In the midst of these, Ava Reed walked down the hallway from the OR. Her scrubs, which used to be a bright teal, were now stained with dried blood and sweat.
The collar clung uncomfortably to her neck. After leading three different surgeries for fourteen hours straight, her chest felt tight from stress, and her back ached. The bright lights above made her eyes sting.
She just wanted five minutes.
Five minutes of silence, maybe cold water and silence.
Her heels padded softly as she pushed open the door to her office. The air inside was cool. A dim lamp hummed on the corner of her desk, casting a pale arc of light over stacks of surgical notes and a half-eaten granola bar.
Then she spotted a small white box, wrapped with a perfectly tied red ribbon. There was no name on it, no address, and no explanation for why it was there.
Ava's breath caught as she walked towards it and saw a note pinned to it: RedQueen.
She recognised the alias immediately; it belonged to Isabella De Luca.
