Chapter 7 - Dr. Reed’s Anger
Dr. Reed tried to keep his face professional.
He almost succeeded.
But Lena saw his jaw lock whenever he looked at the older fractures.
She saw his fingers tighten when Dr. Shaw pointed to the metallic object.
She saw the way he lowered his voice when speaking near her, as if anger itself might hurt her if he let it loose.
That control made him look more furious, not less.
“Doctor,” Lena whispered, “could this be from surgery?”
Dr. Reed hesitated.
Not long.
Long enough.
Dr. Shaw looked away.
Lena understood what they were not saying.
They would not guess.
They would not reveal what they could not prove.
They would not explain how the fragment entered her body.
But their expressions already rejected easy answers.
No one mentioned a surgical record.
No one mentioned an expected implant.
No one sounded relieved.
Dr. Reed looked at the scan again.
“We are documenting everything.”
Everything.
The word hit differently now.
The fresh fracture.
The older fractures.
The metal.
The bruising.
The phone.
Her immobile foot.
Her pain.
Her terror.
Things her family had trained her to minimize were being given names, timestamps, and sealed envelopes.
Lena’s eyes filled again.
Not from weakness.
From the brutal relief of being believed before she had to beg.
Dr. Shaw removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I have read thousands of scans,” he said quietly, more to Dr. Reed than to her. “This should not have been missed.”
Dr. Reed’s eyes flashed.
The officer looked at both men.
The room tightened.
That sentence would not be explained.
Not yet.
Lena held the blanket to her chest and stared at the screens.
Her body felt like a locked room.
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The doctors had just found hidden doors.
Read Chapter 8 👉 Because Dr. Shaw’s disbelief hinted that Lena’s body had been telling the truth longer than anyone had listened.
