“Doctor!”

Angelica spun at the sound, taking note of the gurney making its way toward her with exaggerated slowness. An old woman hobbled down the hallway beside it. Her first thought should have been of the patient. Instead she stood a moment, thankful that the nurses had finally figured out that speed was not of the essence, the way gurneys crashed through doors in American TV shows.

Her next thought was less charitable. That old woman should be on the gurney, not beside it.

A quick glance showed that the girl lying so stiff and frightened under a thin white sheet wasn’t a critical case. Still, she hastened to catch up, arriving in the room just behind the medics. She brushed past the old woman, paying her little attention. She had no time for flustered family members until she’d satisfied herself that the patient was going to be okay.

“What do we have?”

She listened to the recitation of vitals while doing her own cursory examination of the frightened teenager. The patient couldn’t have been more than thirteen, at most fourteen. She was clenching her jaw and trying not to squirm as Angelica looked in her eyes and listened to her heart.

“Is she from the refugee camp?” Angelica fired the question into the air, her focus intent on the child. Something about the way the girl was holding herself felt familiar. She was in pain, obviously, but there was something else that niggled in the back of her mind. A memory from somewhere recent...

“We don’t know, her grandmother’s here, she’s not... how you say... forthcoming on the information. One of the medics took her in because she was in obvious pain.” The nurse spoke carefully, her English hard to follow, flavored by an accent that Angelica hadn’t quite gotten used to yet.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Angelica asked the girl, hearing the echo of the nurse next to her translating.

But the child just screwed her eyes up tighter and sobbed.

Angelica fought to keep her face calm. Impassive. There was some deep bruising on the girl’s arms and legs and when Angelica lifted the girl’s shirt she saw the bruises on her ribs were of the same kind. “Get some pictures on her; both arms, both legs, all her ribs.” Angelica ordered, tasting bile, fighting an urge to throw up that she hadn’t had since medical school. She hated this... hated how women and girls were treated in this part of the world. The refugee camp should have been a safe place.

Why had she even come here?

“Yes, doctor.” There had been a hesitation in the answer, something that caused Angelica to look up sharply to stare at her nurse, a young woman with dark skin and even darker eyes that avoided her gaze now.

“Problem?”

“No, Doctor, sorry, I just... she’s in such pain...”

“I know, but I need to know what we’re dealing with first. Get the x-rays, please.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The nurse spoke rapidly to the orderlies. They wheeled the girl out of the room, shrugging a little. One murmuring something in broken English about doctors who couldn’t make up their minds regarding where they wanted their patients. Something she was meant to hear.

Angelica fought the urge to snap at them to do their jobs, dammit, and instead snagged the old woman’s arm. “You’re her... grandmother?”

“No.” The old lady looked in the direction they had taken the girl, her expression carefully neutral. A little too neutral.

“You can’t go in there. They’re taking her where they can do tests,” Angelica said shortly. “You have to wait here. Now, tell me who you are and who she is.” She wondered if she was going to have to wait for a translator, but she’d been discovering that many of the patients she’d seen in the last few weeks since she’d arrived at this clinic at least understood a fair amount of English, provided she talked slowly and didn’t use words that were too complicated.

“Don’t know,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “Never saw before. She... in camp. Like me. Saw her hurting, that’s all.”

“So you know nothing about her?”

“Just saw she hurting. Not know how help. She can’t make the pain stop. Needs doctor, western medicine to pull her through. She isn’t going to be able to fix it.”

“What do you mean she can’t fix it? Does she have any training, any medical background?”

The old woman shook her head and then stopped, remembering herself. She turned the denial into an eloquent shrug. “I don’ know. I don’ know her, just met her, she in the refugee camp, too. Like me.”

“How long has she been like this?”

“In pain? I don’ know. She in camp, next bed to me, don’ know.”

“Doctor?” One of the orderlies chose that moment to return, mystified expression stamped upon his broad face. “You need to see this.”

Angelica looked from him to the old woman, not wanting to leave her, positive that she would disappear the moment her back was turned. “Keep her here,” she said, pointing, as if there were any doubt just who she meant. The old woman was the only one in the tiny exam room besides them. The large young man stepped into the room and took a place near the door. He stood, arms crossed, implacable. He would have made a fine warrior somewhere back in time when young men such as him arrayed themselves in battle gear. Maybe such things still happened. She hadn’t learned as much about Africa as she would have liked to, but when she’d arrived the clinic had been so disorganized and there was so much work to do. The other doctors had a bad tendency to disappear, so learning about her new home in the wilds of Cameroon had taken a back seat to... well... everything.

Shaking her head, Angelica stepped out to where the other orderly was standing with the gurney, perusing an iPad. The girl’s x-rays were cued up.

“That was fast.” Angelica said, taking the iPad, thankful that here at least the technology was reasonably up to date. Whoever the new admin was over at Doctor’s International, they were funding things better than they used to. Some days the technology was the only thing that kept her sane. Especially in the light of staff members who weren’t always very professional.

Case in point: this yahoo who had been the one to mutter those oh-so-flattering words only moments before.

“She screamed when we moved her around,” the man said. A greenish tinge seemed to hang over him. Despite his obvious lack of respect for authority, he had a tender heart. She knew he’d disliked making the child hurt worse, but it was something that had to be done. You couldn't take an x-ray without having to pose the patient. And Angelica needed to know what was wrong before she could start treatment. She understood the man’s guilt, but they were too busy to stop over a necessary evil. The man looked miserable as he murmured, “We hurried,” and handed her the iPad.

Angelica flipped through the images. Each was worse than the last, and she grew angrier and angrier with the old woman who obviously knew a hell of a lot more than she was telling.

Angelica glanced at the child, who still lay silent and patient. There was no need for further pictures. She’d gotten what she needed. “Bring her back into the exam room,” Angelica barked, and pushed past the gurney into the room she’d only recently vacated.

“This child has broken bones!” She waved the tablet at the woman.

“She must have fallen from a tree,” the woman said, stubborn. Implacable.

“Both arms, both legs, four ribs, and her pelvis? That must be some tree.”

“Very tall tree.” The old woman nodded, her eyes meeting Angelica’s almost slyly.

“If I find out you had anything to do with this...”

To her surprise the old woman laughed. “Doctor...” She grinned a gap-toothed smile. “I cannot break the bones of a chicken to suck the marrow. I saw the girl, she was in pain. I asked the man for something to help. I don’ know her.”

The girl in question gasped and Angelica spun to see the orderlies trying to lift her onto the examination table.

“Wait.” She thought quickly. The bones were mostly clean breaks; the tissue damage was consistent with some sort of hitting that would have been severe enough to break the bones. For now, she could give the girl something for the pain. Angelica crossed to the cabinet and procured a hypodermic and a vial. She drew the Demerol into the syringe and turned back to her patient.

Oddly enough the old woman was the one to back away. The hypodermic? Did the needle frighten her? The old woman was clearly terrified. No. It wasn’t her. She was shaking her head “no” to the child. The girl was in tears. Some communication had occurred when Angelica’s back was turned. She had no idea what.

“No,” the girl whispered, putting up a hand, protesting treatment for the first time. “No. Please. No.”

“Honey, this will help you. I can’t...”

“NO!” the child cried, still staring at the old woman.

“Take her out of here!” Angelica ordered the orderlies. “Get her out of this room! You said you were no relation,” she spun on the woman. “Well, only family members are allowed in here. Now, GET OUT!”

The men, confused, rallied to grab the woman’s arms and take her from the room. Angelica strode over and locked the door, kicking it for good measure, taking pleasure in the solid thud. Thankful that this was a real room, with a real door, not like the patient cubicles in the ward separated by fabric curtains and mosquito netting.

She looked up, struggling to find the words that would reassure the child. But she was a stranger and here she was asking this poor hurt thing to trust her. Would she, in the same position, be able to ever trust another human being again? Still she had to try. “Shh...” She pitched her voice so that it was low. Soothing. “She’s gone now.”

The girl nodded, understanding, even if her eyes were still wide. Terrified.

“What’s your name?”

“Charra.” It was a wonder she could get the word out her jaw was clenched so tight.

“Charra,” Angelica repeated, smiling warmly though it took effort, as she still felt the fury of knowing someone had deliberately hurt this girl. “I like that name. My name is Angelica. I’m a doctor. I want to help you. Would that be okay?”

Charra clamped her jaw tighter and Angelica saw the tears in the girl’s eyes.

“You’re being very brave,” she said carefully. “Though I don’t know why. You don’t have to hurt this much. I can help you, if you’ll let me.” She reached out and touched the cold fingers, praying that the gesture would be seen as a comfort and not as a threat. “Please?”

A sob escaped from the girl and she nodded. Angelica swabbed her shoulder and pressed the needle to her skin, slipping the painkiller into her bloodstream. Praying that it would work quickly.

It took a minute. After what seemed forever, the Demerol began to take effect and the child relaxed. Her breathing became easier. Her eyes drifted shut.

And her arms began to shift.

It was what she’d thought. What she’d seen in the way the girl had moved, had held herself against the pain. She’d known the pain of broken bones well. Too well. Angelica had seen this before. Once. In the Amazon. She swallowed hard and pulled out her phone, to record what she was seeing.

I didn’t want to be right.

Dammit, I didn’t want to be right.