I nod. “No. Yes. I mean no.” Taking a deep breath, I say firmly, “Yes.”
She looks equally unconvinced. “Really? You’re ready to go home with a husband who has a freshly sealed fatal femoral artery wound, who doesn’t remember you and thinks you mowed him down in the street to test your fancy new technology?”
I bite back a sob. “Is this really my life?”
“Ask yourself that when the sun comes up,” Annie says, turning to walk back to Luca. “I need to get the fuck out of here and have a drink.”
11EMERY
The plan is to move quickly and get Luca home under the cover of darkness. He’s not exactly steady on his feet, so he’ll have to leave the way he came in: on the gurney. He begrudgingly agrees; it’s being covered by a sheet like a corpse that takes a bit more convincing. In truth, we’re lucky he agrees to anything. He could just start screaming. He could find a phone and call the police. He’d be taken to a hospital, I’d be taken to jail, and he’d never have to see me again. Well, except when he’d be called to testify at my eventual trial.
I have to believe he doesn’t freak out because somewhere deep inside, a part of him remembers me, or at the very least doesn’t believe I tried to kill him. Which… whatever. I’ll take it.
Thankfully, Michelle is as hard-core about hydration near the end of her shift as she was at the beginning, and we catch her needing the bathroom again. It’s a win for all of us: She doesn’t have to wait until her allotted break time when a replacement comes in, and I’m able to push the gurney (and Luca) through the door without her knowing. Honestly, I wonder what Michelle does on the nights when peoplearen’tsneaking into the lab, but I can’t fixate on her potential bathroom hacks at the moment. I have bigger things to think about.
Like getting past Chatty Carl again.
When we reach the elevator, Annie goes first, distracting Carl by showing him that shecanpush the button (subtly using her thumb instead of index finger) and a different elevator will open and take themboth to the tenth floor. I use those few precious seconds to get Luca through the lobby unnoticed.
It’s mostly smooth sailing until we need to leave the gurney at the loading dock. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but nothing about this situation is normal.
Luca has a limp, of course—he was hit by a car a handful of hours ago—but he also walks like it’s his first day with two new legs. I can practically see the synapses re-forming as he attempts to steady himself, and while part of me wants to log everything—because quite frankly, this is fascinating to watch—the bigger part of me knows that the clock is ticking.
“We have to get him inside before Betty is up,” I say, guiding his arm over my shoulder while Annie goes to his other side to help. A thought stops me in my tracks. “Oh my God. What if she was watching out her window and saw?”
“Then she would have already called the cops on you.” Annie pauses. “Again. And they’d probably already be here.Orwaiting for you at home…”
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Who’s Betty?” Luca asks, voice strained as he works to put one foot in front of another.
“Our nosy next-door neighbor who’s obsessed with you,” I tell him. “She’s the neighborhood curtain-twitcher who writes down everything everyone does. She hates me.”
He’s quiet at this, and Annie and I exchange a glance as we register in unison that Luca thinks Betty might be justified.
Luca’s asleep before we’re even out of the parking lot, and then at home almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
There wasn’t a SWAT team surrounding our house, so that’s onething I have going for me. And Annie’s shady cleaner/delivery friend has obviously been here, because the broken glass is gone. And the blood? Like it was never there. Not a trace of gore anywhere.
This fixer has also set up every piece of medical equipment I could possibly need in the bedroom. When Annie mentioned supplies, I imagined a couple rolls of gauze or alcohol pads, but no. Thanks to her, I have an oxygen monitor clamped over Luca’s right index finger and a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm. EKG electrodes are taped to his chest, and he’s beneath an electric warming blanket. Out of an abundance of caution, I’m also giving him extra oxygen.
All this and I still can’t bring myself to leave his side and simply let him sleep. I haven’t eaten in… honestly, I don’t remember the last time I ate. I know I need to sleep, too. But adrenaline and anxiety streak through my bloodstream; I’m so jittery I’m trembling.
At around 5 a.m., I text Crash that Luca is under the weather, and after a series of thumbs-up emojis he lets me know he can handle their work solo today. Relieved, I drop my head onto the mattress at Luca’s hip.
Annie peeks into the bedroom. “I’m going to head out,” she says. “The dogs will riot if I’m not there to feed them by sunrise.”
I nod against the mattress, imagining the scene awaiting her. Annie takes all the abandoned animals, often performing surgery or treating them herself before bringing them home. She even bought a piece of property when she sold her clinic in the hope of one day turning it into some kind of animal sanctuary. Right now, she’s got Lieutenant Dan, a twelve-year-old Chihuahua who lost both his back legs to intervertebral disc disease but probably breaks land speed records in his tiny rear-wheel dog cart; Tiny, a five-year-old Great Dane who might be deaf but can smell the cheese drawer open at least two seconds before it actually happens; Butterscotch, a one-eyed Yorkie who works a thankless full-time job protecting the house against the UPS driver; and Miso, ananxious Lab mix that gives such voracious kisses she could probably remove fingerprints with her tongue.
“I want to bring Honey here,” she says in the doorway, and I grunt my interest into the mattress. “I think Luca will feel better seeing how good she’s doing, how healthy.”
Now I look up. I hadn’t thought of this, and honestly, I should have. Honey, a nine-year-old golden retriever–husky mix, was the first dog we brought back with the BioVIVE.
She’d been hit by a car and left on the side of the road with no other identifiable information but a collar with her name on it. She’d lost a significant amount of blood by the time she was found and technically died on a veterinary OR table, but was successfully revived using the BioVIVE protocol: injection with Compound Y within ten minutes of clinical death, followed immediately by treatment in the BioVIVE pod.
Annie took her in, nursed her back to health, and monitored her recovery. It was clear Honey had once been someone’s pet, but she wasn’t chipped, and nobody checked with the office to claim her. She also didn’t seem to recognize her name or even remember she had once been potty-trained.
Luca and I have long talked about getting a dog, but I always argued that I wasn’t home enough and wouldn’t want to put a pet through that. God, the obliviousness of past Emery.
