Page 14 of Fool Moon First Aid

A chorus of groans and moans reverberates around the conference room, mirroring the collective unease. I drop my head, a heavy sigh escaping my lips. As one of the three emergency department doctors here, the stark reality of these reports isn’t just numbers, it is blood, tears, and pain that I confront every day. Sometimes, in the quiet moments of the night, I find myself longing for the simpler path of a paramedic within my pack. However, a deep-seated sense of duty anchors me to this hospital, where my unique abilities are indispensable.

Dr. Martin patiently waits for the restless murmurs to fade. She attempts to restore order with a gesture of her arms, but it’s the subtle surge of her alpha power that blankets the room with silence. I feel the familiar ripple of dominance wash over me, provoking a brief stir within my inner wolf. There’s an unspoken acknowledgment between our primal selves before my inner beast, acknowledging the lack of threat, settles back into the recesses of my consciousness.

“It gets worse,” she continues, the fatigue in her voice now laced with a hint of bitterness. “Last month saw the highest number of deaths at the hands of hunters on record.” This revelation suffuses the room with a subdued, heavy air. “To make matters worse, a spiritkin hospital in the Midwest fell victim to a hunter with fake injuries. He strapped himself with bombs and obliterated half the hospital.”

“Why wasn’t this on the news?” Dr. Cassandra Thorn from the ED demands, her cheeks flushed with a righteous anger that makes her eyes blaze.

A colleague, whose face is familiar but whose name escapes me, chimes in from the back. “The humans probably covered it up.” His voice drips with a mixture of cynicism and resignation.

Dr. Martin dismisses the speculative murmurs with a wave. “The incident only occurred a few hours ago,” she reveals, her expression somber. “I wanted to address our most immediate concerns first. The hunters are escalating their attacks. Vigilance is paramount.”

Cassandra, visibly shaken, reaches into her pocket and discreetly pops a THC gummy into her mouth. The temptation to ask for one myself nips at my resolve. “What’s more pressing than the hunters’ war against our people?”

“Humans,” Dr. Martin responds, leaning heavily on her chair, the weight of her next words seeming to burden her. “Do we continue to accept them?”

Her question detonates like a bomb, igniting a discord of voices. The room dissolves into chaos, and I rub my temples, trying to ease the inevitable headache. My enhanced spiritkin hearing makes the commotion almost unbearable as the loud voices clash against each other—a testament to the diverse and passionate crowd before me.

Everyone has opinions, I think to myself.

Like assholes. The thought comes from Tyler, whose laughter bounces around in my head until I block him out. Damn pack bond. The three of us bonded over a decade ago, and sometimes, Tyler’s mental monologues still shock me.

“Enough!” Dr. Martin bellows, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade, her alpha power flaring up once more. “One at a time, please. Let’s start with Lysander.” She gestures toward Dr. Lysander Black, the head of the emergency department and a vampire whose agelessness belies his wisdom.

Or rather he is a pretentious asshole.

Lysander, poised and unflappable, surveys the room with a steady gaze. “We can’t turn them away,” he states. “To deny humans help would make us no better than those seeking our destruction.”

His words resonate with a profound truth, echoing through the room and into the core of my being, reminding me once again of the complex and delicate balance we strive to maintain in our spiritkin existence.

“At what risk?” someone across the room mutters, their voice dripping with skepticism. I can’t help but think we’re going to be here all night. Every department head who can be here is crammed into this room, creating an eclectic mix of two dozen spiritkins, each with their own aura of power and weariness.

The door creaks open, revealing a brownie barely taller than four feet. She maneuvers a cart full of steaming coffee into the room, her movements nimble and graceful. Her slight frame contradicts the strength within, and her smile, warm yet full of razor-sharp teeth, offers a comforting yet eerie presence. She places the coffee on the table, a welcomed interruption in the tense room.

Lysander, his poise unshaken by the growing tension, continues. “We can’t turn humans away. For every two humans, we get about ten spiritkin. The tragedy in a similar hospital is heartbreaking, but refusing humans will only widen the already gaping divide between us.”

Only last week, hunters struck a spiritkin hospital, killing too many innocent lives. The event alone has many of us on edge. If it can happen to one hospital, it can happen to another.

I refuse to allow our hospital to be one of them.

Cassandra, with a fire in her eyes that speaks to years of dealing with inequality, argues, “There’s already a divide. We’re segregated into specific areas, with separate cities and slums for humans and spiritkin. Why not have separate hospitals too?”

I hate that she has a point. The divide wasn’t of our making, but theirs, and they have nurtured its growth, feeding it with prejudice and fear.

“Brody.” Dr. Martin turns to me, her eyes reflecting the burden of leadership. “You, Lysander, and Cass handle the humans. You are the tie breaker.” Her voice carries a weight that suggests the gravity of the decision at hand.

She’s right, as usual. Other departments typically see humans who end up having issues due to a grandparent they didn’t even know about, usually from an affair or something more nefarious—like blood disorders from a vampire ancestor, or a human driven to madness by unnatural hearing from spiritkin lineage. Just recently, dermatology diagnosed a woman with what they thought was severe eczema, only to find out she had dragon ancestry and what she had were scales.

I lean back, my mind racing with the implications of our choices. The beeper interrupts my train of thought, its shrill sound slicing through the room. “Shit. It’s the ED,” I announce, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline that comes with an emergency.

“Take it,” Dr. Martin says firmly, understanding the urgency, “but I need your decision later.”

The weight of the decision presses on me as I stand to the conference room. The hunters’ attacks are escalating, becoming bolder and more malicious. A part of me wants to advocate for directing humans to a human hospital to safeguard our hospital—the only otherworld facility in a hundred-mile radius—but I hesitate, the words stuck in my throat as I stand there.

“Here.” Dr. Martin slides a phone down the table, and I quickly dial the extension for the ED.

“Appreciate it,” I mutter as the phone rings once, then twice.

Elara’s voice greets me. “Mystic Med, how may I direct your call?”

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