Abigail went down the long corridor of the surgical department. It was silent and nearly empty. Or it was Abigail who was not able to feel anything but pain, anger, and disappointment.

  Her steps were slow. Actually, it was a farewell march: with every pace she said goodbye to Charlie, to surgery, to her plans and dreams. All of them were somehow connected to this department. Charlie should have recovered here. She should have had her first doctor’s job here. All her future life was laid on these two pillars.

  Both were broken now. But she couldn’t just leave, as if the ruins had turned into heavy chains on her legs.

  Someone greeted her, and she replied automatically. That pulled her back to reality. She looked at her wristwatch: her duty in the emergency room began in half an hour. She had to pull herself together. A doctor might not die with her patient, even if the patient was the most important person in her life.

  Abigail straightened her back and resolutely walked down the corridor toward the stairs.

  She was focused on the rhythm of her steps and breathing. And so it took her a moment to notice Chuck further down the corridor. He was standing half-turned to her next to the gurney with a patient on it, taking notes. Her first instinct was to turn away somewhere to avoid the encounter. She didn’t feel strong enough to deal with Chuck either. But she decisively rejected the cowardly thought and didn’t break stride. It was he—not her—who had to feel uneasy.

  She guessed that he did not.

  Chuck was busy with paperwork and hardly noticed someone from the medical staff passing by. She hoped she could avoid a collision. But when she was about to slip behind him, her gaze fell on the patient, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

  “What the hell?”

  Chuck jumped in surprise and turned around.

  “You?”

  For a moment, she thought he looked embarrassed. Then he eyed her suspiciously and muttered through his teeth:

  “Yes, indeed—what the hell are you doing here?”

  “What’s wrong with that? I’m a doctor, you know.”

  “Not yet—just an intern.”

  “The same goes for you.”

  “And you don’t work in surgery, do you remember?”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t work here,” she snapped. “If you did, this patient would have been operated on an hour ago.”

  It was the first time she and Chuck had spoken face to face since she had been moved to the emergency room and he had been moved to surgery to take her place. It was not perfect timing. But for certain kinds of conversation, there could hardly ever be perfect timing.

  “What is your problem, Abe?”

  Chuck threw the papers onto the gurney and turned to Abigail. The familiar smile that Abigail had once loved crept onto his face. But now it was brazen and terribly vulgar.

  “You still can't get over the fact that I turned out to be a better candidate for the job than you?”

  They both knew he was not. Their relationship had gone downhill precisely when Dr. Colbert took Abigail into surgery for an internship. Chuck, also competing for the internship, tried hard to convince her to decline the opportunity. He even offered to marry her if she took her internship elsewhere, convinced he was next in line for the job.

  He wasn’t. But he found another way around it: he left Abigail and started dating Silvia, another classmate from the university. Silvia’s father was a member of the hospital's supervisory board. The day they announced their engagement, Abigail was moved to the emergency department, and she wasn’t surprised when Chuck took her place in surgery. She was almost broken, but a day or two later, Charlie had an accident and hovered between life and death. He needed her; there was no one else near him. Her job misfortune, her ex's treachery—everything was pushed aside and caused her almost no pain.

  Abigail walked around Chuck, trying not to touch him even with the hem of her robe, and looked down at the man on the gurney.

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  He was even paler than she remembered, his lips tinged blue as he gasped for air. Beneath his half-closed eyelids, she could see his pupils moving rapidly. He was not in pain, but without urgent surgery, he had only a few hours left.

  Abigail adjusted his oxygen mask.

  “Some acquaintance of yours?” Chuck asked.

  She nodded absent-mindedly, unable to take her eyes off the wounded man's face. His strength and will to live were remarkable—so much so that Abigail herself felt a surge of strength for the first time in the last few hours.

  “I brought him in. Picked him up on the road,” she said. “We stabilized him in emergency, but it is not enough.”

  Chuck laughed mockingly.

  “Of course it was you. So much you… As always, fussing over the poor and beggars, huh?”

  Abigail bit her lower lip.

  “This is your real problem, Abe,” Chuck took a step closer to her. “Stop rummaging through that rubbish, for heaven's sake. Believe me, there are no gems there.”

  “Where would you suggest I look?”

  She tried to move away from him, but he kept coming closer.

  Chuck's hands slipped under her robe and wrapped around her waist.

  “If you are kind to me, I could help you.”

  He bowed his head and whispered, his lips almost touching her ear:

  “You know, my father-in-law is a very important person in this hospital.”

  His breath burned the skin on her neck.

  “If you beg me nicely…”

  She pushed him away with such force that he almost fell over.

  “He is not your father-in-law. Not yet.”

  But the insolent guy, having barely regained his balance, immediately went back on the offensive. He pinned her against the gurney and hissed in her face:

  “Don’t be so impatient, sweetheart. First, go wash yourself. You stink. Just like this piece of trash.”

  He pointed his chin toward the wounded man.

  “Of course, he would suit you better than I do. But for the sake of a couple of happy memories together, I’m willing to help you.”

  “It is you who stinks, not him,” she hissed back.

  “Oh, I see. You don’t even notice the smell anymore, right?”

  Abigail gave him a scornful look. But the next moment, her nostrils twitched as she remembered the smell that had filled the car while she was driving to the hospital:

  The scent of the man’s blood.

  It was strange. Abigail was used to the smell of blood, as any surgeon would be. She had learned to ignore it completely. But she was fairly sure she could recognize this man by the smell of his blood.

  Chuck, who was watching her face, let out a fake sigh.

  “Oh, dear. Of course, you didn't notice. You've been used to that smell since childhood, haven't you?”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” Abigail snapped.

  “The smell of poverty, dear.”

  He moved closer to her again.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Chuck recoiled from her, and she saw Dr. Colbert approaching. He was glaring at Chuck angrily.

  “Why is the patient staying in the corridor?”

  Abigail saw her chance.

  “This patient needs urgent surgery, doctor,” she said hastily, without giving Chuck a chance to speak. “Please, help him.”

  “Do you know him?”

  Chuck grunted, but the doctor gave him a fierce look, and Chuck immediately quieted down.

  “It is the guy I picked up on the road,” Abigail explained.

  Dr. Colbert took the papers and stared at them.

  “Why isn’t he operated on yet?”

  Chuck shrugged.

  “Because he is nobody. No documents, no insurance, definitely no money. We have informed the police and are now waiting for someone who could vouch for his solvency. Everything according to hospital regulations,” he added with a hint of malice.

  Dr. Colbert met Abigail’s desperate eyes and shook his head.

  “There is nothing I can do, Abigail,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Abigail wanted to cry. How was it possible? The man was dying in a hospital corridor, waiting for stupid papers, with a very real chance of not surviving until they arrived. Just like Charlie, who passed away before she could get the money for him.

  She shoved her hands into her robe pockets so that no one would see how tightly she was clenching her fists. Her mother was right: everything in this world was on the side of the rich. Including God and the devil. And even doctors.

  Speaking of the devil…

  The plastic card, which was still in her pocket, seemed to slip into her fingers by itself. She drew it out and looked at it in surprise.

  The money for Charlie’s surgery. Her personal money?for?life deal with the devil.

  She held out the card to Dr. Colbert for the second time that day and said:

  “Do the surgery, doctor. You have the money.”

  Dr. Colbert hesitated for a moment.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You may need this money, girl. Now, when Charlie is dead…”

  “This money was intended to save a life,” Abigail said impatiently. “Let them do it.”

  The doctor took the card from her and turned to Chuck.

  “Prepare the patient for surgery.”

  “But…”

  “Now,” the doctor shouted, seeing that Chuck was in no hurry.

  “If an expensive patient dies, it will happen on your watch,” Abigail whispered in Chuck's ear.

  It brought Chuck out of his stupor.

  “This is shit!” he shouted. “Where could she have gotten the money from? It couldn’t be!”

  But Dr. Colbert no longer listened to him.

  “Abigail, you will be assisting me.”

  “She can’t…”

  Chuck began, but the doctor cut him off.

  “Assigning assistants is not within the competence of an intern, lad.”

  He turned to Abigail.

  “Are you still here? Go wash up! We are wasting the last golden chance for this guy.”

  The doctor hurried toward the operating theatre. Abigail rushed after him. But Chuck stopped her, grabbing her arm.

  “Where did you get all that money?”

  Abigail broke free from his grip.

  “You don’t know anything about smells, Chuck,” she hissed in his face. “Oh dear, you just couldn’t know what a really big score smells like.”

  Then she ran down the corridor, as if trying to escape the thought that, if the whole story came to light, she might have to know what a prison cell smelled like.