Chapter 4: The Suspension

"Hand me your badge," he says again.

His palm is out, flat and waiting.

Forty people are watching me.

I unclip the lanyard slowly.

The plastic is warm from my chest.

"I'll give you the badge," I say. "I'm not leaving the building."

"Ms. Sinclair."

"I'm off the clock. I'm not off the floor. You can have security walk me out when you find the nerve."

A tech coughs to cover a laugh.

Haldane's jaw works.

He reaches for the badge.

The double doors at the end of the hall bang open.

"Trauma coming in!" someone yells. "Two minutes out! Fall from a scaffold!"

The whole hallway turns.

The charge nurse is already moving.

"Bay one. Where's the second trauma nurse?"

Nobody answers.

Dina is looking at me.

So is the charge nurse.

Her jaw is tight, but she says it.

"Sinclair. Bay one."

I look at Haldane.

"Suspended nurses don't touch patients," he says.

"Then stop me."

I drop the badge into his hand and walk away.

He doesn't follow.

The gurney slams through the bay doors a minute later.

A man in his fifties, orange vest split open, gray as paste.

A girl about sixteen runs beside him, holding his hand and sobbing.

"He fell four floors. He was talking, then he just stopped."

I get my fingers on his neck.

The pulse is thready and fast.

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