Chapter 6

Jared narrowed his gaze. How to perform a transfusion wasn’t exactly common knowledge amongst civilian, non-medical staff. “Was there a reason you thought it might have been someone else?”

“A man came in a while back…” The other doctor shook his head, one hand raised dismissively as he turned away. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it through the proper channels.”

There were more important things to think about than a diva ER doctor with a protocol fetish. Like where Curtis had gotten to with Lawson and Reed. They should have still been in triage, because Curtis’s last name wasn’t on the O.R. board, and he wasn’t in any of the ER bays. On his way to his office, he texted the group mailing list with the message ‘Closed tonight’, then dialed Lawson.

“We won’t be back tonight.” The man answered without a hello.

“How is he?”

“I can’t even pronounce it, but he’s having a febrile something…”

Jared stilled, hand on his office door. “A febrile nonhemolytic reaction?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“ICU. They’re not letting any of us in. Noah’s listed as next-of-kin and I can’t fucking get ahold of him on his phone.”

This is my fault.

Panic was a flash-fire sending smoke curling into his lungs, leaving ash on his tongue. Fisting his phone, he took the stairs to the third floor two at a time, telling himself he’d worked as fast as he could. Done what he could. But he’d caused harm. Something he’d taken an oath not to do. Not under these circumstances, and not on purpose.

Picturing Curtis’s face, paperwhite from blood loss, the gorgeous golden tones gone from his skin, his smile fading forever, he rounded the corner to the ICU waiting room and kept going. Lawson, Reed, Matt, and Garet stood as he passed. Glancing in each room, he shut out the conflicting, erratic beeps from the monitors, ignored the pervasive scent of death only someone who had seen more than his share of could detect. Noah’s first boy would not, could not, become a casualty. Not because of him. Not ever.

He met Curtis’s attending on his way out of Curtis’s room. “Soames, how’s the patient?”

Dr. Soames blinked, lowering his clipboard. “You’re a long way from your lair, McCleod.”

“Just tell me. How. He. Is.”

If he had to rip the clipboard out of the man’s hands and use the metal edge to give him a second smile, he would, because no one stood between him and his men.

“You mean ‘tell you how he is’, as in, break patient confidentiality rights and issue need-to-know information to someone who isn’t on his ‘care team’?”

Earl Soames was an egotistical, smarmy, self-serving son of a bitch, which was precisely why he’d spat those same exact words in his face after the man had inquired after a particularly high-profile patient whose motorcade had wrecked in the middle of town and landed him in Jared’s O.R. Just his luck that the man would be Curtis’s attending.

If he wasn’t so good at what he does…

“He dies? I will end you.”

“Hey.” A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Lawson’s. “Let’s get some coffee.”

Down in the cafeteria, he watched as Lawson poured them each a cup and paid, bringing the coffee with them to a tucked-away booth. The man waited until they’d each taken a sip before draping one arm over the back of the booth to consider him.

“What went wrong?” No accusation, just a calm request for the facts. Which he appreciated about the man, when his bottomless well of inscrutability wasn’t pointed at him.

Jared met dark green eyes. “Usually leukoreduction is used to filter donor white blood cells. Curtis’s body is having an inflammatory response.”

Which with proper treatment should be fine...so long as there weren’t any other complications. He wasn’t willing to take that for granted though, not with the way luck seemed to turn bad at The Asylum, as if the heavens had made a bet on which one of them they could break next.

Lawson tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Given the amount of blood I transfused, he’s probably got a moderate fever, body aches, and feels like he has the flu.” He breathed deep. “I’m sorry.”

Lawson’s level gaze met his. “What would have happened if you hadn’t done the transfusion?”

He toyed with his coffee cup, spinning it around to run a nail he hadn’t realized was still caked with blood over the label. Wren’s or Curtis’s? Or both? His attention floated dangerously, a little to the left of reality, sounds coming to him as if in an echo chamber.

“I can’t say for sure. The ambulance was slow, as we knew it would be. His heart might have stopped. Or he might have been fine. He’s a large man, so he can withstand more blood loss than...” He briefly allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes, sinking into the darker cracks that would insulate him from his cares, and dropped into the hollow space. “Wren, for instance. Who is downstairs getting an MRI.”

Arm sliding from the back of the booth, Lawson sat forward. “Come again?”

His eyes opened and he shook his head, digging his nails into his palm to bring himself back from the edge. A deep swallow of lukewarm coffee grounded him as he forced himself to taste it, noting the burned undertones and less-than-fresh cream.

“He got up from the chair too fast after—” Shaking his head, he pressed his lips together, disgusted with himself. “I’ve been watching him for close to two years, and I didn’t tell him to stay down and he got up to clean when my back was turned.”

“Jesus, Jared.” Lawson sat back, gripping the nape of his own neck. “Noah is going to…”

Lawson didn’t have to finish that sentence. They both knew the man was going to be unimpressed. To say the least. Though he highly doubted this was a situation where they might have to call for reinforcements, nobody but Rhodey was more aware than he of the fault-lines that ran underneath the man’s personal foundations. At least Noah’s little pop star had given him something to glue together some of those cracks, more-so than perhaps even Rhodey’s unique training had accomplished.

“Let me worry about Noah.” He sipped his coffee and checked the time on his phone, trying not to think about Curtis too hard. If anything worse than a hangnail piled on top of the man’s injuries in the next twenty-four hours, Rhodey might have to deal with an entire ship of loose cannons. “Wren will be out and checked into a room soon. I’m assuming not the ICU, so I’ll have him list me as his legal advocate until Noah can take over. He’s going to have his hands full enough with you, Jamie, and Curtis.”

Lawson cut him a look. “I’m fine. Don’t lump me in with them.”

He raised one brow and crooked his finger, glancing to the man’s wrist. Sighing, Lawson rested his hand, palm up on the table. Two fingers pressed to olive skin, he didn’t have to look at the stopwatch on his phone to diagnose an elevated heart rate.

Cup lifted in salute, he let go of Lawson’s wrist and sipped. “Sell your story to someone who doesn’t know better.”

Slipping from the booth, Lawson stared down at him. “You did the right thing.”

He lifted his gaze, keeping all of his mental doors firmly shut. A barked order, a sharp command from his CO, he could deal with. Sympathy made men weak. And weakness killed. “I’ll text you with Wren’s condition.”

Jaw ticking, Lawson jerked his head and walked away.

The man could pretend all he wanted that he was fine. They both knew better. A different set of circumstances? He would have been wearing that wedding ring that was around Jamie’s finger. Remembering the first day he’d met the man, when Lawson had been too skinny, his arm in a cast, he knew he almost wouldn’t recognize him now. They all had their demons, but sometimes he wondered if the man’s were buried deepest of all. At least he could see Noah’s and Curtis’s coming.