Adult Content Warning
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.
-
Tags
Summary
Some people might call it a sixth sense, but Jack Abbot is a doctor, so when he walks into the ED already feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, he knows it’s not magic, it’s his amygdala reading infinitesimal changes in the room. He isn’t conscious of it, exactly. But he’s not not conscious of it, either. His subconscious brain is processing minute changes in the environment, in the energy around him, in voice tone and volume, in motion and stillness. Patterns, and the changes therein. His therapist calls it hypervigilance, a trauma response. Jack calls it paying attention.
And okay, maybe it overreacts sometimes, this hypervigilance, but it's rarely wrong outright. So when he gets that feeling of something bad about to go down, Jack turns toward the source without consciously deciding to.
His eyes meet Robby's across the ED, and his entire body goes cold.
"Lena, call security," he says, the low whip-crack of his voice cutting through the conversation at the desk. "Get them here quiet. And call the police."