Rouge
I
SABELLA
M
ODRA
www.isabellamodra.com
Cover art ©
Renu
Sharma
|
www.thedarkrayne.com
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9922776-1-1
This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or, if real, used
fictiously
.
All respective quotes used in this book are for reference purpose only and
their copyright belongs to their respective owners.
The author holds all exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized
duplication is prohibited.
D
EDICATION
F
OR MY
H
EAVENLY
F
ATHER, WHO TAUGHT ME TO
DREAM,
A
ND FOR
C
HARLLEY, WHO
WAS ALWAYS THERE
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincerest thanks goes out to my incredible self-publishing team of
‘experts’. To my publicity manager
Caity
, for helping
me get tech-savvy. To my friends, for reading even the rawest bits of meat I
threw onto the paper. To the wonderful people I met online that so graciously
read and reviewed ARC copies, I am eternally grateful for your support. To Dad,
for your
insights and opinions that
always made me rearrange the
whole
story. To those of you who encouraged me to do it my own way, I owe the
motivation. To
Renu
for the beautiful cover art.
And my deepest gratitude I will forever owe to God, without whom this
story would not exist at all.
‘
O
NLY
PASSIONS, GREAT PASSIONS, CAN
ELEVATE THE SOUL TO GREAT THINGS.’
-
D
ENIS
D
IDEROT
T
ABLE
O
F
C
ONTENTS
PART 1 - A SPARK IGNITES
PART 2 - THE DARKNESS
PART 3 - TO BE A HERO
PART 4 - PROMISES
PART 5 - THE EMBERS THAT REMAIN
–
P
ART
1
–
a
spark ignites
o
ne
As his heart beat its last beat and he collapsed
on the operating table, Liz saw in his eyes an indescribable amount of pain
before they went blank. It was not a physical pain, as you would expect of
death, but pain of the mind.
The heart-rate monitor
beeped a long, endless tone. Stepping back shakily, Dr. Elizabeth Phillips and
the nurse gazed down at the mess of sweat, grime and blood slashed across the
patient’s pale chest and suddenly, for the first time in years, Liz couldn’t
feel her feet.
He shouldn’t have died.
He should have caught his breath.
Pink circles like slices of
ham marked the place where the electrode paddles had seared his chest. Pearly,
glazed eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling and a line of froth moved at
snail-pace down his scruffy cheek. Everything he wore – right down to the
frayed fingerless gloves and tattered gray parka – reeked of pungent body odor,
street sweat and homelessness.
But it was only a
seizure.
Liz knew that seizures were
rarely fatal, even for a person whose immune system would be weakened by the cold
of the streets. What had gone wrong? More importantly, what had
she
done
wrong?
The mask caught onto her
deep mahogany curls as she ripped it away from her mouth and told herself to
breathe properly. The putrefying odor was beginning to choke her.
Halfway out the emergency
doors with thoughts of finally going home after a very long day in the ER, Liz
had already signed out when the paramedic team burst out of the ambulance. On a
stretcher they wheeled a man covered in blood, thrashing like a maniac and
screaming for release. She was one of the only doctors on duty that night and
although she was drained, her instincts kicked in. The symptoms were obviously
epileptic, although his temperature was climbing and he had large bloody gashes
in is arms. Ignoring this, Liz directed them into the operating room. There,
she turned him on his side, attached a gas mask and waited for the fit to pass.
Only it didn’t.
His heart rate shot up so
suddenly it was as if the sound of the monitor was a grenade about to detonate.
Liz was good under stress, but this patient frightened her. She didn’t know
what he’d been taking, therefore she didn’t know how to treat him. And no force
of electricity could revive him. His heart simply stopped functioning.
“I’m calling it,” she sighed
and turned to Olivia, who hooked the paddles back on the machine, switched it
off and turned to face her. “Time of death?”
“1:29 am,” said Olivia.
There was something else on the tip of her tongue, but she was clearly too
afraid to voice it.
“Cover him up then. And can
you print a copy of the readings? Just put them in my office, I’ll look through
it on Monday.”
Olivia did as she was asked,
drawing the blue sheet over the man’s legs, waist, stomach-
“Wait!”
Olivia froze with the sheet clamped
in her hands.
Something glinted in the
white fluorescent light dangling from the ceiling. Apprehensively, Liz reached
into the patient’s coat pocket and retrieved a rusty Swiss Army knife, slashed
with blood.
“I guess being homeless
wasn’t the most fulfilling life choice.” Olivia indicated to the wide slices in
his arms and paint-strokes of blood across his face and neck. Liz gave her a
harsh look and she recoiled. “I mean uh… he mustn’t be epileptic. Anyone
expecting it would put the knife away, right?”
She handed Olivia the knife
and threw her gloves in the trash beside the operating table. “Put this in the
report too,” she muttered.
“Should I also mention his
ramblings?”
Liz dipped a nod. That had
been the strangest part of this very strange emergency. Just when she thought
the electrode paddles had slowed his irritated heart, the patient suddenly
lurched upright on the bed – almost knocking Olivia clean out – and snatched at
Liz’s arm as though he were grasping for his life. With spit flying from
between his decayed teeth, he screamed, “
It’s burning! Please stop it, it’s
burning!”
Mortified, she’d wrenched
his hand away, the patient’s nails ripping at her skin, and the moment she lost
contact he fell back on the table and died. It would be a long time before Liz
could forget that look of utter agony in his eyes just before his heart failed.
“Yes,” said Liz.
“Everything. Make sure the body is sent off to examination for an autopsy.
We’ll need to know for sure if he was epileptic. Can you handle this?”
“I sure can.” Olivia covered
the rest of the body and began switching off the electrical appliances. As Liz
turned, Olivia gave her what would have been her usual warm smile, were it not
for the thick cloud of anxiety in her eyes. As an intern, Olivia had only seen
the standard emergency procedures and usually worked the night shifts. But
this… this was something entirely different. Which posed a challenging question
in Liz’s mind: why was it different?
Knowing that she wouldn’t be
able to go home without the answer, she let out a loud sigh and turned to the
supply drawer.
The doors to the ER opened
and Dr. Mark – who had been watching from the other side of the glass – gave
her a toothy smile as he strolled to her side.
“That was... interesting,”
he noted. The regular dose of optimism seemed to radiate from his words, even
if they were sarcastic.
If Liz wasn’t married, she
would have fallen prey to his charm and good looks like most of the sexually
available women at the hospital. That included Olivia.
“Schizophrenia is commonly
an illness developed by epilepsy, right Dr. Mark?” Olivia beamed, clutching her
clipboard to her chest like a schoolgirl.
“He may’ve overdosed on some
sort of hallucinogenic drug,” said Dr. Mark, not even acknowledging Olivia. He
took the fresh syringe out of Liz’s fumbling hands and ripped it out of the
packet. Liz looked at him curiously. “Go home Liz. I’ll do the test and send
you the results in an hour.”
“You’re sure? I was just
taking blood samples-”
“Go! Olivia and I will take
care of it.”
Liz wasn’t the only one
delighted by this. Olivia was practically bursting with sexual tension. “Thanks
Mark,” she smiled.
“Not a problem. God knows
you of all people need a quiet weekend. You work too hard.”
“Somebody has to,” Liz grumbled
good-naturedly.
As she crossed to the door,
Dr. Mark pointed to her arm and said, “Might want to wash off that blood. I’m
sure Leo’s looking for a less dramatic ‘Welcome Home’.”
Liz glanced down and
compared her right arm with the other. It didn’t exactly bother her that
someone’s dirty blood leeched into her skin. She always arrived home with blood
somewhere on her clothes. What did make her frown was the memory of his pleas
for release from whatever was torturing him.
Was that why he cut himself? To
tear out the pain?
What kind of drug was he taking?
She shook her head quickly
to get rid of the nauseating feeling swarming in her core and left the ER with
a goodbye to Dr. Mark and Olivia. On her way out, she poured herself a black
cup of coffee and signed the sheet at the receptionist desk again. Her shift
ended an hour ago. She noted that down too.
The coffee was boiling, but
she drank it anyway. As Liz unlocked the driver’s door, she made a mental note
to wash the blood off everything tomorrow. Right now, she didn’t care.
Her eyes struggled to stay
open driving along the Brooklyn Bridge, the flashing lights a blur amidst the
black of night. Her hands clenched tightly to the wheel. She wound the window
down to keep her cold and awake, the frosty New York air like sharp needles
through her coat. It made her uncomfortable, but she grit her teeth and took
another sip of coffee.
