"Miss, are you sure you want to leave hospital care?" the nurse hissed as she slid the discharge folder across the counter. "I signed," Esme said. She pushed the pen back, fingers steady. "I'm not staying to be watched like a museum piece." "Watch out," the nurse snapped, tapping a monitor. "You're—" A screech of brakes cut the nurse off. The front doors burst open. Two paramedics shoved a gurney through, boots slapping tile. The crowd in the lobby folded into their phones. "Ambulances incoming!" a dispatcher shouted from the sliding doors. "Hold this," the nurse told Esme. She shoved the discharge papers into Esme's hands and ran toward the bay. Esme stood, papers clutched, and watched the world tilt toward chaos. A line of stretchers, blood on shirts, a mother screaming, an infant screaming louder. A metal roof beam, twisted, and someone shouting that it had collapsed on a construction site. "There's a woman—pipe through abdomen," a paramedic called out as they unloaded Hilda Palmer. "Young mother. Massive internal bleeding. Need OR authorization and blood now." "Billing?" the ER nurse barked. "We need an authorization code. No code, no go." "You have to be kidding," Drew Lombardi said, hauling himself forward, face smudged with dust. "My wife—please. Whatever it costs." Esme watched Drew's hands shake. A woman in a hospital gown flung an arm across her mouth and keened. The ER staff were efficient, cold, moving with grim speed. Money conversations moved