Chapter 1
Della's POV
To end two years of a long-distance marriage with my husband, Sutton Brennan, I quit my job and moved halfway across the state to join his top-tier medical center.
But from the moment I clocked in on day one, a nightmare awaited me.
IV pain pumps violently popped open in my hands, medication cabinets rejected my fingerprints, coffee machines sprayed me with boiling water, microwaves exploded in public, and the employee lockers locked me out entirely.
My colleagues laughed at me, calling me a walking disaster. The head nurse publicly berated me for being incompetent. And my husband, the man I trusted most, simply smiled his gentle smile and said, "You're just tense. Give it a few more days."
In my past life, I believed him. I gritted my teeth and held on until the bitter end—and ultimately died inside this very hospital.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on my first day of work.
"Still nervous?" Sutton adjusted the collar of my scrubs and leaned in close, his voice dropping into its usual soothing register. "Don't be scared. I'm here. No one can touch you."
"I'm fine," I forced a smile.
But deep down, I knew—this was exactly where the nightmare began.
In my previous life, I had transferred to his hospital, full of joy, thinking we were finally reuniting. Instead, over the next few days, every piece of equipment on the floor seemed to conspire against me. They malfunctioned, made me the scapegoat time and time again, until a logical "accident" finally took my life.
Head Nurse Coralie Vance marched to the nursing station, her steps sharp and cold. She held a clipboard, her face completely devoid of a smile.
"Della," she slapped a patient file onto the counter. "Bed 4 needs a PCA pain pump right now. Push another dose of strong painkillers into the IV. Go prep the equipment."
My spine stiffened. Cold sweat instantly prickled my palms.
A PCA pump—a machine hooked up to a patient that automatically injects a preset dose of painkillers. In my past life, this was the exact task I was given the day I died.
That day, I went to the pharmacy, grabbed the meds, and dragged the locked pump from the supply room. The machine ran its self-check; everything was perfectly normal. But the second I entered the parameters, the screen froze. When I reached out to reboot it, the heavy metal door violently popped open without warning, snapping two fingers on my hand.
And after that? Coralie publicly chewed me out, claiming I lacked nerve and couldn't even operate basic equipment. Sutton stood by, a helpless sigh on his lips, personally crowning me with the title of "the clumsy rookie."
I took a deep breath and picked up the file. "Understood."
This time, my face was a mask of calm. I turned and walked straight to Bed 4's equipment area.
Drawing the meds, scanning my badge, unlocking the system—every step was flawless, just as smooth as my past life. The pump's screen glowed a faint blue, the numbers ticking upward steadily.
I pressed my hand against the medication compartment door and began typing in the final dosage limit.
Just as the digits approached the target, the screen backlight flickered unnervingly.
It froze.
The display locked up. The numbers stopped dead in their tracks. Exactly like my past life.
Without breaking a sweat, I backed out of the menu, rebooted the machine, and did it all over again. Hitting the same dosage, the machine froze completely. On my third attempt, I deliberately pushed the numbers slightly higher.
In that split second, the heavy metal compartment door burst open with abnormal, ravenous force, slamming viciously into the edge of the cart with a sickening crack! Driven by the sheer trauma of my past life, I had yanked my hands away a fraction of a second earlier. Had I been even slightly slower, my fingers would have been crushed to a pulp all over again.
"Jesus!" Two residents doing rounds whipped around in shock.
I didn't give anyone a chance to speak. I took a step back and yelled at the top of my lungs—
"This PCA pump has a critical malfunction! The safety lock is completely shot!"
My voice was loud and piercing, slicing through the hospital room instantly.
"What are you screaming about, Della?!" A veteran nurse bolted out of the med room, her face livid. "That machine was perfectly fine yesterday! Why does the door blow open the second you touch it?"
"Fine yesterday doesn't mean fine today!" I didn't back down, stepping into her personal space. My voice only grew louder.
"I just ran three reboot tests! Every single time I input the max dosage, the machine freezes and the power trips! If that door had clamped down on the patient's IV line just now, or if the wrong dose was pushed into their veins—who takes the fall for a dead patient?! Is it you?!"
The senior staff who had been gearing up to accuse me of user error instantly shut their mouths, paralyzed by the phrase "dead patient."
In my last life, terrified of causing trouble for Sutton, I swallowed my pride and accepted the label of "careless." But today, no one was throwing a single ounce of dirty water on me.
A crowd gathered. Coralie, unable to hold back any longer, stormed forward. She shoved the cart aside and glared at me.
"Enough! Screaming like a banshee in the ward—is this how you act?" she suppressed her rage, speaking in a cold, condescending tone. "Pull this unit. Biomedical just brought up a new batch of mainframes. I'll deal with them myself."
"Honey, you're way too tense," Sutton approached, using his body to shield me from the probing eyes of our coworkers. "Go take a break. Let Coralie handle this."
