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“Take a picture of that board before you wipe it,” I demanded when things finally started to slow down. “I want to show that jerk the next time we see him.”
“He’ll probably just call it a coincidence,” Michael said, but took the picture anyway before wiping it.
“Okay. How about you run and get us some sandwiches?” I asked, since it was pretty much the only place somewhat nearby that was still open this late at night.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Michael said.
“It’s fine. It’s slow now,” I reminded him, waving to the waiting room that I really needed to wipe down, but my feet were begging for five minutes off of them first.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, shaking his head.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. We hadn’t had anything sketchy go on since our sweet nurse got shot. She was fine. Recovering. At home. Where she was going to go ahead and collect unemployment for a while as she figured out what she wanted to do next.
“Half an hour,” Michael said after his stomach let out another pained grumble. “Not a minute more,” he assured me.
“We’re fine,” I said again.
I mean, Dex—our guard—wasn’t exactly a highly-trained professional. But he was someone around between myself and any dangerous persons. Not that I was worried. I’d dealt with many a combative or psychotic patient before.
Once you’d been screamed at or struck by a patient a time or two, it lost a lot of its shock and upsetment.
I watched Michael get into his car because, as much as he was overprotective of me, I was the same of him, then went behind the nurse’s station to sit and kick up my feet.
What I really wanted was to slip my feet out of the cursed shoes, but I knew better. If you kept them on, your body just continued to deal with the pain at the same level. If you took them off and they got a moment of relief, it was ten times worse to put them on again.
No, there was no actual science behind this, but I knew enough about being on my feet all day to know that much.
I didn’t immediately jump up when I saw a car screech to a halt outside the glass doors out front.
Someone probably got hurt. Or a kid had a fever and a worried mama.
But the car just peeled away a moment later without anyone getting out.
Or so I thought.
Until I saw someone coming in, his body bent forward, hiding his face, each step seeming to bring on a wave of pain as he made his way through the doors and into my waiting room.
It was then I saw the blood covering his hands that he was holding to his side, putting pressure on a wound.
His head lifted.
And I felt like the entire world went off-kilter, making me slam my hand on the desk to steady myself before I got to my feet.
“Whoa there. Gotta wait for the doctor to say you can come back, man,” Dex said, holding one hand up and out, the other one sitting on top of the baton at his hip.
“Seeley?” I hissed, shouldering past my guard.
“Know you hate me, Ama,” he said with a troubling strobe-like breath. “But think maybe you can forget that long enough to heal me up?”
Those were the last things he said before he started to hurtle toward the floor.
Rushing forward, I grabbed him around the sides, stopping him from slamming his head off the floor, but not from dropping down on his knees hard.
The impact had his head whipping back and his eyes opening again, unfocused for a second before they seemed to see me.
A small smile toyed with his lips.
“Never get used to all that pretty up close,” he murmured before drifting out of consciousness again.
