Rookie 3 | Ethan Ramsey

Chapter 8~ Drawn Lines

Drawn Lines

"In any event... the battle lines have been drawn now. For better or for worse."
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Still in Leland Bloom's office, Blue and Jackie stared at each other as they found out that Suzette's participation in the billionaire's study was not going to be beneficial for her at all. In fact, it could do more harm than good.

"I need to tell Ethan about this right away..." Blue responded, a frustrated glare making its way up her features. "He was right... we both were. This whole trial will be a waste of time for Suzette... and she doesn't even know it." With that, she snapped a quick picture of the file, and Jackie nodded affirmatively.

"Let's get the hell out while the getting's good!" Jackie alerted her friend. The both of them stepped out of Leland's office, ensuring that everything was back in their place and that the lights were switched off and door closed. They met up with Esme, who was dutifully standing outside to keep watch just in case Leland decided to return early.

"So? Find anything good?" the second-year resident asked her seniors.

"Not good, exactly, but definitely useful." Blue sighed softly before giving Jackie and Esme a light smile. "Thanks for helping me out with this. It could change everything for Suzette."

"Any time... especially if you promise I get to play spy again." Jackie grinned.

Chuckling, Blue waved goodbye to the both of them and hurried off down the hall to share what she had just figured out with Ethan and Harper, especially the former.

》》》

As she entered the diagnotics team's office, Blue found Ethan poring over several patient files, a frown furrowing his sharp brows, while Harper looked on.

"Not this one." Ethan was telling the Head of Neuro as he closed a file and picked up another. "No, not this one either."

"What, none of them sound interesting?" Blue spoke up as she walked further into the room. Ethan and Harper looked up from the files they were looking at when they noticed the youngest in their team entering. Ethan's troubled aquamarines seemed to ease a little at the sight of her, though neither one of the women noticed it at that moment.

"Most of them have sounded interesting to me." Harper replied, using her eyes to communicate to Blue that Ethan was the one who seemed to be having a problem with the cases to be chosen.

"But we have to be careful." Ethan said with a sigh as he watched Blue take her seat at the conference table next to him. "Now that we know Bloom might go behind our backs and manipulate patients at any point in the process... We can't risk him giving false hope to more patients, or using them to further his own ends. I need to find a case where he can't do damage."

"Sounds to me like... we should be cautious." Blue replied as she took in Ethan's reaction to their whole circumstance. Leland was seriously not giving them any room for transition and forcing his own ideologies and principles on a team that Ethan was trying his very best to run smoothly, even with one man down. "Bloom knows that anybody we discharge could be vulnerable. It'll be easy for him to silde in and talk them into his trials."

"Exactly." Ethan agreed, clenching his fist in resolution. "I won't be complicit in his preying on vulnerable, desperate people."

"Vulnerable or not, patients have the right to choose how they proceed with their treatment. Even when we don't agree with their choice." Harper countered her team members' points. "Besides, refusing to take on patients because of what Bloom might do just means that more people won't get the help they need." she added, a point that neither Blue nor Ethan could rebut for they agreed with that statement. Their main priority was always the patients.