Page 4 of Wings (Heavy Kings MC #5)
Kiara
I t had been a long night, and it was about to get even longer.
"Trauma two," Nancy called out, already moving. I grabbed gloves from the wall dispenser, muscle memory taking over. Three years of night shifts had trained my body to respond before my brain fully engaged.
The patient was maybe twenty-five, conscious but disoriented, half his body painted in that specific abstract art that only asphalt could create. Dr. Ramirez was already at his head, checking pupils, asking the standard questions that would determine if this was just stupid or fatal.
"Can you tell me your name?" Ramirez's voice stayed calm, professional.
"Tyler . . . fuck, it hurts . . ."
"We're going to help with that." I moved to his left side, cataloging damage with practiced eyes. Deep gouges along his ribs, road rash from shoulder to hip, his jeans shredded enough to show more artwork on his leg. "Let's get him on monitors."
I worked with mechanical precision, starting IVs, cutting away what remained of his jacket.
The leather had done some good at least, taking the worst of the slide.
Nancy appeared with irrigation supplies, and we began the tedious process of washing gravel from wounds, each piece a small agony he tried to bear with clenched teeth and bitten-off curses.
His left sleeve rode up as I adjusted the blood pressure cuff, and that's when I saw it. The tattoo. A cobra, fangs bared, wrapped around his forearm in blacks and grays.
My hands froze for half a second. Just half a second, but Nancy noticed.
"You okay?"
"Fine." I forced my fingers to move, to continue their work.
It wasn't the same tattoo. Not exactly. My ex-boyfriend's cobra had been facing the other direction, had that distinctive red tongue the Iron Serpents used as their signature.
This was just some kid with questionable taste in body art and worse judgment about protective gear.
But my body remembered anyway.
"Kiara, I need you to prep for sutures." Ramirez's voice cut through the memory. "Facial lacs are minimal, but that gash on his forearm is going to need your artist's touch."
I nodded, grateful for the focus. This was what I was good at—the tiny, perfect stitches that would heal clean, that would leave the smallest possible scar.
My attending during residency had called it artist's work, said I had hands meant for plastics if I wanted.
But I'd chosen emergency medicine, chosen the chaos and adrenaline and ability to fix people quickly before sending them back to their lives.
The suture kit materialized in my hands. I cleaned the wound properly, injected local anesthetic with careful precision. The kid—Tyler—watched me work with dilated pupils that had nothing to do with head trauma and everything to do with whatever Ramirez had pushed through his IV.
"You're good at this," he slurred.
"Hold still." I softened my tone. “Deep breath, Tyler—on three.”
He inhaled. I counted slowly, “One, two…” and pinched the knot on the exhale so the pain slid past him like a wave receding.
“That trick’s on the house,” I added. “Comes with the ER frequent-flyer card. Try not to earn another punch.”
A faint smile tugged at his split lip; for a second he looked less like a statistic and more like somebody’s brother.
I began the first stitch, keeping my voice neutral. "Move and you'll have a scar shaped like a lightning bolt."
He laughed, then winced. I worked in silence, creating a neat line of sutures that would dissolve in time, leaving only the faintest reminder of tonight's lesson in physics and poor judgment.
Between patients, I headed to the staff room.
Nancy was there, rookie fatigue in every line of her posture.
“Lunch yet?” I asked.
She shook her head.
I fished a protein bar from my pocket. It was meant to be my dinner, but she looked like she needed it more than me. “It’s paleo, keto, and tastes like cardboard—perfect for night shift.”
She laughed, the shadows easing from her face. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Only literally twelve times tonight. Go eat before the universe adds unlucky thirteen.”
After my break, I had very important work to do.
Supplies.
This was the other dance, the one nobody talked about but everyone knew happened. Expired medications that still had months of potency. Sutures marked for disposal because someone had opened the outer packaging. Antibiotics logged as contaminated when they were perfectly fine.
My messenger bag sat innocuous in the break room, hidden compartment already half full from earlier in the shift. I moved with practiced casualness, slipping packets of gauze into my pockets during legitimate restocking, transferring them later when no one was watching.
Three morphine vials marked "contaminated" after a junkie had grabbed at Stephanie during med pass.
I hesitated, thumbnail digging into the glass.
Mental checklist: overdose risk — low; street resale value — awful; pain relief for an ex-Marine with a shattered femur — priceless.
I slipped the vials into the hidden pocket and whispered, “Do some good, boys,” as though the morphine could hear me.
I wasn't stealing. That's what I told myself.
I was redirecting waste, saving useful medical supplies from destruction.
The Heavy Kings MC paid for their medical care in protection—keeping the worst of the drug trade away from the hospital, making sure our staff got to their cars safely after late shifts. It was a trade, a balance.
And it had started with Danny.
Seventeen years old, prospect for the Heavy Kings, rolled in with three bullet holes and terror in his eyes. "Please," he'd begged, hand clutching mine with desperate strength. "Don't call the cops. Don't let them tell my mom. Please."
I'd held his hand while he died. Held it while Dr. Park called time, while security called the police, while his blood cooled on the trauma bay floor. He'd been somebody's son, somebody's friend, and he'd died afraid of disappointing his mother more than he'd feared death itself.
That night, I'd started taking supplies. Small things at first. Then more, as I learned which Kings needed help, which injuries they were treating in back rooms and garages because hospitals meant questions and questions meant prison.
The trauma bay smelled like blood and benzoin, that specific mixture that meant someone's life had taken a violent turn. I counted supplies to keep my hands busy, to keep my mind from wandering to dangerous places.
Ten gauze packs on the shelf. Five in my bag.
Twelve suture kits in the drawer. Six in my bag.
Eight vials of antibiotics. Four in my bag.
Always leaving enough for the hospital, never taking more than we could explain as normal wastage. The careful mathematics of survival, of keeping people alive on both sides of the law.
Tyler was sleeping now, vitals stable, road rash cleaned and dressed. He'd heal. He'd probably ride again, probably without a helmet, probably end up back here or worse. But tonight, I'd done my job. Both jobs. The one that paid my rent and the one that let me sleep at night.
Sometimes I wondered which one was really keeping me alive.
By 5 AM, my scrubs looked like a Jackson Pollock—blood spatter from the bar fight in trauma one, iodine stains from Tyler's road rash, and a mysterious green streak across my stomach from the kid who'd eaten glow sticks on a dare.
I peeled them off in the staff locker room, each movement waking a new complaint from my body.
Lower back first—twelve hours on my feet had turned my spine into a question mark of pain.
Then the right hip, where scar tissue pulled with every step.
The ghost pain was worse some nights than others.
Tonight it throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat, a bass line of old trauma under the melody of fresh exhaustion.
My stomach added its own percussion, hollow and angry.
When had I eaten last? Yesterday's lunch—half a turkey sandwich grabbed between patients, wolfed down standing over a trash can in case I got called away.
The vending machine coffee at 2 AM didn't count as food, though my body had been running on it and adrenaline for the last eight hours.
I faced my reflection in the cracked mirror above the sinks.
The fluorescent lights didn't do anyone favors, but they were particularly cruel at dawn.
My jade eyes had dulled to moss, the gold flecks disappeared under shadows that looked like bruises.
Cheekbones sharp enough to cut, not from good genetics but from forgetting to eat when the anxiety got bad.
Auburn hair escaping my bun in copper wisps that looked more like rust in this light.
The scale in the corner tempted me, but I already knew what it would say. Eleven pounds in two months. Not trying to lose weight—just forgetting my body needed fuel when my mind was too busy calculating escape routes and checking locks and jumping at shadows that might be more than shadows.
I changed into street clothes—jeans, hoodie, sneakers that made no sound on linoleum.
Everything dark, everything forgettable.
The kind of outfit that wouldn't stand out in a police lineup.
Jesus, when had I started thinking like that?
When had every choice become about being invisible, unmemorable, safe?
The secure parking garage required a badge and a code.
I appreciated the security even as I took the long way to my car, never the same path twice.
Down two levels, across to the west side, back up one level, through the connector.
Anyone following would be obvious. Anyone waiting would have to guess which route I'd take.
Paranoid.That's what the hospital therapist had said during my mandatory session after the "incident" with the violent patient. "Hypervigilance is a natural trauma response, but you can't live your whole life looking over your shoulder."