[AMY IN DISPATCH (2025)] CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Robert couldn’t decide whether falling for a trap set by his father’s murderer had been worse than whatever came afterward, although the distinction hardly mattered while he drifted through the darkness with no idea where his body ended and the pain began.

His chest hurt, his arms hurt, and something behind his eyes throbbed with every sluggish beat of his heart. Every attempt to breathe brought another complaint from his battered body, until even drawing air into his lungs felt like something he had to consciously remember how to do.

He tried to remember the crash, but the memory refused to come together properly.

There had been the armor.

There had been the trap.

There had been an explosion. 

There had been his father’s murderer.

After that, there was only darkness.

Something moved beneath him, and Robert gradually realised that he was being carried, although the sensation was uneven enough that he wondered for a moment whether whoever had found him was dragging him instead.

“Easy, I’ve got him,” a young girl said somewhere above him. “Hunter, I need you to lift his shoulders a little higher.”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re going to need to lift him more.”

“If I lift him any higher, I’m going to dislocate something.”

“Then please don’t dislocate anything.”

Robert tried to open his eyes, and for a moment the darkness gave way to a blurry ceiling and a face framed by curly brown hair.

Freckles stood out across her cheeks, and her wide eyes were fixed on him with an expression that was far too concerned for a stranger.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake.”

Robert attempted to answer, but his throat felt as though it had been scraped raw, and all that emerged was a broken rasp.

The girl’s expression changed immediately. “Actually, I think you’re going to sleep again, which is probably for the best.”

Robert tried moving one of his arms anyway, although the resulting surge of pain convinced him almost immediately that this had been a terrible idea.

“Yes, definitely don’t do that.”

Another woman appeared beside her, curly blonde hair framing a tense face as she caught her breath, and she looked considerably less enthusiastic about the situation.

“Is he stable?”

“For now.”

“That isn’t particularly reassuring.”

“It isn’t meant to be. I’m a doctor, not a motivational speaker.”

“You’re seventeen.”

The girl looked mildly offended. “That doesn’t make me any less of a doctor.”

Robert decided that returning to the darkness was probably the most sensible thing anyone had suggested.

When consciousness returned, it did so gradually.

There was a siren somewhere in the distance, followed by the vibration of a vehicle beneath him as it carried him through a series of turns before everything became still again. Robert opened his eyes and found himself staring at a white ceiling beneath harsh hospital lighting.

For several seconds, he simply lay there and tried to understand what he was seeing.

The room was large and clinical, with monitors arranged around the bed, an IV running into his arm, and the unmistakable smell of antiseptic hanging in the air. His body still felt heavy, although the overwhelming agony from before had been reduced to something distant and manageable.

He tried to lift his head.

A hand settled gently against his shoulder and guided him back down.

“Don’t push yourself.”

It was the same girl.

She was sitting beside his bed in a medical uniform that had been thrown over what looked suspiciously like pajamas, and now that he could see her properly, he noticed how tired she looked. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes, her curls were slightly disheveled, and there was a strain around her mouth that suggested she had been awake for far too long.

“Where…?”

His voice was barely audible.

“The hospital,” she answered. “You’re safe.”

Robert let his head sink back into the pillow.

Hospital.

That was good.

His gaze moved around the room until his thoughts finally caught up with the question that mattered.

“My armor…”

Her expression brightened despite the exhaustion around her eyes. “Yeah, we got it out of the crash site. It was pretty badly damaged, so moving it took a ridiculous number of helicopters, and now it’s in the basement where nobody’s supposed to touch it without your permission.”

Robert looked at her.

“Nobody?”

“Nobody.”

“Who knows about it?”

“People who needed to know that something fell out of the sky and crashed into the city.”

That answer was considerably less reassuring.

Robert closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. “And you?”

She glanced toward the door. “I may have looked at it a little.”

Robert’s eyes narrowed before he sighed. “I meant how you knew what was wrong with me.”

She smiled tiredly. “I will. I’m just staying until I’m sure you’re stable.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.” She adjusted the blanket around him and glanced toward the monitors. “I want to.”

Her answer didn’t make much sense, although he wasn’t about to complain about having someone competent keeping watch over him.

“How did you know what was wrong with me?”

Her expression became more serious. “I can see what’s happening inside people when I touch them, and I can change it. Blood, nerves, organs, bones, all of it. It’s a little complicated to explain.”

Robert stared at her. “So you just… know what’s wrong?”

She nodded. 

“How did you…?”

The girl hesitated for a moment. “You were unconscious when we found you, and you were bleeding internally. I normally ask before I touch someone, especially when I’m going to do anything more complicated than closing a cut, but you weren’t exactly in a position to give me permission.”

There was no pride in her voice when she said it, and there was no attempt to make the decision sound more heroic than it had been. Instead, she gave him an apologetic smile.

“So I made the call for you.”

“How bad?”

She considered the question for a moment, apparently deciding how much information he could comfortably process.

“You had internal bleeding, a badly bruised lung, several broken ribs, and fractures in your left arm and shoulder. There were a lot of smaller injuries too, including damaged muscle and nerves, and you had a concussion.”

Robert remembered enough of the pain to believe her. “And you fixed all of that?”

“Enough of it that you’re out of immediate danger.” She rested her hands in her lap. “I stopped the bleeding first, then repaired the worst of the damage and worked outward from there. Your nervous system is still recovering from everything it went through, so you might feel strange for a while, but I don’t think there’s anything permanent.”

“Was… was it painful?” he asked, looking away from her. 

The girl’s expression softened. “It shouldn’t have been. I made sure you couldn’t feel what I was doing.”

Robert frowned. “How?”

“Your nerves are part of your biology too. I can adjust how they’re responding while I work, so you don’t have to experience every little thing I’m changing.” She smiled slightly, as though the answer required no further explanation. “Healing someone is already unpleasant enough without making them feel every second of it.”

He glanced toward his chest. “Can you do it again?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Do what?”

“Whatever you did.”

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve still got a few things to check.”

She placed one hand against his chest, and Robert instinctively braced himself, but as she had promised, nothing happened.

There was no burning sensation beneath her palm, no pressure moving through his ribs, and no sudden surge of pain. There was only the strange awareness that something inside him was changing without hurting him at all.

He drew a cautious breath.

Nothing.

He tried another, deeper this time, and the absence of pain was so startling that his eyes widened.

The girl watched him carefully. “How does that feel?”

“Like I wasn’t just thrown through the side of a building.”

She smiled. “That’s a good sign.”

Robert looked at her hand. “Is there anything you can't fix?”

He knew she was considering the question as she frowned slightly. “Living things are complicated. I can do a lot, but there are limits, and there are things I won’t change simply because I can.”

Something about that answer caught his attention, and he looked at her more carefully. “You have rules.”

“Of course.”

She withdrew her hand and settled back into the chair.

“I don’t heal someone against their wishes when they can answer for themselves. Your situation was different because you were unconscious, seriously injured, and running out of time.”

Robert nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”

His body was becoming heavier again, and his eyelids were beginning to droop despite his efforts to keep them open.

“Who are you?”

The girl looked down at him, and for the first time since he’d woken, the exhaustion in her expression disappeared and she straightened imperceptibly, with the last thing being her tired smile.

“Panacea.”