AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The ambulance arrived, and two strong EMTs climbed out. Their eyes were somber as they looked at me. Then they glanced at one another. And like any two people that had worked together long enough, they had a conversation without speaking that said they knew what had happened to me.
The dark-haired EMT pulled open the back doors of the ambulance and with the help of his partner, extracted the stretcher. They set it on the ground next to me and then eased me onto it.
Even though their touch was professional and gentle, it felt like a thousand insects crawled along my skin, making me want to burrow deeper inside my body for protection.
They pressed a button and the machine raised me up, and they wheeled me to the ambulance doors, and then slid me inside.
It wasn’t until they tried to strap me in for safety that I balked.
“No,” I croaked, attempting to summon whatever strength I had left. “Don’t tie me down.”
“We have to,” the blond said, his blue eyes flashing with concern. “It’s for your own safety.”
“No! Don’t tie me down!” I yelled. My throat was raw, and my voice cracked.
I screamed even as they ignored my pleas. I flailed and thrashed, knowing I could do more damage to myself, but I didn’t care.
Mia climbed aboard the ambulance. “Linden,” she soothed. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No,” I cried, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. “It’ll never be okay. Never again.”
I was trapped on a gurney, trapped in my own body when all I wanted to do was flee. Leave this broken, bag of bones behind and start fresh.
But there was no escape from my own mind, no escape from pain, no escape from the life I was now living.
“John,” the dark haired EMT said.
“I got it,” John replied.
I looked at Mia and whispered, “Don’t leave me.”
And then I passed out.
* * *
My eyes flipped open, and I stared at a white ceiling. I detected no pain, nor any sort of feeling in my limbs. I was living in a general state of numbness, for which I was grateful.
Numb was better than fear.
Numb was better than pain.
And it was certainly better than wanting to rake dirty broken fingernails against my skin in an ineffectual attempt of trying to depart my own body.
I looked away from the ceiling down at my right hand. It was in a cast because it had been mutilated, demolished.
My left was intact.
It didn’t matter though. I was a surgeon.
Was.
Oh my God.
“Linden,” he said.
His voice was low and rumbly. Once upon a time, it would’ve made shivers of pleasure dance up and down my spine.
Now…
