I start working on filling out the paperwork when things get really bad. I pass out. I don’t know if it’s from the pain or the blood loss, probably a combination of both. The adrenaline and spite that got me here has run dry and it’s just me. My body shuts down and I blackout.
I don’t know how long I’m out for but when I wake up the ER is full. Like, packed. I can tell from the voices and the crying. I listen, trying to make sense of the voices. It sounds like mostly kids. I hear a few adults talking in low soothing tones while a few cry.
What the hell is going out there?
Vesper Point Hospital is too small for this kind of action. From the sounds of it, every single bed is full and then some. I lean on my side and reach out, trying to reach for the curtain to pull it back for a look but the second I touch the curtain it rips open at the foot of my bed.
“Julian?”
It’s silly but he’s the last person I thought I would see on the other side of the curtain, considering this is where he works. There are only two doctors in town, I should have known he would find me.
“What-” His blue eyes go from my face to my leg to the bloody sheets before he looks at me again. “Who did this to you?” He rushes to my side, kneels and grabs my hand. “Who was it? Tell me.”
I shake my head. “Not here,” I tell him softly. How the fuck am I supposed to explain the windows exploding and some entity floating outside. Adding to that, I think the fucking house saved me with a closet door.
His brow furrows and he looks behind me at the rest of the room. “Who put you here? It was that infernal nurse, wasn’t it?”
I smile and squeeze his hand. “If by infernal, you mean Donna, then yeah. She’s Billy’s aunt and hates my fucking guts. I think she hoped I’d bleed out before I finished this intake form,” I say, nodding at the clipboard in my lap. I look around with a frown. “Fuck, I lost my pen.”
Julian grabs the clipboard. “Fuck the pen. You’re not filling this out. I’ll take care of this.”
“But it sounds like the ER is full. Aren’t you supposed to be doctoring?”
He waves a hand. “No one is more important than you. They don’t matter.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Why does it sound like a bunch of kids?”
“Because it is. There was some accident, a bus I think.”
“Julian, you have to treat the kids first.”
“Fuck those kids.” Julian rises from the floor and immediately starts looking over my leg. “Glass? Did you go through a window?”
“More like the window went through me,” I mutter and then hold up a hand when he looks like he’s going to demand an answer. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
“At home,” Julian says what I don’t.
I nod. “At home,” I agree.
“Doctor Vale! You’re needed for-” Donna’s words get stuck in her mouth when she sees him at my bedside. “Doctor Vale. This patient has not completed her intake paperwork.”
Julian doesn’t look up from my leg. “I thought you told me it wasn’t serious.” He looks up at her and the temperature around us drops. A chill settles over me and I know the second it hits Donna. She backs up and looks around like she thinks she’s going to spot the source. Holy shit, it’s Julian.
“Well, it’s not. Those lacerations are superficial and-”
“She’s had significant blood loss and there’s glass still in her,” Julian says. “I would have expected better care for my wife than this.”
Donna goes pale and I nearly choke on my own spit when he says that.
“Julian…” My voice trails off when I realize I don’t know what to say. If I try and deny I’m his wife then he’s going to lose it. I can tell from the way he’s holding himself. He looks like he’s about to take Donna’s head off.
The air grows colder still and Julian speaks. “I’m going to see to my wife. The rest of the patients are not critical enough to warrant me seeing them prior to seeing to my wife’s health.”
Donna’s lips press into a thin line. “Another nurse can see her.”
“Evidently not,” Julian corrects. My drops open in surprise with Donna’s. Even though I know what Julian is and even though I witnessed him throwing Billy around like a ragdoll, I didn’t expect the sass from him. If I’m surprised, Donna’s worldview must be getting sucker-punched right now.
She looks to me and back to Julian. She’s nothing if not stubborn so I’m not surprised when she lifts her chin. “You never said you were married. Do you know what kind of woman you married?”
