Forsaken: A Fallen Siren Novella (17 page)

Eric ordered a CT with and without contrast, type and screen/cross. “I’ll meet you in radiology,” he said before walking out of the room.

Laura turned to the lab technician. “Did you get that?”

“Yeah.”

“Run a CBC, Coag profile and lytes as well.”

“Got it covered.” The petite Asian woman began to search for a vein.

They were going to operate. I ducked out into the hall, my stomach in knots. “Eric!”

He paused and turned back to face me. “She important to you?”

I nodded.

“She’ll be okay, Wes. Have I ever let you down?”

The question made me chuckle. “Too many times to count.” I looked him in the eye. “But never when it really mattered.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.”

The elevator arrived and Eric ran to catch it, leaving me alone in the long, sterile hall with blood on my hands and remorse in my heart. It was my cock-up, my fault that Katherine was in that carriage, my fault she was here. It was all my fault.

“Wes? I thought you might want to hold onto this.” Laura placed Katherine’s engagement ring in the palm of my hand. “We’re taking her up to CT. We’ve got to get her registered. Is there family to notify?”

“Family? Yes. In the States. I’ll take care of it.” They wheeled her past me on a gurney. There were lines and tubes everywhere. It seemed surreal.

“Wes?” Laura was frowning. “Are you all right?”

“Me? Yeah. I’m fine. Go.”

Laura started after the trolley. “Do me a favor. Go to A & E and get checked out, just to make sure?” she shouted back over her shoulder.

I agreed.

“Doctor?” The paramedic was standing just inside the entrance. He was holding Katherine’s purse and my coat. “The belongings?”

“I’ll take them.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cigarettes. My hands were shaking, but I managed to get one out of the pack.

“Need a light?” he asked as we stepped outside into the cool night air.

“Thanks, I’ve got one.” I sat on a nearby bench and began to search though my jacket pockets. Then I remembered I no longer had my lighter. Mark had dropped it and I never picked it back up. I checked my watch. Had it really been just a few hours since I’d committed to abstain from the fags for the night?

“You smoke?” Katherine asked, surprise evident in her voice.

“Yeah.” I placed the cig between my lips and flipped open the cover of my lighter.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that’s bad for you?”

“A man needs some vices.” I shrugged.

“How come I didn’t smell it on you earlier?”

“I showered? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe you haven’t gotten close enough.” I stepped closer.

“Whoa there, cowboy! I agreed to a perfectly platonic dinner. Just two people eating food and watching a play.” She pulled the cigarette out of my mouth and placed her hand on my chest.

“Together, like a date.” Clearly I wasn’t going to have time for a smoke.

“Date? This isn’t a date!”

“It isn’t?”

“No!”

“You sure?”

“Yes!” she said, getting increasingly flustered. “I told you, I’m engaged.”

“I, for one, thought this was a date.” I couldn’t help but smile.

She changed the subject. “Why don’t you quit smoking?”

“I guess I just haven’t found the proper motivation. Tell you what, kiss me and I’ll abstain, from the fags that is, for the rest of the night.”

“What about tomorrow, or the next day?”

“That depends,” I told her as I leaned forward and lowered my lips to hers.

“On what?”

“On how well you kiss.”

“What on earth are you doing here at this time of night? I thought you psychiatrists all kept normal business hours?”

Pulled back to the present, I noticed one of the critical care nurses coming toward me from the parking lot.

“Hey.” I tossed the pack of cigarettes into the dustbin beside the bench.

“Jesus, what happened to you?”

I glanced down at my shirt. It was spattered with blood. When I looked back up, the nurse was staring at Katherine’s bag. I’d almost forgotten it was there.

I picked it up and started to search through the contents. There was a gold compact, a tube of lipstick, a wallet and a mobile phone. I pulled the phone from the bag, opened it up, glanced at the display, then snapped it closed.

“Dr. Atherton?”

“Hm?”

She had taken a seat next to me, concern etched on her face. “What happened?”

My eyes burned. My head was pounding. I didn’t know where to start.

“There was an accident, in the Tube,” I finally managed to choke out. “My date, Katherine, she uh…she…”

“She got hurt?”

I nodded. “It looks like she has a subdural. She’s in CT now. I think Eric’s going to do a crainy. I’ve got to call her mum.”

“Can I help?”

“No. Thanks. I can handle it. I’ll see you up on the ward in a bit. Katherine will be coming your way, no doubt.”

The nurse nodded. “She’s in good hands with Mr. Riley.”

“I know. Go on. You’re going to be late for your shift.”

“I’ll have a fresh pot of coffee waiting,” she promised before walking away.

I took a deep, steadying breath, opened the mobile once again and started to scroll through the recently dialed numbers. George. Damien. Mom work. Home. I dialed home.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Lawson? My name is Wesley Atherton. I’m calling from London. I’m a friend of Katherine’s—”

“Has something happened to Kate?”

I took a fortifying breath and then tried to calmly explain.

“I was out with your daughter tonight. We had dinner and went to the theater. We took the Tube and on the way back… Well, there was an accident. The carriage we were in derailed. I’m afraid Katherine was injured.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She’s being evaluated. They’re doing a CT now. She’s unconscious. She may need surgery.”

“What kind of surgery?”

“Neurosurgery.”

“Dear God,” Katherine’s mother gasped.

“We’ll know more shortly. I’ll call you back when there’s news. I’ll have her mobile if you want to reach me.”

“Let me get a pen. What was your name again?”

“Wesley Atherton. Dr. Wesley Atherton. She’s in good hands, I assure you.”

“You’re a medical doctor?”

“I’m a psychiatrist.”

“Where is she? What hospital?”

“We’re at Saint Catherine’s, in Camden Town.”

I walked back into the hospital and headed for the radiology department.

“Dr. Atherton?”

“Wes,” I said. “Call me Wes. And you are?”

“Julia. Don’t lie to me, Wes. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“It could be. The truth is, we don’t have enough information yet.”

“I’ll be on the next flight. If Kate wakes up, tell her I’m on my way.”

“Will do.”

I pushed through the swinging double doors. The receptionist behind the counter pointed me to room three.

“I’m counting on you to take care of her,” Julia said.

“You have my word,” I assured her before ringing off. “What’s the verdict?” Eric and Laura were standing in front of a series of images.

“See this?” Eric pointed to the film. “The hyperdense crescentic mass—”

“Subdural hematoma?”

“Exactly. I’ll make a couple burr holes, to relieve the pressure. I say we continue conservatively for now, a corticosteroid, to reduce the inflammation and swelling, and an anticonvulsant to control her seizures.”

“She had a seizure?”

“A mild one. It didn’t last long. Let’s scrub,” Eric said. “The sooner we get her in, the better.”

“You haven’t had your shoulder looked at yet, have you?” Laura asked as she backed out the door.

“I’m heading over to the A & E now. Anything happens…”

“I’ll page you,” she assured me.

* * * *

“Jesus, Wes, I heard what happened. Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s been a crazy night,” said the resident.

“No worries. I’ve already had the x-ray.”

“I saw it. Did you really get some kid to pop your shoulder back in?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The paramedics that brought you in. Is it true?”

“Yeah. How’s the x-ray look?”

“Kid did a great job. You’ll need to keep it immobilized for a week or so. You should see an orthopedist though.”

He wrote out a prescription, then handed me the slip of paper. As soon as I read it, I tried to give it back.

“I don’t need that. Just give me a couple ibuprofen.”

“You say that now. Fill the prescription that way if you need it, you’ll have it.”

As he left the examination room I heard him call out to one of the nurses. “Some ibuprofen and a sling for Dr. Atherton here. We need to immobilize his shoulder.”

I leaned back against the wall. The evening had started off so well. I closed my eyes and a series of images washed over me.

The wind blowing Katherine’s hair in her face as we walked to the restaurant. The sideways glance she threw my direction during dinner when she thought I wasn’t looking. I lifted the collar of my shirt and inhaled. I could still smell traces of her on it, where she’d comfortably rested her head during much of the play.

I remembered the way she’d laughed as we ran from the theater to a taxi in the pouring rain. How her breath hitched when I’d pulled her close in the back of the cab. How she’d gasped, opening her luscious mouth to invite me in when I crushed my lips to hers.

Even now, I could almost feel the curve of her breast beneath my hand. The way her nipple had hardened through her bra and silk blouse when I’d brushed my thumb across it. The warmth of her breath. Those deliciously intoxicating panting sounds she’d made as I kissed down the long column of her neck and across her collarbone. Her lustful moan as I slipped my hand up her leg, under her skirt. And the exquisite realization that her legs were willingly parting for me, in encouragement, in need.

“Wes,” she moaned. “Don’t. Stop.”

“I won’t,” I assured her. “I’ll never stop.”

“No. I mean, stop. He’s…he’s watching us,” Katherine whispered. “What am I doing? This isn’t me.” She was gasping for air, her chest rising and falling rapidly in the heat of passion.

“Let him,” I growled, crushing my mouth to hers in another demanding kiss as my hand continued the forbidden journey under her skirt and up her leg.

I was getting hard again, just from the mere thought of her.

“So, do you need some help with that?”

My eyes flew open. I hadn’t heard the nurse come in.

“The ibuprofen.” She nodded toward the sealed packet and cup of water on the bedside table.

“No, thanks. I’ve got it.” I picked the packet up with my good hand, tore it open with my teeth, and poured the two tabs out onto my waiting tongue. I dropped the empty packet back onto the tray, then washed the pills down with a swig of water.

“Dr. Atherton to recovery. Wesley Atherton to recovery,” came the overhead page.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Let’s get this sling on first.”

She worked quickly, then sent me on my way. The elevator took too long, so I opted for the stairs.

Eric was waiting for me in the hallway outside of recovery to escort me to Katherine’s bedside.

“She came through the surgery just fine,” he said as we walked. “Her vitals are stable. We’ll keep her here for a while longer, just to make sure, then she’ll go up to ICU.”

“Okay.”

The recovery room was cold. Katherine looked small and pale against the stark white sheets.

“Sprain?” He nodded toward my sling.

“Dislocated shoulder. I’ll be fine.”

Eric looked like he had something to say. Normally he wasn’t one to hold back.

“Out with it.”

“Laura seems to think that the two of you are engaged.”

I slid my free hand into the pocket of my trousers and fingered Katherine’s ring.

“Well, she’s half right,” I admitted, remembering the moment we first met.

“Here, take my seat.” I offered my seat to the elderly woman who’d boarded at Moorgate Station.

“That was nice of you.”

I shrugged off the compliment. “Yeah? Well, don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

I turned around and looked into the most beautiful pair of green eyes I’d ever seen.

“What? I have spinach in my teeth, don’t I? I knew I should have chosen the pasta salad for lunch.”

I grabbed hold of the bar she’d been holding on to so that my hand was positioned adjacent to hers. “No. It’s your eyes. They’re stunning.”

“Are you sure there’s no spinach?” she asked, grinning widely, showing me her teeth.

“No spinach,” I confirmed. “You’re American?”

“Yup! Guilty as charged.”

“Visiting?”

“Here for a few months, finishing my masters.”

As we pulled into the next stop I glanced down and noticed the ring. The car lurched, throwing the American off balance and she bumped into me. Without thought I reached out and wrapped my arm around her waist. As soon as I was able to steady myself I apologized and let go.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She looked away shyly.

“Really?” I slipped my arm back around her waist. “Have dinner with me.”

“What? No! What are you doing?” She pushed my arm away.

“You said it was okay.”

“Because it was an accident. I’m engaged.” She held up her hand and wiggled the finger that held her engagement ring.

“That is not an engagement ring.”

“What do you mean?” She pulled her hand back and looked at the classically simple solitaire. “Of course it’s an engagement ring.”

“You’re not going to marry him. He’s all wrong for you.”