ATHENA RIVERA CAN’T, in any way whatsoever, believe her luck. 

As she riffles through the pages of her patient’s chart for tonight’s shift, she mutters angrily to herself, still in disbelief over how she was treated by the new resident in her unit—or, that is, the resident from hell that everyone seems to know and no one wants to work with. She used to live a relatively peaceful life when he was stationed elsewhere, until last month, of course—because he was transferred to hers for a two-month consult rotation. 

All the horror stories she heard from the floor downstairs—the said resident’s original unit—turn out to be true. 

Said resident really is from hell.  

And the genre of Athena’s life did a sharp pivot from medical . . . to horror. 

Athena snaps the binder shut, the force emitting a sound loud enough to express her brewing anger. Hendrix, the co-worker sitting beside her, a fellow nurse assigned to the night shift, startles at the noise, and he turns to her, eyebrows curled in confusion. “What’s wrong?” 

Athena breathes out a sigh. 

“Resident Lucifer,” she answers after a beat, using the nickname the resident from hell had quickly gained in his three-year stay at the hospital, a number that Athena easily eclipses with her own tenure, technically making her his senior. 

But what she won’t tell Hendrix, or their other co-workers, or basically anyone, is the staggering truth that disgusts her so: she and Resident Lucifer know each other from way back, all the way to when they bore witness to each other’s crawling debut as mere babies. One look at their resumes will also tell you that they went to the same college. And Resident Lucifer won’t tell you this—but Athena graduated valedictorian in high school, and he was her salutatorian. 

She knew the devil incarnate since she started breathing, and the thought itself makes her want to barf all across the front counter of the nurse station. 

She clears her throat. 

Understanding trickles onto Hendrix’s face, his eyes softening in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he says, although it’s not him who owes her an apology. “I heard what happened.” 

Athena forces out a laugh, rolling her shoulders back, trying—and failing—to put it behind her. “It is what it is, I guess.” 

It’s a cliché, but so is this situation. 

The annoying thing is, the reason no one can give Resident Lucifer the slapping he deserves—why he seems to be immune to HR’s notices—is this: he’s the son of a hotshot surgeon in the hospital, who also happens to be the Chief of Surgery and a long-standing shareholder. 

Resident Lucifer is untouchable—and goddamn does he know it. 

And frankly, it makes her hate him all the more. 

“Actually, you know what?” Athena turns to Hendrix, her face fixed in fiery frustration. “One of these days, I’m going to submit that complaint.” 

“The one you wrote last week, or the millionth one you wrote today?” 

She finally cracks a smile at his teasing grin, rolling her eyes at him. He takes the chart from her—which she didn’t realize she was clutching so tightly her fingertips were turning a pallid hue—and sets it on the counter in front of them, freeing her hands (and the chart from her misdirected fury). 

“Do you . . . want to talk about it?” he hedges, turning his head to face her, humor replaced with genuine concern. 

Athena’s anger starts to melt. “Thanks,” she tells him, suddenly turning shy. 

She and Hendrix have known each other for four years, starting from the moment she first walked the halls of the hospital as an interviewee for the nurse staff position, and he was right beside her in the waiting area. When her quivering, nerves-fraught fingers dropped her copies of her resume, he picked them up for her, a soft smile on his face—as if he was telling her she’d be all right. 

There were three slots open for the position, and at that moment, even if she didn’t know his name, she wished he’d get one of them. 

Her wish came true: she and Hendrix impressed the interviewers, and they secured two of the available slots. And four years down the line, they’re now senior nurses, guiding the ones who used to be in their position. 

Ever since that moment, Athena’s never forgotten those kind eyes, especially when their years together have shown her that it’s not only his eyes that’re kind—it’s him. All of him. 

She may or may not have a happy crush on the guy. 

Hendrix’s lips curve into a smile, that same smile she’s kind of fallen for, and her heart skips a beat. She instantly scolds it. “When you need someone to talk to, just know that I’m here.” 

She refuses the rush of warmth to her cheeks. She doesn’t know if Hendrix has a penchant for saying sweet things, bordering on cheesy at times, or if she just views everything he says with a sugary filter, perpetually seeing him in that soft light. 

But the smile slips from her face when she remembers something. 

The unmistakable clang of a metal chart against the marble-lacquered front counter pulls her out of her Hendrix-filled reverie, and Athena snaps her head up to meet the eyes of the other senior nurse in their unit—Flora. 

“A quiet night tonight, huh?” Flora says to them with a straight face—but Athena knows better. There’s the barest hint of sarcasm in her voice, and she knows it’s directed at her. After all, Flora’s the only one in the unitthat knows about her little crush and isn’t afraid to wield it in front of her face in the most subtle of ways. 

Athena almost grits her teeth. 

“Yeah,” says Hendrix, shaking his head. He flicks a furtive glance at Athena, before continuing, “Where’s Ivo? I have something to give him.” 

Unlike Hendrix, Flora point-blank stares at Athena, nodding at her. “Hey, Athena,” she says instead, clicking her tongue. “What happened a while ago was shitty. You should’ve called Ivo out.” She then turns to Hendrix, shrugging once. “Resident Lucifer was last spotted by a fumbling intern at the cafeteria on the fifth floor. That was an hour ago.” 

Athena shifts in her seat at the mention of Ivo, none other than the Resident Lucifer. 

Hendrix nods, watching Athena from the corner of his eyes. “Thanks—” he starts to say, but Flora turns her back on them and disappears down the hallway, always the blunt—and, no holds barred, rude—one out of them. 

“Hey, Athena,” Hendrix calls beside her after a moment, voice the epitome of gentleness, and Athena muses at how the same words—hey, Athena—could sound so different from his lips. 

She faces him, schooling her features into a light smile. “It’s time for me to check on Room 20.” 

It’s a dismissal, and though reluctant, Hendrix seems to understand, with him returning her smile and nodding. “Okay,” he says. “I also have to check on 34.” 

Athena, too, nods, swallowing the bitter pill that she refuses to acknowledge in front of him— 

The fact that Hendrix and Resident Lucifer had drinks one time last year—and just like that, they’ve become friends. And what used to be Hendrix coloring the horns Athena doodles on her stick figure drawings of the devil has turned into pained smiles of sympathy, never quite the same. 

It’s silly, but it kind of feels like a small betrayal. 

Athena hoists herself to her feet, clamping her hand on her chair and pushing it forward, before she plucks Patient 20’s chart from the pile, her other instruments already in her pockets, and strolls out of the station, heading for her patient. 

And as she navigates her way past the white walls, she bites her cheek at the memory from hours ago: how the last time she was here, Ivo, that damned Resident Lucifer, brutally shredded her self-confidence—and made her feel like nothing but a floundering fool. 

✵ 

Athena can’t cry. Not again, and most definitely not in front of an utter and unmitigated asshole. 

She tells herself this as she braces herself for another day and another shift with the resident radge, straightening in her seat at the nurse station as the aforementioned devil, in his ink-blue, well-pressed GENERAL SURGERY polo shirt, a silver stethoscope slung around his neck, approaches the counter, stride confident and commanding, chin tilted in that arrogant angle. 

His eyes always seem to be looking down over his nose, and it grates on her. He never not looks like the overbearing ass he is. 

Athena steeples her fingers together in front of her, not minding the looks the other nurses in the station send her way, clearly invested in this devil-prey drama. 

You can do this, she cheers herself up. He’s just an asshole—you’re a human being. 

The devil stops in front of her, his name—IVO VALERIO—embroidered on his left chest, just above the word resident and the name of his unit. She hates seeing those white threads, hates seeing him wear them like it’ssolid proof that he’s superior to her. Superior to all the nurses and even the two other residents currently gawking at them, anticipating. 

Hell, superior to everybody. 

“Good morning, Dr. Valerio,” Athena almost spits out, but she manages to sound civil, something she congratulates herself for.  

There’s a flicker of emotion that crosses the devil’s face, his eyebrows almost furrowing. But it’s only for a nanosecond, so short and abrupt that Athena thinks she imagined it, and his face is once again the perfect sculpture of impassive, left brow raised in that infuriating way. “Did you finish the assignment I gave you?” 

Athena stifles the urge to strangle him and opts instead to clench her teeth, hissing out a yes, almost but shoving into his chest the sheets of paper she’s printed her research on. 

He takes the papers with ease, as if he didn’t notice the brusque way she handed them to him—or he just doesn’t care. But his eyes rove over the text, his fingers flipping through the pages, the turn of the paper ringing in her ears. 

She realizes, with a certain horror, that she’s waiting for what he has to say. 

A gasp is released somewhere behind her, and she almost laughs at that—guess she’s not the only one watching in anticipation for the devil’s words. It makes her feel a little bit better. 

“Well,” he finally says, tone detached, shuffling the papers straight and then planting them down on the counter. “That was acceptable.” 

Acceptable? She wants to yelp, the image of her smacking him at the back of his head growing more and more desirable by the second. I sacrificed a whole night’s worth of sleep for this unnecessary assignment, and the best you can do is acceptable? 

But instead, what comes out of her slack-jawed mouth is, “Always a pleasure to be accepted by you, Doc. Thank you so, so much.” 

She almost smacks herself for that—without her meaning to, her sarcasm has slipped out. 

In a snap, Ivo leans down towards her, fast eating the distance between them, the counter barely keeping them apart. His face is there, right in front of her, his lips only a few breaths away from hers. He smells of coconut shampoo and peppermint, and she hates how she likes how he smells. 

His eyes scrutinize her face, and Athena does all she can to swallow her sound of surprise and not the sudden lump in her throat, her fingers itching to fidget on her lap. At this distance, in this angle, with the fluorescent lights shining behind his head, Athena can see, like a vivid dream, the dazzling brown of his eyes, the glint in them pulling her in.  

But after what feels like an eternity, he leans back. And there’s a smug curve on his lips, telling her he found whatever he was looking for. 

“Good morning, Athena,” he says in a low, raspy breath, almost as if he meant only for her to hear it—before he grabs hold of the papers from the counter, striding away. 

Leaving Athena frozen at the station, wondering what the hell just happened.