Thicker than Blood - Book One Page 3

  I thought about taking a shower, but I had one before I went to bed. My hair would be a mess, but I could just pull it up and out of the way.

  My phone buzzed on the pillow next to my head. I grabbed it quickly, hoping it was Matt... but it was the hospital.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Kenna, it's Sam,” the house supervisor said. “You've been floated down to the ER tonight.”

  Dammit. “Ha, and I thought you were calling me off.”

  He chuckled. “Well, almost. If the ER wasn't in a bind, you'd be sleeping in.”

  “Well, alright. See ya soon.”

  “Thanks Kenna.”

  Fuck. The ER. Now that place was a box of chocolates; you never knew what sort of nuts you'd get. Some nights were quiet and other nights, like a full moon, people were going completely ape-shit. I prayed that tonight wasn't a full moon.

  I took my time getting ready for the night ahead since I didn't have to shower. I did a bit of reading online and packed myself a nice, hearty lunch. Honestly, I didn’t know if I'd have time to eat it – I'd probably be running on coffee alone.

  My car found a parking place that was relatively convenient to my escape in the morning. As I made my way up to the double ER doors, I felt someone watching me. Glancing behind, I saw Dr. Amante in the parking lot. He was standing between a Bentley Continental GT and a giant Mercedes, talking to Dr. Tims, another cardiologist in the Welch Group. Dr. Amante's eyes were fixed on me as he chatted with the other doc. I had to turn my head when I saw Dr. Tims look my way. Great, they were talking about me. Why? Fucking fantastic. Now my mind would chew on that all night.

  I entered the building and swiped my badge. Lord, please don't make this be a long night... please?

  When I entered the ER, it didn't look too bad. There were three people seated in the waiting room. This is what I was called down here for? If the ER doctor tonight was anyone besides Dr. Campbell, I'd be spending a lot of time on app games... unless we got busy.

  “Hey Kenna! You're down here tonight?” a happy woman's voice called.

  I turned. It was Andrea Parker. We graduated from the same nursing class.

  “Andrea!” I hugged her lightly. She looked exactly the same as she did in school; short, straight, brown hair and had the waifish, big, fake-breasted body most men were into these days. I hated her in school because of it. I was jealous of the attention she received. Now, I could'nt care less. I was happy with me... thanks to Matt. Damn, Matt. Why wouldn't he call me back?

  Andrea stood back, taking a look over my body. “You look like you've lost some weight. Good for you, girl!”

  My eyes narrowed slightly, but then I grinned, placing a hand on my hip like a pin-up girl. “Nope, just as curvy as always.” She could jump up my ass. Her statement would have bothered me a while back, but not now. I knew I had as much to offer as her... and even more. Matt thought so... and so did Dr. Amante, apparently.

  She shrugged. “Well, you look good. Days told me it had been slow. I imagine that it will carry over. Looks that way, anyway,” Andrea told me as she texted someone.

  “Yeah, Sam told me that if it wasn't for the call-in down here, I'd be off.”

  The pretty little woman glanced up from her phone. “Bummer.” Her focus went back to the phone. “Oh well, glad to see you, though!”

  I found an empty locker to store my purse and got a cup of coffee. Leaning up against a support, I watched Dr. Smith, the ER doc for the night, talk to a patient about their wounded arm. It made me think back to when I started nursing school, my thoughts were set on treating each patient with care – much like I'd treat any member of my family if they were in the hospital. Most students started school with those thoughts. (A rare few became nurses because it was a good career choice only.) However, during the course of school and externing at hospitals, most of us inevitably were desensitized to the whole thing. You have enough rude patients treating you like an indentured servant, family members demanding more be done despite doing all that you could and seeing enough bodily fluids to paint a castle... most people would become numb. It's no surprise that a lot of new nurses only last a couple of years before changing careers. It was hard work that held people's lives in the balance. It always amazed me that plumbers and electricians were paid well beyond nurses, considering lives were in our hands, family member's well-being was in our hands.

  A few hours later, after helping Dr. Smith examine a child with a broken arm, I went to the Starbucks kiosk near the gift shop before it closed for the night. I could always count on the caffeine in Starbucks espresso drinks to keep me on my toes.

  I took the coffee to the roof of the hospital, where I could truly escape during my break. The sky was littered with stars, although it would have been much easier to see them all if there wasn't so much light pollution from the town. The air was warm, but the breeze had a cool, crisp note that told me autumn wasn't far. All in all, it was a beautiful night.

  “Kenna.”

  I shivered. I'd know that accent anywhere. Slowly, I turned to face Dr. Amante, who was standing just five feet behind me. How did I not hear him approach?

  His eyes were the caramel color I remembered from the first time I saw him. His expression was guarded; whatever he was thinking wasn't being translated to his handsome face.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He stared. Great, this again. He had to be the most strange and mysterious person I'd ever met. I shook my head. “Okay...,” and was about to turn around to face the city lights again when his hand stopped me. I looked up into his face. Again, I had not heard him come closer.

  “We...,” he started and stopped. “I shouldn't be with you,” he whispered.

  Okay... I stared back at him and then shrugged. “Then don't.” Seriously, what the fuck? I looked at the buttons on his lab coat.

  He lowered his face as to catch my eyes. They were ablaze with conflict—hunger seemed to war with determination. Finally, his shoulders sagged in resignation. If I'd not been watching him so closely, I would have missed the whole thing.

  “You don't know what you do to me.”

  My eyebrows came together as I considered his statement. “What do I do to you?” He hadn't known me long enough to be that infatuated.

  A hand ran through his wavy, black hair as he thought. “You're like... kryptonite to me.”

  “Kryptonite.”

  “Yes. I see you... I smell you... I get weak.”

  “Smell me?”

  He nodded.

  Okay, that's pretty hot that I have that effect on him. “A lot of people feel that way about someone -”

  “No, NOT like this.” He cut me off. Dr. Amante let out a frustrated sigh and went to look over the edge of the roof. “Your friend was right about me. You should stay as far from me as possible. I am toxic.”

  I gasped. How did he know what Matt said? We were in my house. “How do you know about...,” I started but couldn't finish the sentence. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck were beginning to stand again. Had he been at my house? I trembled. Outside of my bedroom window?

  “Where you at my...,” I tried to say, but the fear rising quickly up through my body made me stop. I suddenly felt very alone and exposed on the roof with him. “Uh... I should get back to work.”

  He turned swiftly to face me. “Kenna, I'm sorry... it's just that...,” he said, stopping to stare. As his eyes changed from caramel to black, my pupils grew larger. Fear made my feet tingle, made them want to run in the opposite direction.

  With one step, Dr. Amante was standing against me, looking down into my eyes with tremendous intensity. Quickly closing the distance between us, Dr. Amante sought out my mouth, kissing me hungrily. I was lost, pushed off a cliff into a euphoric whirlwind. His touch was like discovering how to breath for the first time, never realizing that you needed air but finding you couldn't now live without it.

  As we kissed, his hand went to my shoulder blade, slowly tracing its way to the slight curve
at the small of my back. His other hand moved to gently grasp the base of my neck.

  I knew I shouldn't be in this strange man's arms, but I couldn't help it. There was something about him that pulled me to him. It wasn't infatuation... something different, something that pulled stronger. Could it all be in my mind?

  I became aware of sirens in the distance. “Great,” I said, hesitantly breaking from the intoxicating doctor. I moved from his arms and stepped towards the edge of the roof, looking for the source of the sirens. Yep, there it was, an ambulance coming our way. I turned back to Dr. Amante... but he was no longer there. Alarmed, I looked quickly around my surroundings. No Dr. Amante. My heart thundered in my chest. There was no way I imagined what happened only moments earlier – no way. In glancing down at the rooftop, I saw that he walked through a puddle while leaving, his tracks indicating he went to the stairwell. I lifted the collar of my scrub top to my nose. It smelled of his cologne. I couldn't believe it happened again. Man, I need a drink.

  As I went down the stairs to the ER, I wondered what I should do about the situation. Matt warned me to stay away from Amante and the man himself warned me to stay away. Who tells someone to stay away from them only to embrace them in a smoldering, passionate kiss like he did me? It all seemed rather bi-polar. As much as I was attracted to and lusted for Dr. Amante, I had to be logical. If he acted so strangely, so hot and so cold having just met, how could I expect things to be any different if we were together? Sure, I was positive we'd have mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex... but what type of relationship would that be?

  I made a promise to myself to think about it more during the week as I entered the ER waiting room, which was now a flurry of activity. There was blood all over the floor, from the entrance to a gurney, upon which lay an unconscious man bleeding profusely from the neck. His blood was flowing off the gurney to the floor, pooling near the wheels. Andrea was holding pressure to the wound, but it was too large for her to cover entirely.

  Pumping some disinfectant into my hands and grabbing a pair of gloves, I ran to Andrea's side. She had a pile of surgical sponges in the man's lap. I picked up a couple and assisted her in keeping pressure to the ghastly wound. The skin and underlying tissue was cut and torn, looking more like fresh hamburger than a person's neck.

  “What happened?” I asked as we pushed the gurney through a set of double doors to an empty stall.

  “I'm not sure, but it looks like Mr. Fargo was bitten.”

  “You think that's a bite?” I asked incredulously. I looked down at my hands, the sponges and the blood.

  “Yeah. I saw -”

  Our conversation was interrupted by Dr. Smith, who came rushing to the patient's side, checking the IV. “Keep the O neg coming until we get a cross-match.” She looked up to the unit clerk, “Call the surgical team in NOW!”

  We all did what we could while we waited for the surgeon on-call and the rest of his team to make it in, roughly twenty minutes later. We helped the surgical team transport Mr. Fargo to the OR.

  Finally, Andrea and I were able to sit down and take a breath. Some thirty minutes after the patient entered the OR, he passed. It was always difficult when a patient died. You realize exactly how powerless you are. We did all that we could, but it wasn't enough.

  “That was fucked up,” Andrea said with a sigh.

  “You still think it was a bite that caused that?”

  Andrea nodded. “When they first wheeled him in, I could see the places where flat teeth had cut into his neck.”

  I snapped my face towards her. “Flat teeth? You mean...”

  “It had to be a person that bit him,” she nodded. “My guess is someone off their meds.”

  A person had done that? Holy shit. Who ever heard of a person killing another with a bite? I shook my head. What a crazy world we lived in.

  “Poor guy. I wonder where he was when he was attacked.”

  Andrea shrugged, bringing her eyes to mine. “Well, if you think about it, with a wound like that, he couldn't have been too far away or he would have died on the trip here.”

  “Yeah, I guess not.”

  “Excuse me, Nurses Kenna and Andrea?”

  We both looked up to find a slightly-pudgy police officer coming towards us.

  “Yes?” I offered.

  “I need to speak to you ladies individually for your statement on the event surrounding Mr. Fargo's arrival,” the cop said.

  I sighed, coming to my feet. “Okay.”

  He held up his hand, directing me to one of the empty ER stalls. “Right this way, ma'am, if you will.”

  I entered the stall and the cop closed the curtain behind us. “In your own words, please tell me what you saw.”

  Was he serious? In my own words? Who else's words would they be? I shook my head slightly. “I was just coming back from a break when I saw Andrea holding sponges to Mr. Fargo's neck. She said that the EMT said Mr. Fargo lost consciousness almost as soon as they arrived at the scene. I helped her apply pressure to what she thought appeared to be a wound caused by human teeth and - “

  He cut me off. “Do you think it was caused by human teeth?”

  “Uh, well, it certainly wasn't cause by a knife or a sharp object. Something tore into his neck.”

  The officer studied me a few seconds. “I see.” Taking a step towards me, he was directly in my face, staring hard into my eyes. “That wasn't a bite wound. The wound Mr. Fargo suffered from was caused by a shot gun blast when Mr. Fargo attempted to commit suicide. You will forget that this conversation ever took place and that I was ever here.”

  I blinked – my stomach turning in place. The strange command sounded too much like the one I had received from Dr. Amante the first night we met. It could be no coincidence. I wasn't sure how to respond to the cop, so I just stared. I could feel the fight or flight instinct trying take over, but I managed to keep it reigned in.

  “You may go now. Please send Andrea in.”

  Walking around the chubby man, I exhaled quietly. What was going on here? I had to get to the bottom of this.

  Andrea was still seated where I left her, eyes watching me as I approached.

  I mouthed, 'what the FUCK' to her. “The cop wants you now.”

  Her eyes questioned me as she rose. “Okay... I'll be right back.”

  I sat down and waited for Andrea to come back. Too many questions plagued my mind. Did that cop think I'd believe his story and actually follow his command? That wasn't a shotgun blast. He was talking to nurses, for crying out loud. We KNEW what a gun shot wound looked like and this most certainly was not. Besides, who shoots themselves in the neck?

  I had made up my mind to report this officer when I saw Andrea come from behind the curtains. She looked as if nothing was out of place.

  “So, weird, huh?” I asked as she sat down.

  “What?”

  “That cop.”

  She shook her head and looked around. “What cop?”

  I laughed. “Whatever. You didn't find that conversation the least bit... strange?”

  Andrea's brow furrowed. “Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?”

  What the fuck?! “Seriously, are you really going to follow his 'forget about this' command? What's he going to do.”