Page 3 of Xantera
I smile up at the building I call home.
Settled between tidy strips of lawn, the Healing Center glitters with windows, its entrance a welcoming spread of sliding glass doors that sweep open of their own accord when I step up to them. The interior is already bustling, some healers in scrubs scurrying to their assigned floors with masks strapped over their faces, others pushing residents in wheelchairs or checking in newly-approved patients in the lobby. The sound of it all—clacking footsteps, beeping monitors, and incessant chatter—is enough to ease the rest of the tightness in my chest.
Even in a perfect world where monsters can’t reach us, people get sick or injured. I’m honored that it’s my job to fix and heal them. Honored that I get to see so many walk back out those sliding glass doors with repaired bones, cleared lungs, and beating hearts.
I make it to the locker room just as the night shift healers are undressing.
“Morning, Saskia.”
“Good morning, Gaia.” I smile at the portly woman in the corner. She’s a bit slower than the others, mopping her dark forehead with her sleeve before slowly peeling off her scrubs. Meanwhile, I open my locker beside her and pull out mine—freshly washed and dried, courtesy of the Healing Center laundresses. “Any newcomers in the night?”
“Oh, just an older farming gentleman. Fell down in the shower, apparently.” Gaia lowers her voice to a gravelly whisper. “Says it was an accident, but between you and me, I wonder if he didn’t get alittletoo excited with his partner, considering it was Sunday and all.”
I snort. Anecdotes like this are exactly why I have faith Malcolm and I will fall into a groove with each other if neither of us are Chosen in our lifetimes. By the time we’re sixty, we’ll be doing dangerous things in the shower, too, won’t we?
“Well,” I say as I shimmy out of my regular pants and hike up my scrubs, “let’s hope he didn’t bangjusthis head before he had to come here.”
Gaia claps a hand over her cackle, her face darkening with a flush.
“Oh, Saskia. What am I going to do with you? You’re like a Monster on my shoulder.”
“And you’re my biggest inspiration,” I shoot back with a grin.
It’s not entirely a joke. Gaia’s badge is bright purple, indicating that she’s in the empty nest stage. That her two children are both older than fifteen, living in a complex specifically designated for apprenticeships and other pre-work training.
Maybe that’s why she feels so much like a mother to me… I haven’t seen my own since I was fifteen, too. Gaia’s presence is the steady, nurturing one I look forward to every morning—even if she always seems to toe the line when it comes to the gossiping part of the Cardinal List of Rules.
“Well, let’s hope I’ve inspired you enough to save some lives today,” she says now, hefting herself up and hobbling past me.
“No one dies on my watch,” I reply automatically. It’s been my motto since I first began my training, and I’m happy to say it’s held true so far.
“Have a good shift, Saskia.”
“Sleep well, Gaia.”
I watch her retreating figure until she’s gone before changing my shirt and re-pinning my scarlet badge. Fully clothed and ready for the day now, I exit the locker room and fall into my usual rhythm.
I take vitals, administer medications, and change bandages—all under the watchful gazes of the Guardians’ portraits, framed and hung up on every wall, as well as the cameras blinking in every corner. When I swish through the curtains to meet the gentleman who fell in the shower, I don’t let my eyes so much as blink, even as I feel the surprise ripple beneath my chipper expression.
His face is one giant patch of purple around his eye, with a fresh cut still oozing through the bandage above his left eyebrow. The badge on his patient apron—gold—tells me he’s in his sixties: a stage of life where injuries are harder to recover from.
“Hello, Diggory,” I say, glancing at the information on my clipboard. “How are you feeling?”
The man looks up at me, lips pinching together. “Like the stains in a toilet bowl, actually.”
I stop myself from choking on my next words and breeze forward to wheel the patient monitor closer to him.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Do you mind if I check your vitals?”
Diggory grumbles something about minding very much but sticks out his arm anyhow. I clip his finger with a pulse oximeter and fasten the blood pressure cuff around the spot above his elbow. The monitor beeps at me, flashing numbers across the screen that make me frown despite the good news they convey.
Perfect blood pressure, strong, slow heartbeat, 100% oxygen saturation… this man is the healthiest gold-badged man I’ve ever cared for.
“Is your shower slippery, Diggory? Do I need to get a Repair Crew out to your complex to retile it?”
I eye his lean, toned body beneath the apron, more muscular than I would have anticipated. With health and attentiveness like this, my gut tells me he should have had the strength to break at leastsomeof his fall, whether a partner was in there with him or not. And how could he have tippedforward? What did he evenhit? The faucet knobs are way too small for a bruise like this.
Diggory blows out an unsmiling laugh.
