After what felt like both an eternity and a blink, Shawn finally stepped back from the examination table and stripped off the thin plastic gloves he'd improvised from what looked like food-handling material taped tight at the wrists.
Time had warped while he worked—ten minutes, maybe fifteen, maybe more. I'd lost track of anything but the rhythm of his movements: the soft scrape of instruments, the periodic change of bloodied gauze, the rustle of fresh bandages being unwrapped, and underneath it all, Clara's shallow breathing that never quite deepened into something I could trust.
