Lead Me On

“Hey! Good morning, sunshine!”

Eric’s voice rang through the bright fluorescent hallway, laced with his usual mischief and that maddeningly perfect smile. His scrubs were wrinkled just enough to hint at a night spent dozing on a break room couch, but his eyes were razor sharp.

ERIC WATSON — 35

💍 Engaged

🩺 Senior Surgeon

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

10 Years. 3,000+ Lives Saved. Zero Room for Error.

Camelia Carson stepped into the ER with her white coat flaring behind her like a cape, ponytail swinging, eyes already scanning the nurses' station. Her stethoscope bounced softly against her chest, a rhythmic reminder that rest was a privilege she hadn't earned.

“Good morning, Eric,” she muttered, voice tired but smooth, professional — the kind of tired only caffeine and trauma could teach. Her smile was brief, efficient, like the woman herself.

CAMELIA CARSON — 29

🚫 Single. Not Interested.

🩺 Chief Surgeon

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

5 Years. The Youngest to Hold the Title. The One Everyone Talks About.

Eric leaned lazily against the counter, arms crossed, as if they weren't standing in one of Colombia's most chaotic emergency units. “So... bestie,” he drawled, grinning. “How was your night? Netflix and surgical textbooks?”

Camelia gave a small eye-roll as she adjusted her ID badge. “Thrilling. Slept a whole four hours. Dreamt I was in the OR.” She dropped her bag behind the counter and rotated her shoulders, chasing the tightness that stress never quite let go of.

“And yours?” she asked, glancing sideways as she tugged her scrub cap into place.

He opened his mouth to reply — but the air cracked.

BZZZZZT.

A sharp buzz from the intercom fractured the morning calm, slicing through the low murmur of beeping monitors and shuffling feet. Camelia was already moving.

“What've we got?” she asked, voice switching from soft sarcasm to sharp steel.

Eric's face darkened. “Trouble.” He snapped on his gloves, posture stiffening like a soldier hearing the call to arms.

“I paged Doc Carson!” someone shouted from the corridor.

“Oh — there she is!”

Buster Collins, wide-eyed and breathless, stormed into the unit pushing a gurney. Behind him, two nurses fought to keep pace, sweat beading at their brows.

BUSTER COLLINS — 39

👨‍👩‍👧 Married. Dad of 2.

🩸 Trauma Surgeon

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

12 Years. Countless Close Calls. Runs on Coffee and Adrenaline.

“Multiple gunshot wounds — left flank, chest, possibly the abdomen!” he barked.

Blood soaked through the white hospital sheets like ink on tissue paper. Camelia's heart thudded once, then steadied.

She pulled on her gloves with a snap. “Vitals? BP? GCS?”

“BP's dropping fast, eighty over palp. He's semi-conscious, GCS twelve and falling. We need to open him up, now.”

She didn't flinch. “Get me an OR. Vera — grab the portable ultrasound, I want a FAST at bedside before we move him. No time for a full CT.”

“On it!” Vera Winsky, the ER's youngest nurse, peeled off toward radiology.

VERA WINSKY — 25

💃 Single. Ready to Mingle.

💉 ER Nurse

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

4 Years. The Fastest Hands in the Ward. The Heart Everyone Notices.

“Bag him — get oxygen in his lungs!” Camelia shouted, already compressing the resuscitation bag with one hand while scanning for entry and exit wounds. “We're not losing him today.”

“Two large-bores, wide open! Get me O-neg here, now — start massive transfusion protocol!” Buster added, his face a mask of focus.

The stretcher wheels screamed down the corridor, rubber squealing against sterile linoleum as the team thundered toward the OR, nurses parting like the Red Sea. Inside, the surgical lights blazed overhead like miniature suns. The steel table gleamed.

Camelia scrubbed in furiously, the scent of antiseptic cutting through the air. “What'd the FAST show?” she asked over the roar of monitors.

Eric glanced at the images they'd managed to grab on the fly. “Free fluid in the left upper quadrant. Looks like a lacerated spleen, and the lower ribs are shattered — could be a nicked diaphragm too. He's bleeding into his belly.”

She nodded once. “Ten blade.”

The instrument slapped into her gloved palm with a satisfying snap. A single breath. Then she sliced through skin — a clean midline incision, straight down to fascia.

“Vitals holding, but we're on the clock,” Buster's voice was tight.

Camelia didn't hear him. Her mind was in the wound — packing off the bleeding, tracing the splenic hilum, clamping vessels with precision honed by years of chaos and loss. Blood pooled, her gloves slick with it.

You're not dying here. Not on my table. Not on my watch.

The spleen was beyond saving. She worked fast — ligated the vessels, removed it, then irrigated the field and checked for any bleeder she might have missed.

Beep. Beep. Beep. The monitor steadied.

He would live.

Camelia stepped back, chest heaving slightly, sweat curling beneath her collar. She yanked off her gloves and hair net, tossing them into the biohazard bin with finality. The adrenaline was crashing now, making her hands tremble.

She walked out of the OR like a storm cloud in a lab coat, fury simmering behind her eyes. Then she saw the patient's mother crumpling into tears in the hallway, and she remembered why she did this. Why sleep didn't matter. Why being tired wasn't an excuse.

Camelia Carson didn't just save lives. She fought for them.

And this was just the start of her morning.

This was the rhythm at Life Saver Hospital. Saving lives — literally. But for Camelia Carson, it was more than a rhythm. It was purpose.

At just twenty-nine, she wore the crown of Chief Surgeon — not handed to her, not borrowed. Earned. The hard way. No shortcuts, no apologies. Just blood, brilliance, and brutal discipline.

Her hands were legend. In five unbroken years of back-to-back emergencies, she hadn't lost a single patient. Not one. Not even on the edge of death's breath.

They called her Gifted Hands.

The nickname floated through the corridors like myth. Reverent. Jealous. Sharp.

Some whispered she was too young. Too proud. Too fast. But no one argued with results.

Camelia didn't chase applause. She lived for the pulse under her palms — that blink-of-an-eye moment when life returned where death had already taken root. She didn't believe in miracles. She became one.

Hours later, the OR doors clanged shut behind them, the echo trailing off like the ghost of war.

“I wonder where all these patients come from, with their numerous gunshot wounds,” Eric muttered, ripping off his gloves and tossing them aside, face slick with sweat.

Camelia peeled off her mask with quiet precision. “Colombia's full of corners where bullets fly. We just happen to be in the right spot to catch them.”

“And save them,” Buster added, flashing her a crooked grin. “Life Saver's angel.”

“You flatter me,” she said coolly, but the pink in her cheeks betrayed her.

Before anyone could speak again —

A whisper sliced the air.

“The CEO is coming.”

Silence dropped like a guillotine.

Bryan Benson didn't walk — he arrived.

Flanked by a poised secretary and two men in suits who looked like they could break necks for breakfast, Bryan cut through the corridor like a scalpel.

BRYAN BENSON — 32

💔 Single / Complicated

💼 CEO

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

Born for the Job. Sharp. Cold. Untouchable.

He wore authority like tailored silk. Impeccable. Unsmiling. Unapologetic.

“Good morning, Doc,” the surgical team chorused, half-scattering like deer dodging headlights.

“Miss Carson.”

His voice snapped like a whip.

Camelia halted.

“Doctor Carson,” she corrected, spine straightening. She didn't blink.

“Oh, you're a doctor?” he said with mock surprise. “Yet you walk around like hygiene's optional?”

Her brow twitched. “What's that supposed to mean?”

He gestured with a flick of his hand — precise, like everything else he did. Blood. Her sleeve. Crimson like guilt.

“I just came out of surgery,” she said, tone clipped. Calm — barely.

“And what's protocol after surgery?” He stepped closer, voice lowered, venom in velvet. “You're Chief Surgeon. Act like it.”

“This is a hospital,” he added, louder. “We save lives here. Not risk infections with sloppy exits.”

Camelia's fists curled at her sides.

“I'm sorry. It won't happen again,” she said, teeth grinding behind her lips.

“It better not,” he said, already turning away, eyes never touching hers twice.

As soon as he disappeared, Eric groaned. “Why do you keep pushing back at him?”

Camelia's eyes blazed. “Why does he act like I'm still in med school? He appointed me Chief Surgeon!”

“Maybe you should ask him,” Buster mumbled — and got a swift kick to the knee.

“Ow!”

“And you,” she turned on Eric, “one day I will sew that mouth shut.”

“Senior,” Vera's voice soothed, “don't mind him. We know he's just trying to provoke you.”

Camelia exhaled sharply, the fire in her chest dimming, but not out.

“Check the ICU. Watch the vitals. Let me know if anything spikes.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Vera said, dashing off.

“I just hope no one else gets wheeled in today,” Eric sighed.

“This is the ER,” Buster said. “Hope doesn't live here.”

“Doc Carson?”

Louis Carney entered like bad timing in human form.

LOUIS CARNEY — 30

💘 In a Relationship

🪻 Radiologist

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

9 Years. Sharp Eyes, Sharper Skills. Bryan's Golden Pet.

Camelia turned slowly. “What now?”

“You've been selected for volunteer service.”

“What?” Her tone froze. “I didn't apply.”

“You did.” His smirk said otherwise. “And congratulations. You were chosen.”

“If I leave, who runs my ER?”

“I could!” Abigail called out from behind, too cheerfully.

ABIGAIL MICHAELS — 33

💍 Married. Mom of Four.

👩‍⚕️ Head Nurse

🏥 Life Saver Hospital

10 Years. Keeps the Place Running. Helpful — Sometimes Too Helpful.

Louis shrugged. “I'm just the messenger.”

Camelia was already walking away. She didn't knock. She kicked the door open.

Bryan didn't look up.

She stomped her heel. Loud. Deliberate.

Still no reaction.

“Have you run out of surgeries, Doctor Carson?” he said blandly. “Now auditioning for musical theatre?”

“Bryan Benson!”

He looked up — and she imagined swinging a chair straight into his smug skull. But she didn't.

“Doctor Carson.”

The voice sliced through her daydream like ice water. She blinked. Came back to reality.

Bryan stood across from her, arms folded, head slightly tilted.

“If you're done simmering, I'd like to return to actual work.”

“Shut up, your sorry ass mouth,” she muttered under her breath. You have no idea what I had planned for you.

“I didn't apply for the volunteer program,” she said aloud, voice tight.

“And yet,” he said smoothly, “you were selected.”

“Because you put me in it,” she snapped.

“You're perfect for it.”

“Perfect to get killed in Iraq?”

His brow twitched in amusement. “Please. If assassins wanted you dead, they'd need a miracle.”

“And besides,” he added, “you're not going to Iraq.”

Her shoulders relaxed slightly.

“You're going to Venice.”

Her jaw dropped. “That's barely better!”

“Would you prefer I revise it?”

“No!”

“Then start packing.”

He walked away like the final word.

Camelia stood there, furious, fuming, and entirely undone.

“Always doing whatever you want,” she muttered. “One day, I will get back at you.”

“Doctor?”

She turned.

A little boy stood nearby, eyes wide and innocent.

Her anger vanished. Just like that.

She bent low, smiled gently, and asked, “Are you lost?”

From around the corner, Bryan watched silently.

For the first time, something in his gaze flickered.

She's not so cold after all.

His phone buzzed once against his hip. He glanced down, and whatever warmth had crept into his face a moment ago drained out of it just as fast.

Three words. That was all the message said.

She said yes.

He didn't reply. He watched Camelia disappear down the corridor, the little boy's hand swallowed in hers, and felt something he hadn't let himself feel in years.

Dread.

Because sending Camelia Carson to Venice had nothing to do with charity, or PR, or her surgical hands.

It had everything to do with a promise he'd made a long time ago. One she didn't even know existed.