Chapter 5
Frank
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” I say to the stack of towels before I bury my face in them. “Why do I want to save them all? Why aren’t my successes ever enough?”
My cold facade crumbles as I openly sob into the scratchy terrycloth.
I guess all the founders of Haunted Health get their release in these supply closets.
When we renovated the building, who knew that walk-in storage on every floor would be the key to our success?
How many times have I come here and punched stacks of sheets or knocked over stacks of metal trays after losing a patient?
There’s something soothing about voicing my faults in this dark room.
It’s like a confessional booth where men who play god can admit their humanity.
The sheets and towels don’t judge me for indecision, panic, or self-doubt.
In this closet, I can be confused and make mistakes.
I can admit that caring for my patients isn’t a weakness but a natural part of being human.
My choices don’t have to be rock-solid hills I’m ready to die upon.
In here, I don’t have to be Dr. Stein the Miracle-working Monster; I can be Frank the Tries-His-Best Human.
Today, nobody died, but I likely sentenced those Fae twins to death.
Bracken wasn’t exaggerating when he said nobody else can deliver them safely.
Magmell doesn’t have educational infrastructure like medical schools—hell, most of it doesn’t have electricity.
That poor fairy will be lucky if some wizened crone doesn’t treat her for evil spirits when her water breaks.
I just hope the herbal remedy isn’t moldy or poisonous.
What if there’s a potentially fatal complication?
Like…what if she tears and they don’t have the anticoagulants to keep her from bleeding out?
That’s on me.
Was I right to turn them away? We could kill the family as easily as a midwife.
The difference is that we would know instantly what killed them.
If anything iron or derived from iron touches the inside of a Fae, they’ll die in seconds.
My stainless-steel instrument fingers, which have saved thousands of lives, would be their werewolf’s silver bullet.
When I bought replacement retractors, I asked the alloys of the composite metal—chromium, molybdenum, and, you guessed it, iron.
Bracken, Drake, and Landyn would be on their own.
Could they pull off the C-section if there were complications?
“Did my ego just kill that family? I didn’t go into medicine to kill anyone!
Why can’t I save them all?” I shout as I pummel the stack of towels.
The clanking of the wobbling steel rack fuels my fury.
I shake the shelves until a pile of linens covers my feet.
My feet kick and stomp on them as if stomping out my shortcomings.
I know the answer to my first question; I just don’t want to admit it.
I’ve lost my faith in my friends. In my head, the same friends who brought me back from the dead can’t be trusted with Fae.
“Why am I like this? Nobody can save patients but me…because I’m what?
A god? Yet I don’t trust myself to find a plastic alternative or to coach my friends from the sidelines.
I can’t trust that they can handle any problem that comes up.
There would be nothing I could do but watch them struggle, and I can’t do that. Sometimes I hate myself!”
I plant my foot against the metal rack and kick it into the next rack in a fit of temper.
The racks clash hard enough that both tip over, starting an avalanche of linens and plastic-wrapped projectiles.
In seconds, the pristine room is a disaster area with ten floor-to-ceiling racks angled forty-five degrees.
They would all crash to the floor if the furthest one wasn’t embedded in the wall.
Knock. Knock. “Is everything okay in there? The door’s locked. We heard a crash,” shouts Bridget, the charge nurse, from the hallway.
“Just fine,” I shout without opening the door. “I found what I was looking for, that’s all.”
Luckily, she leaves me in peace with only a few muttered curses. I huff a sigh of relief that I can clean up this mess alone. They already gossip about my violent temper, so this is nothing new. If only they saw my temper for what it truly is, a release valve for the pressure they put me under.
Scrape. Scrape. “Come on, damn thing!” whispers a tiny, terse voice, followed by a feminine grunt.
My boots crunch on broken glass, making it impossible to sneak up on the rude individual spying on me.
They’d better enjoy these last seconds in Haunted Health, because they are as good as fired.
Toast. Nobody intrudes on my private meltdown and continues as if nothing happened.
And before they leave, they will sign an NDA so airtight that they will suffocate on the spot if they breathe a word of this to anyone.
“Please don’t come any closer,” says the tiny voice as I round the corner.
She’s blond, with the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.
They’re a strange almond shape and dominate her face like a cartoon princess, but that’s where her elegance stops.
Her hair has dust bunnies trapped in snarls.
Dirt sticks to her pale, sickly skin. She wears an ogre-sized hospital gown tied in a complex jumpsuit-type-thing.
Her feet are comically small compared to my large boots, as if she sports the hooves of a hucow.
“Not a step closer, or I’ll stab you,” she whispers with a whimper. Fierce little thing holds an epidural needle in its protective pouch, waving it at me as if nobody informed her of her tiny stature.
“You stab me, and I’ll stab you,” I say, holding my instrument hands in front of my chest.
“Dr. Stein.”
“Lucky guess,” I say with a chuckle. I know exactly who this is now.
“You must be the Werebrown brat who turned my hospital into a three-ring circus. Liam is quite upset with you, but don’t worry.
I’m the best surgeon that ever was and sewed your teeth marks shut myself.
He shouldn’t have a scar once he removes the bandages. ”
“Teeth marks…sewed shut…oh mylanta!” She raises a tiny hand to her dried, cracked lips as if truly horrified by her actions. “I didn’t mean to hurt him—”
“When you bit him, or just in general? He’s taken the rest of the day off, so he didn’t hear you screaming at him through the vents. But the rest of us did, so I’m sure someone will relay your curses to him when he returns.”
Her eyes round into saucers.
“But Liam is one of the toughest cyclopes I’ve ever met.
Did you know he’s knighted by the Fae King?
Saved a whole merpeople hatchery when a volcano erupted too close to the colony’s nursery.
Some say he saved them from extinction while sustaining third-degree burns over most of his body.
I used to say he was thick-skinned…but you kinda disproved that…
unless…you wouldn’t happen to be a day-walking vampire, would you?
You see, it would be better for his reputation if you were,” I say, laying it on thick.
I hate brats and bullies, and I can’t decide which she is.
Her family brought her from the Were’s forest. Her pack is paying for her treatment.
She will die without surgery, yet she bites, runs, and hides like a little puppy.
Her ulcerative colitis is aggressive. I was able to glean that from the scopes she got as a kid.
I can only imagine the number of painful lesions that cause her agony every time she eats.
“You don’t like me,” she says with a lip tremble.
Of all the things to say…why does my opinion of her matter?
I frown at the needle jiggling in her grip.
Her elbow shouldn’t be so wide in comparison to her forearm.
She’s too thin. My gaze travels up her arm to where her collarbone juts out from the top of her tied ensemble.
A bruise mars her shoulder—probably from the fight to get her into a wheelchair.
A teardrop drips from her jaw. I follow the tracks to those sorrowful eyes.
“You shouldn’t care if I like you,” I whisper, feeling the weight of my cold mask over my feelings.
“It’s what’s really wrong with me,” she says, lowering the needle to her side.
“Everyone says my colitis holds me back, but it’s really my need to be liked.
If I didn’t care if my family or my pack hated me, I could go where I belong.
I wouldn’t be turning your hospital into a three-ring circus.
I’d be on a wellness retreat in the human realm to work on myself…
all of me. If you want to fix me, your carving set should be aimed at my head, not my belly. ”
“I know medicine. Your colitis is killing you. I want to save you.”
“Like you saved that Fae family? I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“I see,” I reply, raking my closed scissors through my hair in agitation. A small tuft of black hair rests at the tip when I bring my hand down. I’ll be bald by the end of the day if I’m continuously challenged like this.
“I shouldn’t throw your private thoughts back at you. I’d hate for someone to comment on the chaos in my head. Look, you care about them—”
“Now, it’s you who doesn’t know me.”
“True, but you wouldn’t beat yourself up if you didn’t care.
Yes, you hide it in a closet, but you didn’t check if anyone was in here.
I sat in the corner by the vent the entire time.
Your heart was so full, I don’t think you cared who heard your troubles.
Maybe you even wanted someone to hear your anguish, so you could set it free.
” With each word, she slides a few inches closer to the open vent.
“And you—oh wise one—got all this insight on my character while I trashed a storage room?”
“I do a lot of meditating,” she says with a lop-sided, tear-stained smile that melts my heart.