It was three weeks before the door frame marks when Solène Vard walked into Meridian General.
Not to see me.
She was a patient.
She came through the west bay intake at two in the afternoon with a lycan laceration from a construction incident — she had been working on the outer territory logistics expansion, the position she'd been given through proper channels, and a structural beam had been improperly secured.
Bettany flagged it before I even reached the corridor.
"Bay two," she said. "Incoming."
"Yes," I said. "I have the chart."
I had the chart.
I had the patient name on the chart.
I had been a surgeon for four years. I had operated on the man who had broken my heart at twenty-six. I had stitched Zevran's shoulder when he came in with fractured ribs from training. I had treated
