I sighed. “I know, I know. I just hate that this is all last minute. One of my co-workers called out sick, and you know we can always use the money.”
I heard my daughter scramble out of her room. “Auntie Chloe!”
My best friend scooped up my daughter into her arms. “Natty! Oh, I missed you so much.”
As I watched the two of them spin around, it cemented that I had made the right choice. For a while, I wasn’t sure if moving back to San Diego was a smart choice, especially given my history within the town’s city limits. But when the apartment right next to my childhood best friend became available, it was almost as if fate had intervened on my part.
Plus, there were a great deal more hacking jobs in San Diego than there were in Los Angeles.
“Go, get out of here. Go screw up someone’s security system just because you can. We’ll be okay until you get home,” Chloe said.
I walked over and hugged her tightly. “You’re a lifesaver; thank you so much. There’s an envelope on the fridge with money for--.”
She pushed me toward the front door. “Go, girl. You know I’ve got this.”
“Love you, Mommy!” Natasha exclaimed.
I blew my baby girl a kiss. “I love you too, princess.”
In my spare time, I got paid to hack people’s security systems and cars in order to expose vulnerabilities within their systems. But sometimes the work was prevalent and sometimes it dried up for months. I needed something stable, and thankfully the hospital up the road--Scripps La Jolla Hospital--had a part-time opening for a security guard position. It even came with on-site training as well, and after two weeks of proving that I knew my way around a gun just in case, they slapped me in a uniform and handed me my schedule.
And it just so happened that my first workday was about to come around a few days too soon.
I didn’t mind, though. I hadn’t taken a hacking job in over a month, and I needed the money. Sure, I had some saved back, but I didn’t want to dip into those funds unless it was an absolute emergency. One of these days, I wanted to buy a house for me and Natasha. Chloe, too. I wanted us all to be a big, weird, happy family with a yard Natty could run around in and a room she could paint and decorate however she wanted.
She never got to do those things in an apartment.
“Hi there!” a chirpy woman said as she stood. “You must be Lexi, the new security guard.”
I shook the woman’s hand. “I am, yes.”
She smiled brightly. “Wonderful. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to our E.R.”
I paused. “The E.R.?”
She nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s where you’ll be working. We’ve been in need of a friendly face that’s not part of the nursing staff here at the hospital. We get very busy in the evenings, so it frees up more hands to be on deck. If that makes any sense.”
“It makes all the sense in the world. I was just under the assumption--.”
“And here we are!” she said as she cut me off. “Just go see the redhead sitting at the computer over there. She’ll get you set up with your credentials and your log-in information so you can get started.”
I drew in a deep breath. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
Being thrown into the deep end was something I had grown used to. All my life, people tossed me wherever they needed me and expected me to fulfill a role they hadn’t taught me about yet. And this was no different.
I walked up to the redhead and introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Lexi. I’m here to start working as a security guard at the front desk?”
“Hi Lexi,” she smiled brightly at me. “I’m Amelia. Let me show you some of the ropes.”
Amelia then dove into a crash course in how to work the system, how to check people in, and where to go to get my credentials at the end of my shift.
Then, an ambulance crew burst through the doors.
“I’ve got a GSW victim!” a woman shouted. “Late twenties, male, Hispanic, he crashed on the way here and we had to revive him. He’s lost at least four pints of blood.”
I watched with my jaw dropped open as the red-headed nurse rushed behind me. Immediately, everyone around me leapt into “save mode” as I watched from the sidelines. I eased myself into the chair in front of the computer and listened carefully. I heard them say something about a grazed wound, something about no exit wound, and then I heard people yelling for someone to set up an O.R. Then, everyone disappeared through the metal double doors.
Leaving me alone to fend for myself.
