The anxiety of lying there waiting to find out what the hell was wrong with my feet was starting to get to me. I needed something to happen or I was going to go out of my mind. “Honestly, whatever these drugs are, they’re good. I can’t feel my feet. Just do something.”

“The fact that you’re awake at all means that you’re in a lot of pain. I took an oath, and I intend to stick to it. So—” She wheeled her chair over to my feet and sat. “Here goes.”

It took another thirty minutes for her to carefully laser off the top part of one shoe, but it wasn’t going to do any good.

“I can see blisters already. We have to get the shoes off, and I’m worried that when we do, your skin will come with it,” Audrey said. “I’d like to give you nanos before I do that.”

“How in the hell did she not feel that?” Tyler was turning a nice shade of green.

“Heat exhaustion. It can do all kinds of things. She might not have been feeling her surroundings correctly, and with how hot her core temperature was already and how hot the suit was, I’m sure she was miserable. Right?”

“Pretty much. Except on the walk back. I could feel it then, but it was too late, and I was almost inside.” I glanced at Tyler, then back to her. “You were a doctor on Earth?”

She nodded. “Because of my arrest, I’m just a medic now, but I still abide by my oath. I won’t go against it.”

“I don’t want any nanos. I don’t consent.” Any legitimate doctor had to listen to their patient.

“That’s not advisable.” She put the scalpel down on a tray table next to her. “You might not heal right. You could have a limp forever, be crippled. And for what? You could be healed in a matter of hours.”

Yeah. But the nanos would torture me for days. Still, I was probably being stubborn about this. Burns were serious. A broken arm would heal. I’d been lucky with any illnesses, except that one time… But I recovered pretty quickly. Still, I’d never had something like this.

“Tyler?” Audrey said, not taking her gaze from me.

“Yeah?”

I didn’t look at him. I kept my gaze on Audrey. She knew. I wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew.

“Can I have a sec with her alone?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure.” He patted my arm. “I’m going to head out. I want to check on the suit and talk to Matthew. It should have warned us there was a problem.”

“Okay.”

As soon as the door closed, Audrey rolled the chair so she could look me in the eyes.

I swallowed, wanting to avoid the exact conversation that Audrey was going to insist on. “He’s nice.”