Page 4 of Viper’s Reign

My chest heaves as I try to breathe through the shock of it all. When my pulse finally evens out, I ease myself up straighter and stare down at the burner phone.

The image of Millie slumped over in that chair flashes through my mind and I frantically stash the phone away, replacing it with my own. Before I can think better of it, I’m dialing Millie’s number.

I don’t know what to expect—I can only pray that this is all some kind of sick joke. But when the call is answered on the first ring, a cold spike shoots through me.

I go very still.

“Millie?” I ask in a tentative whisper.

The silence on the other end lasts exactly long enough for hope to form. Then the deep chuckle of a man carries over the line.

My eyes slide shut.

“I see you got my message,” the deep voice taunts. “I meant every single word. Instructions will be sent to the phone in your possession. I’d suggest you take them seriously.”

1

GRACE

Millie’s absence is the kind of thing you feel before you think about it. A dull, persistent ache deep in my heart, made worse by the fact that I know exactly the kind of danger she’s in. The image of her in that video still haunts me. I don’t think it’ll ever stop.

“Incoming!”

The shout jolts me out of my thoughts as the ER doors slide open and a gurney comes barreling through, the wheels squealing against the tiles.

“No pulse! He flatlined en route!” one of the first responders calls out as they rush the patient in.

I’m the closest, so I quickly fall into step beside them, the other nurses right behind me. Once I’m up to speed, I jump onto the moving gurney, straddling the patient and getting my hands in position. In the ER, a single second can mean life or death.

“Starting compressions!” Fingers laced, I press the heels of my palms to the patient’s sternum and go. “One, two, three, four, five, six…” I fall into rhythm as the gurney rolls into Resus 2, the ER smearing into motion around me—monitors humming, leads connecting, packaging tearing. “…eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…”

My arms begin to burn somewhere around thirty. By fifty, sweat is prickling along my forehead and sliding down my back, but I don’t slow down. I grit my teeth. Come on. Come on, damn it, stay with me. “…fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight…”

Nurse Collins, my preceptor, steps up beside the gurney, slapping the defibrillator pads together. “Keep going, Turner. Charging.”

I nod, tilting my head the slightest bit so my sweat doesn’t drip onto the patient. “Seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five…”

“Ready. Everyone clear!”

I pull my hands away and jump off the gurney just as Nurse Collins closes in and plants the pads on the man’s chest. The discharge cracks through the air, and the body jerks with the shock. For a charged moment, the only sound is the hum of the monitors.

Then—beep. And another, and another. Beep, beep, beep. A weak but steady rhythm crawls across the screen. The room takes a collective breath of relief.

“Sinus rhythm,” Nurse Collins mutters, eyes locked on the monitor.

My death grip on the gurney railing goes slack, my knuckles aching from how hard I’d been white-knuckling it. The man lets out a deep, rattling cough, and I reach for the oxygen mask, but one of the other nurses beats me to it. Not that I mind. He’s alive. That’s the only thing that matters.

I take a trembling step back, my limbs jelly as I watch the team hook him up to lines and stabilize his vitals.

“You did well today, Turner.” I lift my head from my hands to see Nurse Collins lowering herself onto the bench next to me. “Your quick thinking saved that man’s life.”

In twelve weeks of clinical rotations, this is the nearest she’s come to a compliment.

“Thank you.”

“Your shift’s over. Why are you still here?”

I blink, realizing she came out here to check on me. The thought touches me more than I expect. “I-I needed a moment before the walk home,” I quietly admit.