Chapter 12: Not the Girl He Left Behind

“Either bleed quietly… or take it outside.”

BANG!

I slammed the reception bell onto the counter. The waiting room went silent. A rogue threatening another patient sat back down. An old woman stopped yelling about prescription prices. Even the kid with a broken wrist stopped crying.

Brie peeked around the pharmacy window, barely hiding a laugh. “You enjoy terrifying people way too much.”

“They’re easier than paperwork,” I replied.

The clinic was hidden beneath an abandoned warehouse in the middle of The Pit. There were no signs, no government licenses, and no records. It was just cracked concrete and buzzing lights for the people nobody else wanted: runaway omegas, shot rogues, and humans caught in pack wars.

If you could still breathe, we’d try to keep you that way. Questions were optional. Cash wasn’t.

I shrugged off my leather jacket and slid behind the desk. Officially, I handled admissions, bills, and scheduling.

Unofficially, I kept the waiting room from turning into a crime scene.

Brie tossed a clipboard onto my desk. “Look who finally decided to show up.”

“The money was worth it,” I said.

“So? Rich wolves tip better?”

I nodded. Brie’s smile faded. “…You saw him.

I stamped a file. “Unfortunately.”

“Xavier?”

I stayed silent.

Brie sighed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“He’s still insufferable,” I said. “And apparently six years hasn’t improved his personality.”

Brie laughed. “Some diseases are terminal.”

⚜

By late afternoon, things quieted down. I was carrying bandages into Treatment Room Three when I saw a young rogue on the table with stitches in his ribs.

“You’ll live,” I told him.

He grinned. “That’s disappointing.”

He laughed. Neither did I. No one survives The Pit by staying out of trouble.

Suddenly, the front door burst open. “Emergency!”

Two massive Lycans rushed in carrying an unconscious man in a shredded black suit. He was covered in burns and claw wounds, his arm bent at a wrong angle, bleeding onto the floor.

Brie reacted instantly. “Trauma Room One!”

As the doctors rushed in, I grabbed an intake form. “Patient’s name?”

The taller Lycan slammed a thick envelope of cash onto my desk. No paperwork, but enough money to keep us open for weeks. That was good enough for me.

In the trauma room, the machines started screaming. Blood pressure was crashing. The doctors were frantic, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding.

I watched the patient, then the blood pooling beneath him, then the angle of the stretcher. Something was wrong.

“Rotate him,” I called out.

Nobody listened. The lead surgeon barked more orders.

“Turn him onto his left side!” I shouted.

The surgeon frowned. “What?”

“The weight is making it worse.”

He stared at me. “You’re reception.”

“I’m also right.”

The surgeon sighed and ordered the shift. As soon as the nurses moved him, the monitor steadied. The blood pressure started climbing.

The surgeon looked at me, confused. “How did you know?”

I shrugged while opening a sterile pack. “Lucky guess.”

It wasn’t. Six years of watching surgeries taught me that while people lie, bodies don’t.

As the patient stabilized, his eyes fluttered open. He looked directly at me.

“…she…”

The doctor leaned in. “Don’t talk.”

Kaelen frowned. “…she noticed…”

He looked at me. “…before everyone else…”

Then he passed out.

I rolled my eyes. “Receptionist.”

He twitched a smile and slipped unconscious again.

Ten minutes later, the clinic doors opened to the sound of slow, confident footsteps. The rogues fell silent. Six guards in black suits entered first, followed by a man of perfect posture and piercing arrogance: Xavier Beckett.

His icy gaze locked on the operating room. “Kaelen.”

A doctor stepped forward to block him. “Sir, he’s still being treated.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Xavier replied.

“If you start a fight in my waiting room,” I said flatly, “I’m billing you for the damages.”

Every head turned. Xavier looked at me, recognition flashing. “…You.”

I didn’t smile. “You’re blocking my hallway.”

He blinked, noting my faded scrubs, messy ponytail, and ink-stained fingers. “You work here?”

Xavier stared at the cracked ceiling and the duct-taped IV pole. Across the room, a girl slept across three plastic chairs while a man peeled an orange for his pregnant wife.

Xavier’s jaw tightened.

“You live like this?”

I looked up from my clipboard. “I work here.”

“With rogues?”

“They pay.”

His jaw tightened. “They’re criminals.”

I shrugged. “Most of them are just poor.”

“They’re rogues.”

“They’re patients,” I replied.

Xavier’s gaze hardened. “You’ve lowered your standards.”

I let out a quiet laugh and slid the patient file onto the stack. “Turns out poor people need doctors too.”

Xavier scanned the room—the cracked walls and failing equipment, but also the rogue holding his daughter and the doctor treating a penniless patient.

“This place shouldn’t exist,” he murmured.

“Maybe,” I replied. “But it does.”

For once, Xavier had no answer,

A doctor emerged from Trauma Room One. “Mr. Beckett? Your beta is stable. He’ll live.” He nodded to me. “Good catch on the repositioning. You saved us several minutes.”

As the doctor left, Xavier looked at me, his arrogance momentarily replaced by curiosity before his face went blank. His phone vibrated, and a guard stepped forward. “The board meeting, Alpha.”

Xavier ignored him, his eyes locked on mine. “You surprise me, Ravenna.”

I shrugged. “It won’t happen again.”

He just gave me a little smirk. “Doubt it.”

Then he turned and walked out, his six bodyguards following him without saying a word.

The clinic started getting noisy again. Someone cursed in the treatment room and a baby started crying.

Brie let out a breath next to me. “…That was weird.”

“I’ve dealt with weirder,” I told her.

She snorted. “No, you haven’t.”

Before I could even argue, my computer made a noise. A new appointment request popped up on the screen.

Patient: Kaelen Ashbourne.Sponsor: Beckett Holdings.Time: Tomorrow. Priority.

Brie leaned over my shoulder to look. “Why would Xavier Beckett book an appointment here?”

I clicked Decline.

The request disappeared.

Two seconds later…the clinic phone rang.