Free Anterograde by Kallysten Page B

world he now
lived in. Ca l den was… Calden, in a way he hadn’t been in weeks. He performed two
more surgeries, and each went without a hitch so that when the patients were
transferred to their aftercare team, there were hardly any complications
anticipated.
    It
all came to a crashing halt when Doctor Petters, in charge now that Langton had
gone home for the evening, refused to assign anything more to Calden until all
three surgeries he’d performed so far could be reviewed and graded against the
hospital standards of care to make sure that his illness and its consequences
were not still affecting him.
    “My
illness is over,” Ca l den replied, his eyes darkening along with his voice.
“It has no more relevance today than the bout of flu you endured last winter. I
hardly need to know what I had for lunch yesterday to perform surgeries half
the doctors in this hospital wouldn’t dare touch unless they were the patient’s
very last resort. Including you.”
    With
each word, Petters’ complexion was turning a deeper shade of crimson.
    “Ca l den,” Eli hissed.
“Shut up.”
    Ca l den’s icy stare
turned to Eli. “Why should I? Doctor Petters’ record is just as relevant as
mine. If we’re going to compare odds of survival—”
    “Doctor
Hayes! Doctor Wright! How nice to see you both!”
    Petters,
Calden, and Eli all turned toward Samford as she approached, a wide smile on
her lips and her hand extended. She shook Eli’s hand first, then Calden’s, and
Eli noticed that, rather than letting go, she tugged gently on Calden’s hand,
leading him away from Petters as she said, “I’d be glad to have your opinion
about a patient of mine. Do you mind?”
    Although
Calden followed her lead, he still threw a glare back toward Petters. Having
anticipated this, Eli had placed himself between the two men, so that he
blocked Calden’s line of sight. Soon, they were in Samford’s tiny office, and
when she pushed Calden down into a chair and shone a pen light in his eyes, it
became clear which patient she wanted to talk about.
    “How
are your sleeping patterns?” she asked, holding Calden’s head in place when he
tried to look away. “Do you get enough sleep?”
    “Caroline,
stop that!” Calden demanded, this time managing to pull away from her. “What do
you think you’re doing?”
    “It’s
called a follow-up,” she said dryly, leaning back against her desk. “Seeing as
how you never came for one, I’m making do. So. Sleeping patterns?”
    When
Calden did nothing more than glower at her, she turned the question to Eli who,
standing against the door, had a hard time hiding his amusement. For all of
Calden’s annoyance, he had yet to stand and storm out, proof that he could
behave when he actually liked someone.
    “Getting
back to normal,” Eli said. “Which for him means completely abnormal. He’s
complaining when he gets exhausted after twenty hours awake.”
    They’d
talked about Calden’s sleeping habits during his stay in the hospital. She and
Bonneville had repeatedly told Eli to make sure Calden got enough sleep, and
while so far it hadn’t been too difficult, Eli didn’t look forward to Calden
being completely recovered and unwilling to go to bed for days at a time.
    Clucking
her tongue, she turned a frown to Calden. “You need to get enough sleep. You
just got out of a severe case of encephalitis. I don’t need to tell you—”
    “No,
you don’t,” Calden interrupted. “Unless you’re like that idiot Petters and you
don’t understand what anterograde amnesia is. I know the importance of sleep. I
also know how much sleep I need to function. And even if I have hallucinations,
seeing someone who I know can’t actually be there isn’t going to stop me from
performing surgery.”
    At
the moment Calden said the word ‘hallucinations,’ Eli knew. Sleep deprivation
could induce hallucinations, yes, but that was hardly the only symptom, or even
the first in most patients. It seemed too