A Sin For White Wings

Chapter 2.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I stood over the lab sink, scrubbing at the stains on my palms until the skin was raw and red, but the violet tint wouldn't fully disappear. It was stubborn, metallic, and wrong. I could still feel the weight of him in the back of the ambulance—the way he felt less like a man and more like a statue carved out of winter.

He saved me. The thought kept looping in my head, a frantic attempt to drown out the memory of the "Feeders." I had seen their faces. I had seen the way their skin hung off their bones and the red, feverish glow in their eyes. Those weren't addicts or muggers.

They were the stories the elders whispered about to keep us away from the ruins at night.The Eternal Damned.

And the man in Trauma Room 4 had fought them off like they were nothing, even while he was dying.

"Doctor? Are you okay?"

I jumped, nearly knocking over a tray of glass vials. It was Sarah, the night nurse. She was staring at my lab coat, which was soaked through with that impossible, shimmering dark fluid.

"I’m fine," I lied, my voice cracking.

"I just... I need to run the tox screen myself. It might be a chemical exposure. Don't let anyone else touch his samples. It could be bio-hazardous."

I didn't wait for her to answer. I bolted into the lab and locked the door. I needed a wall between me and the rest of the hospital. I needed to breathe.

I leaned against the cold metal table, my heart hammering so hard it hurt my ribs. I was a doctor. I lived in a world of science, of pulses and oxygen and DNA. But as I smeared a drop of his "blood" onto a slide, I felt like a heretic. I felt like I was reaching into a grave.