Page 60 of Kick the Candle (Knight Games 2)
Crazy
The next morning, the emergency room at St. John's was unusually quiet. Good thing because I was distracted by the horror of my father's new romantic interest. What did she want from him? Money? Probably not. She made her own. Attention? Maybe. I told myself for the fiftieth time that it wouldn't last. I wasn't going to worry about it. She'd realize he was all about his work and leave him the minute the novelty wore off.
Hours ticked by filled with average, run-of-the-mill illnesses and broken bones. I had a patient with an appendicitis around ten, and otherwise uneventful cases the rest of the day. Around six that night though, an ambulance phoned ahead, something paramedics do for the seriously ill and injured, and I was called in to respond.
"Dr. Anderson needs you in the trauma room, stat!" Julie, my charge nurse, pointed at the trauma room. "I'll take your beds."
My heart started racing from the adrenaline zing that flooded my system. It had been months since I helped in trauma. It wasn't my specialty. With my limited experience, I couldn't have been Julie or Dr. Anderson's first choice, but the day had been so slow she'd sent a few of my fellow nurses home, leaving us short staffed. To call me in, the situation had to be desperate.
I shoved the door open with my shoulder and eyed my friend Jay with a sigh of relief. A Certified Trauma Nurse Specialist, nothing shook this guy. I'd seen him reach into a gunshot wound half the size of New Hampshire to clamp down on a nicked artery. Jay was made of fortified steel.
"What's coming?" I asked. "Julie didn't give me any specifics."
He glanced up from his work readying a table of supplies. "Female. Near drowning."
"Drowning?" There wasn't a natural body of water inside Carlton City limits and the indoor pools were sticklers about safety. A drowning this time of year was highly unusual.
"Red Grove Lake."
"Red Grove Lake. My Red Grove? What the heck is anyone doing out there this time of year?" Aside from being frozen solid, Red Grove Lake was miles behind Rick's place at the heart of Monk's forest. The only access was by foot through unmarked footpaths. I wouldn't even know about the lake if not for Rick. He'd taken me back there a few weeks ago to show me where a rare form of holly grew.
"Not sure."
"Well, who found her?"
"Not sure."
"Jay! What do you know about this patient?"
"She was crazy enough to almost drown in a frozen lake in the middle of nowhere on the Friday after Thanksgiving."
The automatic doors flew open and a familiar paramedic rolled a woman in on a stretcher. "Unidentified female, abandoned at a Fuel Up station on the edge of town. Attendant was told by the man who dropped her off she was found crawling out of Red Grove Lake. We tried to get her cooking for you, but she's still below temp and unconscious. Heart's pumping but her breathing is erratic."
I took over her ventilation bag while Jay checked her vitals. Pulse was thready, and she was still cold as ice. She looked to be around forty with wavy brown hair and a round but muscular build that gave her a sturdy appearance. She'd been wrapped in a blanket with heat packs tucked in her armpits and groin.
"Grateful, warmed IV," Dr. Anderson ordered. "Jay, forced air blanket. Hopefully we can get her breathing on her own again." Dr. Anderson took over the bag and began assessing her airway, talking to the patient in an attempt to elicit a response.
I went to work. In a flash, I'd found a suitable vein, high on her shoulder, near her core. I ran the tips of my gloved fingers over the raised blue swell, and pierced her skin with a large gauge needle. The warm fluids began to flow.
"Come on." Dr. Anderson said, removing the bag and shaking her shoulder. "Ma'am! Breathe."
The gasp the woman gave relieved us all.
Her lids flipped open, and she fixed me with a blood-tinged stare. "You!" the woman yelled. "Where is it?"
"Welcome back, miss," Dr. Anderson said, patting her shoulder. "You're in the emergency room at St. Johns. You've had an accident."
The woman refused to look at him, but her eyes drilled into me, through me. I had an impulse to reach for Nightshade but, of course, my blade wasn't on my back.
Overriding my panic impulse, I forced my voice to respond in a gentle, even tone. "Just relax. You're going to be fine." I patted her shoulder.
"Not fine," she rasped. A hand shot out from under the blanket and grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward her. Before I could register what she was doing, a pillar of water exploded from her mouth, drenching me in icy cold vomit.
I jolted backwards, the witchy part of me going all five-alarm tingly. Either this woman was possessed or someone had released a can of bees up my spine. Her voice echoed, a deep baritone hiss, and the smell of wet vermin filled my nostrils.
"You can't hide the book forever. We know you have it."
"What?" I whispered.
