Page 22 of Doc Defence

“It’s not my neck.” Frost managed to say.

He did not want to go into a neck collar. He had been put in one before after an injury and hadn’t enjoyed the experience of the tight collar constricting around his throat.

“Leg. Left,” he ground out.

She was so close to him and looking straight down at him, her breath tickling his face. Her eyes held his for a long moment, and he let himself stare at them, taking in the golden flecks in her hazel irises. Finally, she let go of his helmet.

Frost felt colder when she leaned away from him.

“I’m going to look at your leg, okay?” she said softly.

Frost dipped his head, the few words he had managed to say had exhausted him.

When she touched his left leg, pain rolled up his body in a throbbing wave.

“Stop.” He couldn’t prevent the gasped words from escaping.

She pulled her hands away from him. “No worries. I’m going to cut your pant leg. I need to see what’s going on.”

She said no worries, but Frost heard the worry tinging her voice.

He didn’t answer but managed a small nod of his head.

Hel rifled through her bag for a minute before pulling out a large pair of black-handled, curved scissors. She made short work of slicing through the leg of his pants.

He heard her suck in a breath as she looked at his leg. Frost knew that couldn’t be good.

“Frost. Your leg’s broken.”

“Yeah.” He had figured that out for himself from the pain.

“It’s a nasty break. The bones sticking out through the skin.” Hel’s eyes were clouded with concern.

Frost blinked. Well, that didn’t sound good. He tried to sit up to have a look at his leg, but waves of pain rolled over him, and he collapsed back down.

Hel turned away from him, speaking to someone he couldn’t see. “Can you get the stretcher out here and make sure they’re calling an ambulance.”

“It feels like my leg is on fire,” Frost muttered hazily.

“Yeah. I’m not surprised. Hang on.” She reached down to the medical bag and dug through it again. “Are you allergic to anything?” She pulled out a green tube.

“No.”

“Great. This thing is called the ‘green whistle’. It’ll help with the pain. Breathe in and out through it.” She put the tube to his lips. “Breathe.”

Frost took a deep inhale through it, and a wave of dizzy numbness washed over him. It didn’t really help with the pain, it just made him so drowsy he didn’t care. He took another deep inhale.

“Great. Keep breathing on that. Frost, I’m going to support your leg while we move you onto the stretcher. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to hurt.”

Frost took another deep inhale and nodded. His whole world had shrunk. Now all he could feel was pain, and all he could hear was her voice keeping him grounded and stopping him from floating away.

“We’re going to move you onto the stretcher, okay?” Hel told him.

Frost felt many hands touching him as his teammates got ready to lift him. He felt colder when Hel moved away from his side and shivered. The chill seeped into his core, which had never happened to him before. But he thought, he usually didn’t have bones that should be on the inside sticking out on the outside.

“Frost. Are you ready?” Hel’s voice broke through his musing, and he shook his head. He knew it was going to hurt, and he wasn’t ready for it. “Well, tough. We’re doing it anyway.”

He cracked a smile and took another big puff on the green whistle, then clenched his teeth, bracing himself for them moving him.

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