Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 397

ARIA

"You tried to leave twice," Jordan said, from behind her. He was doing a reasonable impression of someone who was fine with the current situation and not internally questioning all of his choices.

"I have patients," Ivory said.

"Your patients have been redirected," Nina said, not looking up from the rope.

"You can't redirect my patients without my—"

"Done," Nina said. "It's been done. They've been redirected. Margo handled the scheduling."

"Margo doesn't have the authority to—"

"I gave her the authority," Nina said. "As security chief, in matters of a personnel medical emergency, I have the standing to—"

"I am not a personnel medical emergency," Ivory said.

"You were shot with a silver bolt," Jordan said.

"The artery was peripheral," Ivory said.

"It left a scar," Nina said.

"Everything leaves a scar if you look at it wrong," Ivory said.

"Show me the shoulder," Nina said.

"The shoulder is fine," Ivory said. "I treated it this morning. It's—"

"You treated it this morning," Nina said, and now she looked up, and her expression had the flat quality it got when she was done with the conversational stage and moving to the enforcement stage. "Before anyone else was awake. Alone. With your working hand, which means you were treating a shoulder injury on your left side with your right hand, which means the quality of care you were able to provide to yourself was—"

"Adequate," Ivory said.

"Inadequate," Nina said.

"The clinic's senior healer assessed it—"

"After you had already applied your own inadequate treatment," Nina said. "Which makes the senior healer's assessment a secondary assessment of something you'd already partially handled, which is not the same as a primary assessment of the actual injury."

Ivory opened her mouth.

"Sit down," Nina said.

"I've been sitting—"

"On the table," Nina said. "Both legs on the table. Or I'll ask Jordan to put them there."

"I'd really prefer not to," Jordan said, from behind Ivory, with the tone of a man who would do it if asked and was hoping very much not to be asked.

There was a sound from the doorway to my left and I realized I wasn't the only observer of this situation. Two of the clinic's junior healers were standing at the inner doorway with expressions that were professionally neutral about something they were finding extremely difficult to be professionally neutral about. One of them appeared to have a chart in front of their face that was serving primarily as a visual barrier between themselves and the scene rather than as a clinical document they were consulting.

"She's still here?" I said to them, quietly.

"Since seven this morning," the nearer one said, equally quietly. "She came in at five and tried to start her rounds and the night healer called Nina."

"The night healer called Nina at five in the morning," I said.

"The night healer called Nina at five and seven minutes in the morning," the healer said, with the precision of someone who'd been tracking this timeline closely. "Nina arrived at five and nine."

"That's fast," I said.

"Nina sleeps close," the healer said, in the tone of someone who'd learned this and was still processing the implications.

From inside the room, the situation had progressed. Ivory had been persuaded, or more likely physically maneuvered, back to the center of the table, and Nina was doing something with the rope that involved the bed rail and Ivory's working wrist with the practiced efficiency of someone who had either done this before or had given it significant advance thought.

"Is she tying her down," I said.

"She's securing the wrist to the rail," the healer said. "So she can't use the working arm to push off the table again."

"She pushed off the table," I said.

"Three times," the healer said. "Once she almost made it to the door."

I looked at Jordan, who was now stationed at the foot of the table with his arms crossed, looking at the ceiling with the contemplative expression of a man reviewing his life choices.

"Jordan," Ivory said. "This is entirely unreasonable."

"Mm," Jordan said, to the ceiling.

"The rope is unreasonable," she said.

"The rope was Nina's idea," he said. "I just brought it."

"You brought the rope," Ivory said.

"Nina asked for securing material," he said. "I provided securing material. I want to be clear that the decision to use it as rope specifically was Nina's."

"You knew what she wanted it for," Ivory said.

"I had suspicions," he said. "Which I chose not to examine too closely."

"Traitor," Ivory said.

"Loyal to the security chief," Jordan said. "In matters of patient safety, the security chief's authority supersedes—"

"I am the patient and the senior medical authority in this clinic," Ivory said, "and I'm telling you that from a clinical perspective the rope is unnecessary and counterproductive and is going to leave a mark on my wrist which will then need to be treated which means I'll be here even longer—"

"Then stop pulling against it," Nina said, tying off the final knot with the satisfaction of someone completing a task they'd started with a clear goal.

"I'm not pulling against it," Ivory said. "I'm demonstrating the range of motion restriction it creates."

"The range of motion restriction is intentional," Nina said. "It's the point of the rope."

I came fully into the room because standing in the doorway observing felt insufficient to the situation. Jordan registered my arrival with the expression of a man who was very glad to see reinforcements regardless of their form.

"Aria," Ivory said, turning to me with the specific quality of someone who has identified a potential ally. "Tell them the rope is unnecessary."

I looked at Ivory's wrist, secured to the bed rail. At the shoulder, which had a fresh dressing over it that was already showing some evidence of the night's activities in its coloring. At the chart that the senior clinic healer had been updating and that Nina had acquired and was now consulting with the focused attention of someone cross-referencing information.

"What does the chart say," I asked Nina.