The façade of the Two Dawns Central Hospital was a marvel of architecture. It was a modern castle made of glass and steel, with tall towers and fancy balconies. The canteen boasted of an outdoor picnic area with lots of oak trees and magnificent healing herbs, which healers used to make powerful potions, serums, and creams for the wounded or the dying.

"I love this hospital!" Mia exclaimed as she took in every single detail around us when we arrived at the premises. "Look! An edelweiss! I've only seen them in biology books."

"Edelweiss love snow and cold." My remark went unheard because she was too focused on absorbing everything in detail while lazy snowflakes danced around her and settled on her wonderful long blue hair.

Like a child on Christmas day, she was thrilled about everything she encountered. She wore a wide smile or left her mouth agape at every detail. Every healing herb blooming despite the cold weather, every green leaf she had never seen before, every snowflake which hit the glass melting and being collected by the water-collecting management system of the building made a special joyful light shine in her eyes.

"Wait until we go inside," I replied, smiling.

"Can you show me around after your rehab session?" she asked as if she were a little girl who wanted to ride a unicorn with rainbow-coloured hair which could poo diamonds.

I chuckled. "Sure." I couldn't find it in my heart not to make her happy, even if we might meet idiots who would mock me or bully me along the way.

Fuck it. Her wonderful smile was worth it.

"Have they got a robotic surgery system, or spectrometers, or an automated diagnostic platform?"

"Well, I... I have no idea what any of that is. I'm sorry. I've got no idea."

"No worries. I'll spare you and assault your healer's peers with a gazillion questions instead!" She winked at me.

For a brief, blissful moment, her cheerful mood made me forget about who I was and what I was supposed to do there.

Sadly, the peace and joy around us broke into smithereens when an ambulance rushed past us. Shortly after it parked in front of the ER's glass double doors, not far from us, a couple of car units and motorcycles from the Cosmic Elite Patrol arrived, with flashing red and blue lights. As soon as they turned the sirens off, many astroguards hurried past us to join the paramedics climbing down from the ambulance.

"Astroguards here with the paramedics? Why all this fuss?" Mia asked.

"The wounded person must be a criminal, I guess," I replied.

The last motorbike to arrive was a sleek vehicle I recognised very well. That deep red chassis matched her fiery personality.

Vanessa.

She took off her helmet when she saw me. A smirk danced on her lips, but then her gaze travelled from my face to the person standing beside me, Mia. That was when Vanessa's lips stopped being so defiant and cheeky to draw a stern, firm, horizontal line.

While her peers were busy, she left her helmet on the seat of her bike and next, she approached us. She took a second to rebuild her impeccable smile when she walked over to us.

I didn't like where this was going.

"Well, hello there," she said, "James."

"Om," I replied coldly.

"Always so formal. My surname doesn't sound good on your lips—not as good as my name does." Her fiery ginger hair danced beside her cheeks as she spoke.

"Well, you should've got used to it by now." I pressed my lips into a thin line, showing how little I cared for her company at the moment. "Now, if you'll excuse us."

"Not so fast," she replied in a heartbeat. "We hardly ever see each other now. I was hoping we could chat sometime." She gently leaned her head to one side, a gesture I had found cute ever since I had met her.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Chat?"

"Yeah, that's the reason why I left you so many messages these last few weeks," she replied with fake shyness.

What was that coy act all about? She had never been like this.

"You have got many friends," I said as the grip on my wheels got tighter. "You can chat with them, can't you?"

"James, please." She shook her head with a smirk in a condescending attitude I knew all too well. "Don't play hard to get."

I hated when she treated me like that. Or any other person like that. It made me cringe.

"Don't be delusional." I frowned as I spoke defiantly. "I'm not playing hard to get."

"I bet you're lonely." Her tone became half coy, half whorish. It didn't suit her. "You haven't got any friends."

I wish people would stop embarrassing me in front of Mia.

"Not that you actually care, but yes, I do." I turned my wheelchair.

But halfway through turning, she put a foot at the base of the wheel to stop me. "No, you don't."

So disrespectful.

"Hey," Mia said. "Step away, please." She pointed directly at Vanessa's foot blocking my way. Then, she crossed her arms in a huff.

I didn't need her to defend me, but I enjoyed how Mia's stern pose and formal yet cold and defiant words made Vanessa take her foot away.

She pressed her lips into a thin line as she glared at Mia.

"For your information, Sir Khan is a great friend," I replied in a foul mood. "So is Patrick."

"Sir Khan doesn't count!" Vanessa said. "He's your former high-school teacher and your reiki healer, not your friend."

I shook my head. Sir Khan really was a great friend, better than most I've had in my entire life. She wouldn't understand.

"And Patrick is your brother," she added.

I looked her in the eye with daggers in my gaze and said as I pointed at the ambulance and her peers, "Haven't you got a job to do?"

"My colleagues have it all under control."

No sooner than she had said that, a series of gunshots echoed in the air behind us. Two of her peers lay wounded on the ground, three more were seeking refuge behind the ambulance chassis, and the two paramedics were frozen right beside the criminal.

Sadly, that rogue man hit one of them hard in the head with his fist, leaving him unconscious on the floor, and took the other hostage—a young woman with short, blond hair.

While Vanessa unsheathed her gun, so did the three astroguards behind the ambulance. When the rogue man aimed at his hostage's head, she shot at the man without a care in the world.

"No! The hostage!" I yelled with my hands gripping hard on my wheels.

She missed.

"You could've killed her!" I exclaimed with fury.

"Hold your fire!" the rogue man yelled. "Or else, she dies."

"If she dies, so do you, motherfucker!" Vanessa smirked.

Always so harebrained and rash! No wonder she got so many complaints inside the department.

"Should we do something?" Mia whispered to me as she clenched her fists and frowned.

"No, we're merely witnesses. I might still be allowed to wear my old uniform, but I'm not an astroguard anymore."

"I wish I could do something to help," she added.

I shared her concern and desire to aid. But without weapons or clearance, we'd get into serious trouble—not to mention that I'd fail to protect her.

In fact, the current situation would eventually call the attention of the press. I had to think quickly, because the press might want to get photos and ask witnesses what happened—and I couldn't let them get anywhere near Mia. If she was spotted, Suit Robotics would have a clue as regards her whereabouts.

"Mia, we have to go," I whispered with urgency.

"But–"

"No buts. This will get ugly. You could either get shot or spotted by the press, which would tip off Suit Robotics. Either way, you'd be in danger."

"But your rehab session–"

"Fuck it. You're more important."

My hands were already on the wheels and about to turn to leave when more shots were fired. That time, Vanessa could hit the rogue man's gun, which clattered on the ground a few feet from him. Unfortunately, the man somehow had got hold of a scalpel.

He laughed as he aimed at the poor blond woman's neck. "You thought you had me, didn't you, whore?!"

I had never called Vanessa that, even though she hurt me like nobody else could've. He was about to regret it.

"How dare you call me that?!" Vanessa yelled.

She fired at will, setting her inner fire free through the finger on the trigger.

"Vanessa, NO!" I cried, with a hand shot in the air.

The first bullet hit the woman's arm; the second, the man's arm which was holding the scalpel. But the third hit the man's neck.

The man's anguished cries pierced the air. His body convulsed with pain. With a guttural groan, he collapsed to his knees, the force of impact driving him to the unforgiving ground below. Blood spurted from the wounds on his arm and neck, painting a crimson tableau against the backdrop of chaos.

In his desperate struggle for survival, he released his grip on the blonde woman he had taken hostage, his strength waning with each passing moment.

Regrettably, the woman, in a scared frenzy, fell to her knees beside the rogue man—something he decided to use to his advantage.

With his last breath, he smirked and pierced the left side of the woman's chest with the scalpel. Right after that, his body fell motionless on the ground.

"NO!" Mia yelled.

The young woman's body convulsed with searing agony. Her eyes widened in shock, disbelief flashing across her face as the reality of the situation sank in.

By the way her breathing went ragged, each laboured breath must've felt like shards of glass tearing through her lungs. I was stabbed in a lung the first year in the force, so I know how that felt.

A wave of dizziness washed over her, making her go paler and paler as seconds ticked away. With trembling hands, she instinctively reached for the scalpel and took it off, fingers coming away slick with crimson blood.

"Don't do that!" Mia cried. She rushed past me, past Vanessa, who just stood there like an idiot.

The blond woman mustered a feeble cry for help, barely audible, as her body lost strength and fell to the ground. "Help... me..."

In that moment of profound vulnerability, I was sure she must've clung to the flickering hope that someone would come to her rescue before it was too late.

I had felt such a hope recently. With the same person.

Mia Tan.

She rushed through the lazily swirling snow like a guardian angel, her presence ethereal against the wintry backdrop. Draped in a billowing coat that seemed to dance with the wind, she exuded a sense of otherworldly grace as she approached the wounded woman lying on the cold ground. With each step, her footprints left a trail of hope amidst the frost-covered earth.

Kneeling beside the injured woman, Mia's touch was gentle yet determined as she examined her wound. I wheeled my way towards them, ignoring Vanessa, the angel of death.

Out of the blue, Mia sank a forefinger inside the wound. It stopped bleeding, but I wondered why she couldn't just put a hand or a bandage over it.

"Stay with me, okay? Don't fall asleep." Her voice was a soothing melody amidst the chaos. "You've got wonderful blond hair. I love it. What's your name, sweet pea?"

Some nurses rushed outside when they realised that the trouble was over. They stood beside Mia's kneeling figure.

"Adele," the blond woman replied, with a weak smile.

"Good, a strong name for a strong woman," Mia replied, smiling back at her. "Strong enough to pull through this, okay?"

In that fleeting instant, amidst the cold and the chaos, Mia's presence shone brightly, a guiding light in a world fraught with uncertainty.

"We have to take her to the OR immediately," she told the nurses with urgency.

"Step away from her so that we can take her on a stretcher," a nurse said while others brought the aforementioned stretcher.

"I can't. The scalpel nicked her heart," Mia replied.

The heart? Fuck. That was serious.

"Is that why you put your finger–" I said, feeling the blood drain from my face.

"Right now, my finger is the only thing preventing her heart from bleeding out," she said, speaking fast. "You'll have to take me to the OR with her and work on her wound the second I withdraw my finger, understood?"

The nurses nodded.

With absolute helplessness, I witnessed how they got both women on a stretcher: the blond woman lying on her back while Mia sat on her hips, her forefinger never moving a fraction of an inch.

She disappeared behind a swarm of nurses who carried them away, past the glass double doors of the ER and far away into the guts of the hospital's corridors, to the OR, where I hoped a miracle would take place.

Only an angel of life like Mia could achieve such a feat.

"Damn, she's one hell of a woman, your cute babysitter," Vanessa said.

"She is one hell of a woman, yes, but she's not my babysitter." I glared at her. "She's a doctor. Stop being disrespectful—unless you want me to believe you're jealous."

She scoffed. "Why would I be jealous of her skills as a doctor?"

I grunted as I propelled myself away from her with forceful pushes on the wheels, my frustration evident in the rhythm of my movements. "You never get what I mean, as usual."

Hello, my sugar cubes!

This incident was inspired by House M.D.

Will Mia save Adele's life? 

Is Vanessa jealous of her?

Stay tuned!

XOXO

Mar