I stopped the first person I saw and said, “Where’s the ER?”
“You’re in it,” she said impatiently.
“I’m looking for my fiancée,” I lied. “She just came into the hospital. Blood loss or something.”
“Ah, the girl that got her brachial artery cut open from a can of beans?”
“Creed?”
I looked over to find Charleigh standing there and blanched.
Because somehow, I knew that the blood that was staining her blonde hair red was Birdee’s.
“What happened?” I croaked.
“A fluke!”
I looked over to find a large, balding man with his hair fisted in his hands sitting on a hospital chair staring at me with pain in his eyes. “I came into the breakroom and they were eating beans. The door hit her chair, and she jerked into the can. It was like a scene straight out of Final Destination!”
I gritted my teeth to try to stay calm.
It didn’t work.
“I was just updating these three, but since you’re here, I’ll tell you, too,” the nurse said. “Ms. Calvert was taken into surgery to repair the tear in her brachial artery. You can all go up to the first-floor surgery center, and when the team has news on Birdee, they’ll update you via the phone there.”
Surgery.
Torn artery.
I was going to be fucking sick.
“Charleigh,” I said tightly. “Can you come over here and speak with me for a minute?”
Charleigh nodded, her eyes hollow.
“What happened?” I asked. “I need all the details.”
“Exactly as Hershel said it.” She grimaced. “I was eating beans from a can. We found a pig nipple in my beans, and I was trying to get rid of the can. I’d just forced it in Birdee’s direction when the breakroom door came swinging open. The can lid that I left attached to the can cut into her arm right here.” She pointed at her own arm in example. “Then it just started spurting. Everywhere.” She gestured toward her face. “Hershel is some combat medic or something. Retired. I don’t know. He went into this survivor mode and put a tourniquet on her arm and called 9-1-1.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Fucking, fuck.”
“The nurse that came out,” she said. “She was optimistic.”
“Why’d they call me?” I rasped, my mind a whirlwind. “Not that I’m complaining at all. But why me?”
“We were in the room filling out our paperwork. I was doing mine on a sheet, but Birdee was filling hers out directly with HR. That’s who called you. Nicole asked Birdee who she wanted to put down as an emergency contact and she just blurted your name out without thinking.”
“Okay,” I said. “Did anyone call her father?”
Charleigh scrunched her nose up at that. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
I tilted my head, but I semi-agreed with her. I mean, how many times had I seen him with Cody and Mable, but not Birdee?
Reading the look on my face incorrectly, she started to explain.
“She texts him all the time. Trying to engage. And he never engages. We saw them all the time when we were out having lunch before we came to work with Great Dane’s. I don’t think there’s anything worse in the world than seeing her face fall when she realizes that she’s not important enough to invite out to lunch with them. Or breakfast for that matter. Something they have a standing appointment for, which Birdee very well knows. I don’t think they do it maliciously, per se. But I don’t think they can see anything past their own hands, so to speak.”
“Shit.”
