The familiar smell of antiseptic and wet coats washed over me.

“Dr. Morgan?”

The triage nurse, Sarah, stood up from her desk, her eyes widening as she saw my face.

“I need Dr. Singh,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Get her to Trauma Room Two,” Sarah called out to an orderly.

They tried to guide me into a wheelchair, but I pushed it away and walked on my own two feet.

Mara Singh was already waiting in the room, snapping on a pair of sterile gloves.

She took one look at my face and her expression turned to stone.

“What happened, Elizabeth?” Mara asked, gently tilting my head back under the examination light.

“I fell,” I said, repeating the lie my uncle had crafted.

Mara paused, her eyes searching mine.

“That is a deep, irregular laceration over your zygomatic arch, and your pupil is slightly sluggish,” she said.

“A blunt force impact from a glass object,” I corrected her quietly. “Write it down exactly like that, Mara.”

She didn’t ask another question; she knew me too well.