Chapter 14 · The Seventh Station

"You done yet?"

Amy's hand stopped with the needle halfway through the drunk kid's eyebrow.

Sulfur.

She finished the stitch anyway. "Hold still. If you jerk, I get to start over."

The kid groaned. "Lady, I can't feel my face."

"That makes one of us."

She tied the thread, snipped it, and stripped off her gloves. The scars beneath her scrubs burned against her left forearm.

Not a dull ache. A warning.

Amy pushed through the curtain and scanned the packed emergency department. Every bay was full. A baby wailed near triage. Someone shouted for a doctor. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

The sulfur smell grew stronger.

She pulled out her phone and stopped with her thumb over Mark's name.

What was she supposed to say? Hey, I think the thing from the dragon's lair followed me to work?

"Amy?" a tech called. "You coming back?"

"In a minute."

Her scars flared hot enough to make her bite down.

"Forget the minute," she muttered. "I'm calling him."

She hurried to the med supply closet, shoved inside, and locked the door. Shelves crowded her on both sides, packed with gauze, IV bags, and boxes of syringes.

"Okay," she whispered.