Mike Sterling was deteriorating. He knew it, and he hated that she knew it, too. The adrenaline that had carried him through the front doors was fading, replaced by a throbbing, white-hot nausea.
The shrapnel, a souvenir from a roadside bomb in Ramadi back in ’06, had likely shifted millimeters. But inside the tight architecture of the hip joint, millimeters felt like miles. He tried to shift his weight, and a gasp escaped his lips before he could suppress it.
Sarah didn’t look up from her clipboard. “Seven out of ten?” she asked casually. “Mind your business,” Sterling gritted out, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Looks like an eight, maybe a nine,” she continued, turning a page. “You’re going rigid. Muscle spasms are setting in.
If we don’t get you a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory soon, we’re going to have to cut your pants off because you won’t be able to stand to take them off.”
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