Page 74 of Bleed with Me

Shit! Today was a day of “first times” for me.

“Okay, seriously.” He bumped my shoulder on the way out of the elevator. “Are you okay? You look like crap.”

“Thanks, love.” I frowned, glaring at him. He wanted to play this game? Fine. I could imitate him in my sleep. “What do you need?”

A barely visible smirk lifted one corner of his mouth, and he threw the mask away.

“The report you asked for.” He opened his large palm and showed me the USB key. “Why are those people of interest to you?”

The reply died on my tongue. Out of nowhere, a nurse appeared, her expression startled and every move urgent.

“Doctor Zhumagulov,” she exhaled, relief evident in her voice. “There was a huge crash. You’re needed at the OR.”

“We’ll talk later,” I said over my shoulder to Malin, and for the following six hours, I didn’t exist outside the operating room.

Three critical patients arrived. I took one leg to save a life and fought like hell to keep another attached. And I fucking won. The other team managed to pull a thirteen-year-old girl back from the edge. One woman didn’t make it.

Two lives against one.

It was a good outcome. Statistically, it was a win. But as I stared at my reflection, exhaustion carving lines into my face, that one loss clung to me like a stain I couldn’t wash off.

“You were freaking amazing, Doc,” a new resident, Amanda, exclaimed, joining me at the sink. “You were everywhere.”

“Not at the woman who died,” I ground out, turning off the faucet. “If we’d had another surgeon, she might have had a chance.”

“Every hospital is understaffed.” Amanda cast me a sympathetic look, the thrill in her voice fading.

“Not my hospital.”

I left her standing there, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. Failure was unacceptable in my line of work. It cost lives, just as it did today. It couldn’t happen again, not under my roof.

Ignoring the praise coming from all sides, I headed straight to my office. I needed time alone to figure out where I could’ve been faster and who I could’ve stabilized sooner so I could move on to the next patient.

“You look even worse than before.”

“Jesus fuck!” I yelled, staring at Malin sprawled in the chair in the waiting room. Dressed in all black, with a motorcycle helmet placed on his thigh and a deadly expression, he looked like a loaded gun forgotten on a nursery shelf.

“Today is not your day, Dorian.” He shook his head, standing up. His every move was menacing, and the glances thrown his way from the people walking around him only confirmed that I wasn’t imagining it. He was more lethal than usual.

“Your looks haven’t improved, either, sunshine,” I said, trying to read his body language. But all I saw was an evident threat, like he had just learned something that made him decide violence was the only acceptable solution.

“Yeah.” He cast me a serious look. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.” I nodded, motioning for him to follow me into the empty patient room, when an excited, cheerful voice that I loved to hear the most in the whole world cut through the gloomy atmosphere.

“Uncle Dory!”

Zara ran to me with a broad smile splitting her adorable face, her long, curly, auburn hair flying around and falling onto her yellow dress.

“Princess.” I spread my arms wide, and she jumped right into them.

You would think we hadn’t seen each other for months, when it had been only a few days. She wrapped around my torso and neck like a little monkey, and I spun us a few times, earning hysterical laughter from her. An older couple smiled at us, and some patients clapped. Her entrance truly enlightened the space.

“You promised to give me a piano lesson,” Zara exclaimed, moving her hair away from her eyes. Her headband fell on the floor, releasing a curtain of misbehaving strands.

“I will,” I stated sincerely. “The new piano is on its way.”

Her eyes lit up with excitement. She’d been bugging me about it for months, basically since she spent a weekend with me during the snowstorm. Zyon and Valeria were on their honeymoon, and Malin went to handle an emergency, so I was the babysitter.