3. Reed
Chapter three
Reed
Iscrub down, sterilizing my skin a little rougher than I probably should. I keep passing my hands over my forearms, causing the soap to froth further until I’m covered in bubbles.
“I think you’re clean, Dr. Bellamy,” Tricia, a scrub tech, says from behind me.
I clear my throat before shoving my hands under the water and watching the soap drip off me. “Is anesthesia here yet?”
“He just got in,” Tricia calls before heading to her station.
I put my mask on before pulling up my gloves and waiting for Tricia to let me into the OR.
Dr. Woods is already at the head of the operating table, taking Mystery Woman’s weight and height for anesthesia.
There are two other nurses I’m acquainted with milling around as they help prep my workstation.
One of them fixes the overhead light for me, illuminating Mystery Woman’s features.
The oxygen mask is obscuring my view of her, but maybe it’s a good thing I can see her soft lips…
I keep having to pull myself back to my work. I don’t know why this woman is so different from me. It’s beginning to really piss me off at how easily someone I don’t even know can rattle me this way.
“Anesthesia administered. The first dose is marked at eight thirty-two.” Dr. Woods says as he types on the screen of his machine.
“What was her weight?” The question falls from my lips before I can stop it, and I mentally berate myself for trying to check my colleague's work.
He’s done this for ten fucking years. Get a goddamn grip, Reed.
Dr. Woods doesn’t seem to notice or care that I’m probing his knowledge. “She weighs one-seventy-two.”
Huh.
She’s definitely all muscle if her defined arms are anything to go by. There’s a surgical drape covering her chest, and the only thing I can see is the torn flesh of her shoulder. The wound’s size suggests that something used for close range might have shot her.
Maybe a pistol?
It still begs the question of what this woman was doing to be shot by someone. And why was she on the roof of a building?
“Alright,” I sigh. “Let’s get to work—”
“You look stupid.”
My head whips down to see Mystery Woman’s eyes open. Those pale blue irises burn into me, and I blink back at her.
“She shouldn’t be awake,” Tricia says from the corner of the room.
“I know that,” Dr. Woods curses as he types quickly on his machine.
I glance up at the other doctor, unsure of what to make of this situation, before Mystery Woman calls my attention back to her.
“I told you it was gonna take more than that to euthanize me.” She smirks beyond the oxygen mask.
I frown at her, my voice muffled by my mask. “I’m not euthanizing you. You were shot.”
Her dark brows lift. “You sound hot.”
My scowl deepens as I try to redirect her attention. “Since you’re awake, can you tell me your name?”
“Why don’t you tell me your name?” She challenges.
“You’re really being difficult?” My jaw grinds. “You’re the one with a gunshot wound. Not me.”
“Ooh,” she drawls. “Someone has a temper.”
I lift my gloved hands, cocking a brow. “You’re really testing the man who has your life in his hands?”
She snorts, fogging the oxygen mask. “I’ve done worse. I’ll tell you what, if you show me your face, I’ll give you my name.”
Hmm. That’s not a horrible request, and records haven’t been able to find anything on this woman.
She lied about having an ID on her, and I don’t want to know what she was planning to do to Wanda when the nurse discovered her pocket was empty.
But this back and forth is distracting her while Dr. Woods figures out what went wrong. So, I keep it going.
“Mhm, and who’s saying I don’t already know your name?” I question.
She giggles, sounding loopy as the meds ooze through her veins. “You wish you knew my name.”
My face falls slightly behind my mask before I nod. “Maybe I do…”
Those pale eyes flicker to me, and I see something so much more.
She isn’t just a pretty face, and though I’m enchanted by her, it’s the raw emotions I see lurking beneath her bravado that draws me in.
She bleeds an untold story, as if her life has been far more complicated than my mind can comprehend.
It’s a slap to the face, jarring me so harshly that I don’t even realize I’m lifting my hand to my mask.
I pull it down, my face impassive as those haunting eyes flicker across my features.
Her lids are half closed, droopy with the anesthesia pumping through her system.
“Dr. Dreamy,” she smiles slowly, looking off-kilter and high on the drugs.
I snort. “And what’s your name, Mystery Girl?”
Her eyes lizard blink into the fluorescent lights overhead. “Thalia…” she whispers before she’s dead to the world, and I’m stuck, left craving an interaction I never imagined having with a patient on my operating table.
“Dr. Bellamy?” One nurse urges.
“Right,” I clear my throat before pulling my mask back up. Heat travels along the back of my neck, and while I work to remove the bullet, our interaction replays in my head like a film.