Nightfall (6 page)

Roxanne whistled through her teeth at the wound on Izzy’s thigh.

“I did my best to clean it once I woke up,” Izzy said. Her voice had lost that panicked edge once she had managed to get back out of her jeans and was lying down. The neutral tone was its own kind of worry, though. It might mean that she was going into shock. “But it’s a mess, and I need some help.” The girl chuckled. The sound was cracked and jagged.

Roxanne felt around the wound as gently as she could. “Izzy, this isn’t something we can just wash out and you can pretend it didn’t happen. Steri-strips or dermabond aren’t going to cut it. You need stitches, you need a tetanus shot, you need antibiotics.” She took a deep breath and tried to sound like the convincing and concerned older sister. “You need to be admitted. I can’t get you any of those things without you as a patient. I would if I could, but—”

“No,” Izzy said, shaking her head. “You don’t understand.” She reached for her jeans on the edge of a chair, but sagged back against the bed, her face tight with pain when the wound pulled.

“Is it the money thing? The hospital will take care of you, even if your insurance hasn’t kicked in yet. Or because you don’t want people to find out you were with a woman?” Izzy’s eyes flicked up to Roxanne’s, and then away. “No one cares. You’re a good nurse, that’s all they care about here.” She let the silence stretch for a moment. “You know the rates of infection from human bites. If we’d been able to clean it immediately, maybe, but this happened—what, eight hours ago? No way. The tissue might even be dying in some of these spots. You need anesthetic, and to have the edges trimmed.”

“I like your world,” Izzy said. “Everything’s simple there.”

Roxanne brushed Izzy’s bangs back from her face, feeling the heat rising off the girl’s forehead. “I work twelve hour shifts, four days a week. I don’t have time to make things all complex and stupid just to keep me entertained. When I want that, I turn on the entertainment news and have a grand ole time.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and thought for a minute. “Stick tight. I just got here; I don’t know who’s on Charge yet. Let me see if I can finagle something.”

* * *

It took a solid twenty minutes to find the charge nurse—Sam, today, a transplant from New Orleans who kept his dark hair shaved close to his skull and wore an easy smile in all but the most dire circumstances. “I have a patient with a bad wound on her leg,” Roxanne told him. “She’s refusing to be admitted, but it would be irresponsible for me to let her leave without receiving some care. Please, is there anything we can do?”

Sam studied her for a long minute, his eyes steady and focused, as if he could see right through her. Roxanne did her best to stay innocent and unexciting. “Audits have been good so far this month. If we’re down one tray at the end of the fiscal, I don’t think anyone will create too much fuss. Especially if it goes on record as dropped and needing to be disposed. You dig?”

Roxanne thought about hugging him. “I dig. I very dig.”

“Tell Izzy her secret’s safe with me,” he said.

“Izzy? I don’t…” She let her voice trail off when his raised eyebrow made it very clear that she wasn’t fooling him at all.

She went back into 24 with a tray of instruments, sutures, saline, local anesthetic, and a tetanus shot. Izzy had clearly tried to put her jeans on again; the wound had reopened, and was weeping blood. She winced when Roxanne injected the local, but didn’t make any sound. After a few moments, Izzy’s face relaxed, and her eyes opened. “
Ay Dio
, I didn’t realize how much that hurt until just now.”

“I’m glad it’s feeling better,” Roxanne said. “Do you, you know, tend to want people to bite you?” She kept her tone light, and was relieved when Izzy laughed.

“No, Roxita. No, I do not like being bitten. At least, not that hard.” She sighed.

“It seems like there’s something else going on, Izzy. Something you’re not talking about.”

Izzy sighed, covered her eyes with her forearm, and was silent for a little while. “Do you ever get the sense,” she said, after a bit, “That there’s more to this world than we know?”

“More how?”

“More everything. More than you can see, hear, smell, taste, feel?”

“Always,” Roxanne said. “Every time we think we know everything, we get a better microscope or a faster accelerator or something, and we see more of the universe.”

“What about more than that?”

“Are you talking about magic? And the work you do?”

She felt Izzy’s eyes land on her with far more weight than the girl’s twenty-three years should have given her.

“You’re not really subtle about it, Iz. And I don’t think I could live here my whole life without picking up a few words of Spanish.”

The weight of Izzy’s eyes didn’t decrease. “Don’t talk about it, okay? It’s not something that’s… well understood.”

Roxanne nodded. “I wouldn’t, Izzy. It’s not my story to tell.” She worked on the wound until she felt the tension fade out of Izzy’s muscles. “Did you know the guy in this room walked out on his own before shift change this morning?”

“Really? He was carved all to hell from what you said.”

“He was.” Roxanne was quiet, trying to find the right words to ask you question. “Could you have—?”

“No,” Izzy said. “And even if I could have, I wouldn’t have. Everything requires balance,
nena
, everything needs a trade. Even if I could, doing it for a stranger?
No
. I help people heal their stories. The teas and the sage and the all of that… it’s about fixing their stories so they can be part of the community again.”

“Okay,” Roxanne said. “I had to ask.”

“Sure,” Izzy replied, her tone even and kind. “No harm done.”

“You’re as patched up as I can get you without admitting you,” Roxanne said. “Someone should look at that in the next few days, make sure that it’s healing up right. And you really should be on antibiotics. Promise me you’ll rest the next few days at least.”

“Yes,” Izzy said. “Promise. No more dancing for me. Possibly ever. I’ll be the crazy old lady with all the cats. I’ll get started now so that the colony will be flourishing when I’m forty.”

“Good plan.” Roxanne watched her friend hitch her jeans up carefully. “You’d tell me if there was something going on that you knew about, wouldn’t you?”

Izzy met her eyes without wavering. “Absolutely.”

* * *

She was most of the way through her shift before she had a chance to go to her locker. Once she’d gotten Izzy patched up and on her way, her psych patient needed to be transferred up to the appropriate unit, and she had to write up the chart, take her up, and give report. She was glad she knew everyone on the floor; it made her feel like her purse was at least a little bit safer.

The lockers in the nurses’ lounge weren’t labeled. Everyone had their favorite, but no one got too upset about it. So when she opened the door of the locker she usually used and found an envelope with her name on it, she was more than a little surprised.

She put her purse down and turned the envelope over. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but that just meant it wasn’t doctor scrawl; there wasn’t all that much handwriting of other sorts that she saw these days. Texts and ringtones, those she could identify at twenty paces. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten a card, an actual handwritten card.

There was a smell to it. Something pleasant, something earthy. Pineish. She found herself putting the card to her nose and inhaling deeply, luxuriating in the sheer thickness of the scent, and the way it cut right to the core of her, lighting her on fire in a way that few things ever did.

She’d sat down on the old couch that rested against one wall of the lounge, her legs curled up under her like a girl. She felt her clit, swollen and throbbing, and her mind flashed with memories of last night, memories of coming again and again, fantasizing about Julian leaning down over her, catching her nipples between his teeth and tugging—

Her sharp little gasp made her realize the reality around her. She closed her eyes and forced a ragged breath in and then out again. She was at work. This was no place to play her little games. Although the idea of being secreted away in a closet, clinging to shelves for balance while some faceless man took her from behind, toyed with her ass while he pounded away at her with his thick cock—

Focus, girl. Seriously
.

She slid her finger under the flap of the envelope and opened it. There was a card inside, on crisp paper that hadn’t come from the hospital. She pulled it out. The handwriting was crisp, clean. No extra flourishes or fancy curlicues.

Roxanne,

I meant to stay until I could speak to you again, but I have reason to believe that I am being pursued. My wounds are healing well, but I’ve never faced such grievous injuries before. I wonder if I might be able to arrange to have you take a look? I would be happy to repay you with a fee, as well as dinner.

With kind thoughts,

Julian

She stared at the note for a long time, and at the phone number he’d listed at the bottom of the card. There was no way he’d gotten this paper inside the hospital, and he’d come into room 24 naked as a jaybird, so he must have—what, left the hospital, gone and gotten pen and paper to write his missive, and then brought it back? And he’d known which of the empty bank of lockers she would use by, what, smelling for her? The creep factor was incredibly high.

He wasn’t native to Sweetwater. She’d know him if he was. And his parents, and his grandparents, and probably his second cousins. Not knowing him didn’t add any ease to her feelings. But it did add a hint of excitement. Not healthy excitement, she was quite sure of that, but still. Excitement.

“What the hell,” she said out loud, and picked up the phone to call the number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

His voice was deep and satiny. “Hello. Is this Julian?”

“Yes. Roxanne.” It wasn’t a question, and she was quite sure she heard some relief in his voice. “I’m sorry that I had to leave so quickly.”

“I am too,” she said. “How’s your leg? Any bleeding?”

“None,” he said. “No heat, no seepage. It’s healing well, I’m quite sure.” He paused, and then laughed, a sound that sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. “Honestly, crying ‘wound care’ was just to get the nurse side of you on the phone. I truly want to take you out for coffee. Maybe dinner, if you like the coffee.”

This was everything she’d been schooling herself to avoid for years. She’d dated local boys, stayed safe, stayed careful. Dating strangers was asking for trouble.

But if they went to a public place… nursing had given her pretty good radar for when people were a little off or
more
than a little off. And she’d do all the safe things: let someone know where she was going, and when to expect her back, and all of it. Because her fantasies of him were the first thing that had really made her burn in years, and she had to find out. She just had to know if it would last.

“I’d like that,” she said. “I get off shift at 3pm today. Call it 5, give me a chance to shower and change?”

“Wonderful,” he replied. He sounded relieved, like he really hadn’t been sure that she’d agree. That was good. Enough confidence to ask without enough to be a jerk about it. “Should I pick you up or—”

“No, that’s all right, I have a car,” she said. “Let’s meet at the diner on Main Street. The food’s good, and the coffee’s great.”

“All right,” he said. “5 it is.”

There was a long moment of hesitation. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say something or not, so she let the silence hang out awkwardly.