Crack.
My palm connected with his face before he could react.
I looked down at him.
"Chad, have you lost your mind?"
Colleagues from other departments heard the commotion and came rushing over.
I didn't hold back.
"The duty roster made it perfectly clear — the surgeon assigned to last night's operation was you, not me!"
"Yes, I didn't notice my phone had died. But the person who should be held responsible for that surgery is the doctor who signed the duty roster — and that's you, Dr. Armstrong!"
The color drained from Chad's face.
"When someone's life is on the line, who cares about duty rosters? You always keep your phone on. Always. Except last night."
He let out a bitter laugh. "Go ahead and target me all you want, Thomas, but you don't get to gamble with a patient's life."
He delivered every word dripping with righteous indignation.
Some patients who didn't know the full story had already started whispering — speculating that I'd deliberately made myself unreachable, dumping the mess on Chad, the new guy. All so I could sit back and watch him fail.
But before I could open my mouth, a colleague had already had enough.