Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
G enesis…
I fucked up.
Oooo, I fucked up…
I hadn’t peed after sex the night before like I should have, and I was already starting to feel it midway through my work shift, no matter how much water I drank. I had to pee – or at least I had the feeling like I did, and every five seconds , I swear to God.
Damnit.
“You good?” ReJeanne asked me, and I shook my head.
“If you see Dr. Kincannon, ask him to write me a script for some Macrobid, would you?” I told her, and she gave me a knowing look.
“Do you one better,” she said. “For some instant relief, go get you some Alka-Seltzer. Three times a day for the next three to seven days. Might not even need the Macrobid.”
“What?” I asked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously!” she said, and she was earnest.
“What’s the science behind that? ” I asked, mollified.
“The alkaline makes the bladder an inhospitable environment for the bacteria causing the UTI to thrive. Trust me on this one. It works. Take you an Alka-Seltzer from the doctor’s lounge and in thirty minutes that trickle will be a good old-fashioned normal flood, and it’ll help any burning, too.”
“I’ll try it,” I said. “If only to make it through the rest of this shift, but ask Kincannon for me anyway, would you?”
“Ask me what?” The man of the hour swept up to the desk.
“Macrobid script,” I said, and he looked at me.
“UTI?” he asked.
“Yup,” I affirmed.
He grinned. “You’re blushing. You get lucky?”
“Oh, my God! Would you just write the script?” I asked and went to the doctor’s lounge.
He laughed at me. “Already on it,” he said and was clacking away at the keys at his terminal.
“Thank you!” I called over my shoulder, as I swept into the staff lounge to do what ReJeanne had told me to do. I hated the taste of the shit, but if it worked and got me through to when I could pick up the script at the hospital’s pharmacy, then I would suck it down gladly.
God, was it awful, though! Eugh!
I shot it, swallowed and got it down, and suffered for a bit before sucking down some clean, crisp water out of my water bottle back at the central desk while ReJeanne laughed at the expression on my face before I went into bay three to give sutures to a playground accident.
Three little stitches and the little girl was admiring her reflection in the hand mirror I let her use.
She would have a cool scar through the eyebrow, and she was thrilled. Mom? Not so much.
“I see no signs of concussion, and her TDAP is up to date. Gimme just a few minutes and I’ll have the nurse bring in your discharge papers and you can go home.
Tylenol for pain if she complains of anything, but if she starts throwing up or anything like that, bring her right back.
I don’t anticipate anything like that at all, though,” I told her mom who was nodding and far more anxious than kiddo.
“Thank you, doctor,” she said.
“Thanks!” the little girl said brightly, and it was on to the next lucky winner of a no-expenses-paid trip into my ER.
The day went by pretty swiftly, but I was dog tired by the end of it. I had maybe an hour left on the clock when the doors whooshed open for the ambulance bay and two frazzled EMTs wheeled in a patient who was seizing, head buried in an alarming swath of bandages that were scarily bled through.
“Got a head trauma, patient seizing, and it ain’t good!” ReJeanne called out, and doctors and nurses descended on the incoming patient like a flock of seagulls.
“We got an ID?” Kincannon asked.
“We know what happened?” I asked about the same time.
“Eyewitnesses say he was about to cross the street when a guy on a motorcycle called out to him and swung a big chain or something at this guy’s head,” the first medic said.
I felt myself freeze up on the inside, even while my hands and body kept going through the motions.
“What’s this guy’s name?” Kincannon asked again, looking down his nose through his glasses as LeRoy, one of our veteran nurses, took trauma shears to the bandages around the guy’s head to let us have a look at what was going on.
I was helping Amelia, one of our other nurses, get leads on and another IV started, prepared to push meds when the medic called out, “Got his license outta his wallet. Looks like his name is Lucas Belmar.”
I looked up right into Kincannon’s face, and he looked back. “You gotta go,” he said immediately.
“Yep.” I handed off the syringe of medication to Kincannon, and he pushed the meds. I stepped back, stripped off my gloves, and left the room.
The EMTs looked baffled, and my colleagues looked grim. But I appreciated Kincannon like nobody’s business for recognizing the conflict immediately and letting me get the fuck out of there.
I swallowed hard and went over to the nearest charting station to start covering my ass.
When Kincannon came out of the room an hour or so later, he was shaking his head.
“Well, that was a shitshow,” he said, pulling off his bloodied gown and bundling it into the nearest biohazard bin, stripping off his gloves and letting them follow.
“What’s the word?” I asked, carefully neutral.
“Oh, he’s toast,” he said back casually. “There was visible brain matter from a blunt force trauma to the temporal bone. There was nothing to be done, no way to stabilize. Time of death was eighteen thirty-two.”
I swallowed hard.
“He was the one who?—”
“Yeah,” I said quickly.
“Guess the cops don’t have to worry about finding him. Not sure what happened, but hopefully they don’t go looking too hard for whoever did that to him. If anything, that guy deserves a medal,” he said.
I swallowed hard and nodded mutely, knowing my eyes were growing glassy.
“Hey, no – don’t do that,” Kincannon said, gripping my shoulder to turn me away from the hall.
“Go punch out, get your shit together, and save it for out in the parking lot,” he said low and careful.
I nodded. I liked Kincannon. He was solid, even if he was steeped in being tough and not showing any emotion on the floor if you could help it.
Something about not wanting to appear weak in front of subordinates.
“Thanks,” I said, breathing through it and getting it together.
“Anytime. Don’t forget your script at the pharmacy,” he reminded me, and truthfully, I’d forgotten all about it. In the hustle of daily emergency department operations, I’d forgotten all about my impending UTI ramping up into full swing.
I looked back at the central desk, and ReJeanne looked back at me, a considering look in her eyes as she measured me up to make sure I was okay. I gave her a thumbs-up, and she nodded and went back to pulling something off the printer to hand to LeRoy. Likely discharge papers for one of the bays.
I swallowed hard and went to clock out and gather my stuff.
“You good?” she asked me.
“Yeah.” I lied about my impending hurricane of emotions when it came to my serial killer stalker lying dead the next room over. “Thanks for the pro tip on the Alka-Seltzer,” I said. “Worked like a charm.”
“Told ya,” ReJeanne said lightly, but she wasn’t smiling. All her eyes held was concern for me.
“I’m good,” I promised. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nodded, and I left.
I boarded the elevator to go up to the hospital’s pharmacy on the second floor, went through the motions of signing for and paying the minuscule co-pay for my script, and shoved it into the top of my tote bag, which I had slung over my shoulder.
Taking up my helmet from the counter where I’d set it, I forced a smile at Orion, the pharmacy tech on duty, and went back down the elevator and out through the main lobby of the ER.
Chainsaw was waiting for me, sitting nonchalantly on his bike.
“Hey, baby,” he said, and I went to him, careful of the pipes and bent down to kiss him, and put my arms around him.
“Thank you,” I whispered in his ear, and he patted my ribs a little awkwardly in our hug. I pulled back.
He winked at me and said, “I’ll always have your back, and I’m happy to pick you up.”
I smiled then, put my helmet on, and got onto the bike behind my ol’ man. My tote hitched high onto my shoulder, and my arms locked firmly around his waist, he put the bike in gear, and we surged forward into whatever unknown future we were going to have together – and honestly? It felt right.
He rode us into the French Quarter and slow-walked us through intersections and toward what, I didn’t know and didn’t care as long as it was food. I was starving.
Lo-and-behold, it was food, bless his heart, as he tapped me to get off so he could back the bike against the curb between two cars that had left more than enough room between them for a bike, but not for another car.
I looked up at the little bistro sign and read Landry’s Cajun Café, and that sounded about right. It wasn’t but a moment after Chainsaw cut the engine that he joined me on the sidewalk and pressed a hand to my back, guiding me in the front door.
“Hey, yo! Chain!” someone called out further into the place, set back into the gloom. Chainsaw threw some chin, and with a nod to the host, we bypassed the little podium he stood at and disappeared deeper into the restaurant and bar.
Chainsaw pulled out a chair for me, and I sank into it gratefully. One of the Voodoo Bastards brothers smiled at me politely, and another rose to give Chainsaw a back-slapping hug.
He sat down next to me and made introductions, “Genesis, this is Axeman and you know Cypress.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I murmured, and smiled, though it felt a bit brittle.
I could feel the hurricane of feelings squatting like a toad just off my horizon and waiting for its chance to move in and smash into me.
But I wasn’t going to let it until I was home alone, or just with Chainsaw, to let it go.