Long blonde curls were matted with blood against her tear-soaked cheeks.
Her coral-blue eyes darted wildly around the room while cuts covered her arms and a dark stain spread across the pressure dressing on her abdomen.
She screamed whenever someone leaned too close, raw and panicked, the sound ripping through the hall and straight through my chest.
“Hey,” I said, stepping in close and blocking her view of the lights and the strangers surrounding her. My voice dropped, cutting clean through the noise. “Hey, angel. Look at me.”
Her eyes found mine and clung to me as if I were the only solid thing left in the world.
“There you are.” I smiled, gentle but confident, like alarms, blood, and broken glass didn’t surround me. “I’m Dorian.” My hands moved with practiced precision while my voice seemed to get her attention off the whole circus. “I’m the guy who makes pain behave. You’re safe now.”
Her scream broke into sobs, breath hitching, little hands trying to curl inward protectively before wincing in pain.
“Don’t move her yet,” I ordered calmly, my fingers hovering just above her skin, gently assessing the injuries. “Let me see where the worst bleeding is.”
My hands and brain split into parallel tracks.
My gaze never left her face, while I cataloged the injuries.
Cuts and abrasions along both legs, shallow but bleeding.
Bruising blooming purple through her ribs.
A long slash across her abdomen, glass-clean and terrifying at first glance.
Blood matted in her hair, a laceration near the scalp. And…
“Glass in the forearm,” a resident announced.
I saw it. A jagged shard was embedded deep in her left forearm, the skin stretched and inflamed around it. It looked terrifying, but the abdominal wound was the one that could kill her.
“Hurts,” she cried, her tiny voice spearing my ears. “It hurts everywhere.”
“I know, angel,” I whispered, glancing at the huge piece, yet my mind was elsewhere. “I promise I’ll do my best to make it stop.” I looked at her with an encouraging smile. “I just need a little time, okay? We’ll get through it together.”
“Okay?” she mumbled, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Don’t worry, just stay still and keep your eyes on me.” My mind quickly worked on the best approach while her petrified eyes literally pierced my soul.
“Trauma bay one. We’re moving,” I commanded, holding her because she winced when we rolled her into the room.
“What’s your name, angel?” I asked while putting on gloves.
She sniffed hard, trying to be brave and failing spectacularly.
“A-Aryna,” she whispered.
“What a beautiful, strong name,” I praised, nodding at the nurse. “Do you remember mine?”
Her blood-matted brows furrowed slightly as she watched me through tear-filled eyes.
“D-Dorian,” she said in a thin voice, wincing when the nurse touched her.
“Perfect.” I smiled, standing at her head to make room for my colleague. “Two large-bore IVs,” I requested, keeping my gaze locked with Aryna. “And I need to see inside. FAST scan, now.”
The high-pitched, panicked scream broke through the room. The nurse raised her head, looking at me as she waited for a command. Aryna shrieked at the sight of the needle, pure animal fear tearing out of her chest, but we didn’t have time to waste.
I firmly put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her to the bed. I lowered myself to her level, hoping my voice and presence would overpower the panic that could kill her. I couldn’t sedate her yet, not before I knew if she bled internally.
“Hey, angel, look at me.” Thankfully, she reacted, heavy sobs lifting her small chest. “It’s just a tiny pinch, nothing more. I promise.”
She flinched when the nurse seized the brief moment of stillness and did her job. Fluids started running, but her color barely improved. I glanced at the shard of glass embedded in her forearm.
“Stabilize the arm,” I ordered without taking my eyes off her abdomen. “Bulky dressing. Do not remove it here. Vitals?”
“BP dropping,” another nurse called out as the FAST scan machine rolled in. “Heart rate one-sixty.”
Fuck! I cursed mentally, already knowing we were in big trouble. I took the probe as I always did with kids. I trusted my hands more than anyone else’s when the stakes were this high.
“Aryna, this is going to be a little cold,” I warned her, smearing the gel gently over her skin. She whimpered, her fingers twitching, but she held on. “I know. I’m sorry.”
I moved the probe slowly, my trained eyes instantly seeing the problem. Black bloomed on the screen where it had no business being. My suspicions were confirmed.
Free fluid. Too much of it. She had internal bleeding.
“Prepare the OR,” I said sharply. “Get an anesthesiologist, and I need a head CT. Move.”
A nurse repeated the orders and ran out of the room, while another wheeled us toward imaging.
Aryna’s cries echoed down the corridor as we moved, the sound threading straight through my ribs. I walked beside her gurney, one hand gripping the rail, the other resting where she could feel it.
“Almost done, angel,” I murmured soothingly. “It’s just a big camera that takes pictures. No pain. I’ll stay right here.”
The scan finished in minutes but felt like hours. There was no fracture, no bleed, just a mild concussion. Relief washed over me. One less thing trying to kill her.
“Let’s move her to the OR.” The nurses pushed the bed toward the elevator as my mind overflowed with everything that could go wrong.
I jogged beside the gurney, already scrubbing in my head. She was not dying on my watch. Not tonight.
“You did amazing,” I whispered when we reached the OR, and Aryna’s fingers twitched weakly. Her screams softened to broken hiccups, exhaustion finally winning over terror. “Now it’s my turn to do my job. I’ll make it right, okay?”
Her eyes filled with hope.
“Promise?” she breathed.
Never promise what you can’t guarantee, Doctor, the bastard scoffed in my head. First year rule.
But…
“I promise, angel.”
Nurses took her inside to prepare while I scrubbed in and met my team.
“She’s going under,” I announced while the nurse put my gloves on. “Exploratory laparotomy. Control the bleed, repair the damage, then deal with the arm.”
A chorus of confirmation echoed in the room, and we started working immediately.
Seven hours later, Aryna slept beneath a thin blanket, impossibly small against the hospital bed. Tubes and lines trailed from her body while the monitors traced a steady rhythm. The bleeding was controlled, the damage repaired, and the glass removed. For now, all she had to do was rest and heal.
I remained beside her longer than necessary, watching every green number as if it were a personal victory. Heart rate steady. Oxygen good. Blood pressure holding.
Her lashes rested against bruised cheeks, her breathing soft but audible. I adjusted the blanket when it slipped, my movements slower now that no emergency demanded speed. My hands, so used to cutting and stitching, hovered uselessly at her side.
“Stay with me, angel,” I muttered, more to myself than to her. The machines answered for her, steady and reassuring.
I pulled a chair closer and finally sat. My elbows rested on my knees, my eyes never leaving her. I had cases waiting, calls piling up, my brothers, and a certain woman texting me diligently, but none of it mattered right now.
The sound of the door opening stirred me, and I looked toward the entrance. Melody walked inside with two cups and a tired, pale face.
“I missed your adolescent humor in the OR,” she said, handing me a paper cup filled with a steamy black coffee.
“You don’t need my guidance to remove an appendix.” I settled deeper into the chair and bit my lower lip when she dragged another chair across the floor, the screeching sound making my eyes twitch.
“True.” She plopped beside me, offering me cream and putting too much sugar into her cup. “But I’m used to the noises in the background.”