“Mr. Hale, come on in and have a seat on the exam table," I said, my voice calm and professional as I held the door open for him, watching him walk into the small exam room with that slight limp he had mentioned on the phone when booking the appointment.

The clinic was quiet this late in the afternoon, most of the other doctors gone for the day, leaving just me to handle the last few patients, and Marcus Hale was my final one, a new face in my schedule, complaining about some persistent back pain from a workout injury.

He was tall, built solid with muscles that strained against...