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.
"Chad Armstrong, shut your mouth! Do you have any idea that Dr. Delgado performed three major surgeries back to back yesterday? He had two bites of bread and a sip of glucose water the entire time!"
"Exactly! You sit around in the office with the AC blasting. You can't even be bothered to do your own rounds — you make us cover for you. You have no idea how hard Dr. Delgado works!"
"He didn't get home until midnight. His phone hadn't been charged all day. He collapsed into bed the second he walked through the door. Is it really so shocking he forgot to plug it in?"
The families of the patients I'd saved the day before chimed in too.
"Besides, Dr. Delgado fulfilled every one of his responsibilities during his shift. Last night wasn't even his shift!"
Realization swept through the crowd of onlookers.
Even the colleagues who'd been in the operating room with Chad couldn't stay silent anymore.
"That's enough, Dr. Armstrong. Last night genuinely wasn't Dr. Delgado's responsibility. If anyone's unlucky here, it's us."
Chad staggered backward and crumpled to the floor.
His lips had gone white.
"What is everyone standing around for?"
The dean's sharp voice cut through the corridor.
Behind her, Nellie followed with a cold expression, striding forward.
I was about to speak.