“Who knew a Code Silver isn't when an old timer tries to beat you with their walker?” Charles said as he double looped his scarf around his neck.

I grinned at him as I pulled my gloves out of my pocket. “Technically, a walker's still a weapon.” We'd been trapped in a cold, dark room watching safety refresher videos all morning, an exquisite torture for nurses used to staying up all night. I wound up my scarf and pulled on a cap. “Why don't we get any cool codes, Charles?”

“We do. Code Fur. Code Fang.” He patted through his pockets, maybe looking for his own set of gloves.

I hadn't been in on any admissions since I'd been hired as a nurse at County a few months ago. But the vampires, weres, and other assorted casualties our floor catered to had to come in from somewhere. Not that the rest of the hospital knew that we kept vampire-exposed humans—daytimers—in our beloved County Hospital's basement, but we must get advance notice somehow. I just wasn't sure how that happened. There was a lot of information I wasn't privy to yet.

I inhaled to ask another question, and then looked up at him. I could tell behind his scarf he was cracking a smile. “Awwww, you liar. Code Fang. As if.”

“Nurse Edie is Code Gullible.”

“Whatever, old timer.”

Charles laughed and held the building's front door open. “After you.”

I braced myself and headed outside.

Winter air was like a slap in the face—the portions of my face that it could still get to. We were two days before Christmas, and the skies were bleak. My hairstyle had been hat head for what felt like weeks now, and I was swaddled up in my warmest coat. Between my own hips and the three layers of clothing I had on underneath my coat, I probably looked like a Jawa from the original Star Wars, only with blue eyes peering out.

Charles and I were going out to the Rock Ronalds for lunch. It was in front of the hospital on the next cross street down, and it was where our recently released patients would take their legally prescribed methadone to trade for illegal heroin and crack. I wouldn't go there alone at night, not even the drive through, but during the day with a male coworker I felt safe—plus, I desperately needed caffeine if I was going to make it through the afternoon.

“So what really happened, anyhow?” Charles asked, as he double tapped the signal change button on the light post.

“Um.” I rocked up and down on my toes, watching the orange stop hand across the six-lane street. I knew what he was asking, but I didn't want to rehash the past, so I shrugged without meeting his gaze. “You know. I got stabbed by vampires. My zombie boyfriend ditched me on his way out of town. That sort of thing.”

“Too fresh?”

“Yeah.” I inhaled, and looked up. He was smiling again; it gave him crinkles around his eyes. Charles was a good nurse and maybe even a better friend, in a wholesome, father-figure kind of way, if I'd let him be. He'd been working at Y4 for longer than I'd been alive. I couldn't help but smile back. “We have Advanced Cardiac Life Support recertification coming up together in four months. Hit me up then.”

“Gotcha.”

The light changed, and we both looked both ways twice before crossing across the street.

The bell over the door of the Ronalds rang as we walked in, and a color-coded height sticker measured us as we passed through the door, just in case.

Charles ordered fries with a side of fries at the counter, and I took off my gloves to hand him money for my Diet Coke. I realized this was the first time I'd ever hung out with a coworker outside of work. It was our lunch break, but still, it counted for something. I grinned at him as I returned from the soda fountain.

“Code Fang,” he said, and laughed. “You totally bought it.”

“Yeah, yeah, make fun of the new kid.”

“We don't get enough new people for me to tease.”

“Maybe if so many new hires didn't die—which no one ever told me, by the way—you'd get more chances.”