The medical bay smelled like antiseptic and regret.
My ribs had their own heartbeat now, a dull throb that pulsed somewhere between "freshly tenderized steak" and "got hit by a truck driven by a very angry woman with crimson hair." Emi's hands pressed against my torso, her healing aura washing over me in warm green waves that felt like sinking into a hot bath after getting your ass kicked in the rain. Which, metaphorically speaking, was exactly what had just happened.
"Three fractures partially healed, one reopened from the Julian fight, and your shoulder was six millimeters away from full dislocation." Emi's sapphire eyes burned with the specific intensity of a medical professional who had watched her patient do something monumentally stupid on live television. Her antenna strands bobbed as she spoke, catching the fluorescent light. "You absorbed a direct lightning construct to the solar plexus."
"In my defense, it worked."
"In your defense, you're an idiot."
