Carlisle POV

It had been a slow night at the hospital, not unusual for a weeknight in a small town. Sometimes I found myself missing the buzz of busy big city hospitals, but Forks did have a certain charm. As I rounded the corner to the nurses' station, one of the nurses caught my eye and waved a file at me. I walked over to her and gladly took the file.

"It's a kid, looks like she's been beaten badly. She's claiming she's 18 but one look at her puts a lot of doubt on that. I'd guess she lied about her name too if I'm honest." I looked at the nurse. Clara, her name badge said. She seemed saddened by her assessment of this girl. I flipped open the case file, cast my eyes over the triage notes and sighed. I agreed with Clara's assessment on paper. These kinds of cases tugged at my heartstrings.

"Thanks. Well, at least she came here. Let's see what we can do for her." I sighed back, and turned towards the ER bays.

"Katie Hillman?" I called as I pulled back the curtain to her bay. I looked at the small girl sat with her knees to her chest on the bed. There was absolutely no way this girl was 18. She looked about 13 or 14, though I guessed she may have been a bit older, and malnourished.

She looked up a fraction too late, and I realised Clara had also nailed the fake name guess. It was almost as though it took her a second to remember that was the name she gave. She made eye contact with me, and then quickly turned her head away.

"My name is Dr. Cullen, I'm here to help you" I said, keeping my distance and opening my arms and body so she could see I posed no harm. My open stance seemed to disarm her and she relaxed a little. I looked down at the case file again. Suspected broken arm, chest pain and open head injury. Let's start with the arm.

"Can I take a look at your arm?" I asked, and she nodded, stretching out her legs so I could access her arm. I gently took it and extended her forearm towards me so I could examine it. My eyes noted the hints of old bruises, and bruises beginning to form. Whatever lies she told us, this was clearly an abuse case. Would we be able to gain her trust enough for her to let us help?

A quick examination of her arm made me pretty certain her wrist was broken. I told her as much, though adding we'd need X-rays to confirm. She merely nodded, as though she knew this already.

"I'd like to take a look at that head injury as well?" I asked her, and she nodded, mumbling "be my guest". I moved closer up to her side, and gently probed her skull around the injury. She winced and hissed slightly.

"Sorry. I don't think you've fractured your skull, though I'd like a CT to check for concussion or any further injury." She nodded again.

"You said you had a bit of chest pain? May I take a look?" I asked gently, expecting push back here. To my surprise, the girl sighed and pushed up her top herself for me to examine her. She was resigned to this, I realised. Well, at least she was letting us help, and not holding back from us on the extent of her injuries. That was something, even if she refused to tell us her actual name and age.

I tried not to react to the black and blue lattice of injures old and new across her chest, and instead gently probed her ribcage, feeling for abnormalities. She winced a couple of times, but nothing felt out of place.

"It's possible you've fractured some of your ribs, though nothing feels displaced" I told her. "But I'll add chest X-ray to the list just to be sure. Do you want to tell me how you got these injuries?" I asked quietly.

She looked at me, a defiant look in her eyes, and began to spout some rubbish about falling off her bike. We both knew that no-one was buying this story, but as all the testimony we had was that she was 18, an adult, who was giving no details away about being in danger, there was not a lot we could do. I hated this system. Even though literally everybody knew she was lying, because we had to take her words as true, we couldn't help her without her letting us. I sighed as I finished up my exam and called radiology to book the scans.