Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (3 page)

I wasn’t aware before, but I am now. I’m dreaming, and this is one I dread.

Any minute, the girls will come pouring out of afternoon Mass in their hideously matched little plaid skirts, tittering like geese until they see me. When they do, they’ll begin to chant: Vi-o-la! Vi-o-la! Vi-o-la! I’ll climb up onto the fountain, and I’ll address the lemmings. They’ll coo and giggle in all the right places, until I announce the scandal of the day: “Midge Milton was seen sneaking into the showers with a Donahue boy.” Or maybe: “Betsy Garner’s father just got arrested for insider trading. Sell those stocks while you can!”

If I don’t offer up one of my classmates like a sacrificial lamb, if I try to walk away, they’ll mob me like a pack of hyenas, ripping my hair out by the roots as they scream obscenities and chant my name. It’s happened before, and every time, I’ve deserved it.

I wait for the bell to sound, but it never does. Instead, the crowd simply appears around me. I’m not standing on the fountain this time, but another girl is in my place. She has red hair in pigtail braids. I hate her, but I can’t remember her name.

“This just in,” she calls. “I heard that Meghan in Telemetry slept with Dr. Brady last Saturday.”

“That’s utter bullshit,” another girl scoffs from the edge of the crowd. Her name is Whitney, I think. “I happen to know for a fact that he was making out with someone else in the supply closet on Saturday.”

“How would you know that?” The redhead has started doing cartwheels.

“Because I was the one making out with him.”

The mob of school girls giggles around me. I feel like I’m missing something important, but I can’t put my finger on just what it is. I start to back away slowly, but someone grabs me by the arm and pulls me back into the center.

“Seriously, though, aren’t you worried that he’s going to mess up your reputation?” the redhead says.

“What reputation?” Whitney laughs. “I find it really annoying that he can bang half the hospital and not get a second glance, but if I decide to take the stud for a ride around the block, I’m suddenly a slut. It’s ridiculous. This is why the world is such a messed up place.”

Any minute now, these girls are going to attack me. I can feel it. But for now, all they’re doing is tugging at my arms and legs. I close my eyes, trying to shut out their inane babble. Why can’t I just go back into the Sam dream?

“Still…Dr. Brady? If you’re going to mess around with interns, you should at least pick someone nice, like Dr. Philips.”

“No way. I like my men manly.”

“What? Dr. Philips is manly. He’s so…tall.”

My hair is being tugged now, over and over again. It hurts, but not as much as it usually does. I take a chance and open my eyes. The girls are gathered around me now, in a circle. They’ve started braiding each other’s hair, while a few of them perch on the edge of the fountain, whispering.

“Candace, you poor little thing. Manliness isn’t a look; it’s a frame of mind. You don’t want a guy who says ‘excuse me’ when he bumps into you in the hallway. You want a guy who tells you to shut your whore mouth while he bangs you, without mercy, up against a wall.”

The strangeness of the situation has finally started to settle into my brain, as I realize that the girls in my dream are talking about Sam. How do the girls at my high school know about Sam? Fear tightens my chest. They’ve got something on me now. They know my weakness.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” This voice doesn’t fit with the others, and I crane my head around, searching for the source. Sister Magdalena, my sophomore philosophy teacher, stands at the edge of the circle, fists on hips, glowering at everyone. Her voice sounds funny, though. Different. “When I was your age, girls would claw each other’s eyes out over a nice, respectable boy like Dr. Philips. But not your damn, self-esteem warped generation. No, y’all want boys with mommy issues, covered in tattoos, working weekends at some no-benefits job.”

Whitney laughs. “Throw in a drinking problem and I’d say you’re pretty much on track.”

“Makes me sick,” Sister Magdalena continues. “Mark my words, Candace. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from doctors altogether. They’re all so full of themselves and their problems, you’d be lucky if they remember your name.”
“Yes ma’am,” Whitney and the redhead intone in unison, solemnly saluting.

“And make sure y’all are done in here before two. I need you at the nurse’s station in time for report.”

There’s a moment of silence, as I lie on my back and watch the sun race across the sky. This gossip is confusing, and exhausting, and it makes my scalp hurt. My skin feels cold, and I look down to see that I’m bleeding from my wrists.

Off to my left, the redhead—Candace, probably—whispers loudly in my direction.

“Don’t tell Lucinda, but I kind of have a crush on Dr. Philips. You think he’d go out with me if I asked him?”

The sky turns the color of steel. An acid rain falls. I cover my head with my arms, but I can feel it eating away at my clothes and skin. A yellow snake slithers through the grass, stopping to curl up underneath my legs. I’m terrified of snakes, but just now I’m too tired to be afraid.

Sister Magdalena looks down at me from the chapel window. My clothes are gone, melted away. I blink and it’s not Sister Magdalena anymore, it’s my mother. She puts a hand to her mouth and retreats into the shadows. All around me, the girls are laughing and pointing, impervious to the rain.

The next thing I know, I’m standing on a stage. A sea of foreign faces stretches out in front of me. Music fills the room, but I don’t know the words. All I know is that I’m supposed to be performing. Frantic, I duck behind the curtain, only to realize I’m not wearing any clothes. I can’t go on without a costume. People will laugh.

I spend the next few hours searching for the pieces of my costume. I can dance for the audience, I tell myself. I think I remember how to dance.

Pink tights. Ballet shoes, of course. A diamond-studded leotard that fits me perfectly and makes my chest look fantastic. Even a matching tiara to cover my hair, which is a complete mess. I don’t have time to fix it, so I pull the tiara on over my wayward brown curls.

By the time I’ve finally assembled the perfect costume for my impromptu recital, the music has stopped. I run out onto the stage, nervous but excited. I’m finally ready. I stand in the spotlight and strike a pose. But the theater is empty. The audience is long gone.

I sink to my knees, defeated, as the spotlight sputters and dies.

A voice comes booming through the auditorium.

“Previously, on the
Young and Relentless
….”

CHAPTER FOUR

“He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.” –Sigmund Freud

“Wow. You sir, look amazing.”

“Shut up and get in the car.”

After tossing a bag of donuts through the open window, and into Sam’s lap, Brady wrenched the door open and plopped down into the seat with a dramatic flail.

“Easy!” The dark blue Camaro might have been two years old, with a few small dents and dings, but it was easily the nicest car Sam had ever owned. He’d rented one when he first moved into the city and had fallen instantly in love. For all intents and purposes, it was his baby—but instead of complicating his life, it simplified things with built-in GPS navigation and heated leather seats. Seats which wouldn’t last long, if Brady kept disrespecting them for the sake of a comedic entrance. “I swear to God, if you’re wearing those stupid, metal-studded jeans again….”
Naturally, Brady ignored him, reaching over to reclaim the donut bag as Sam pulled back into traffic.

“Ooh, you even smell amazing. What is your secret, Samuel?”

“Showering.” Sam wasn’t sure what made him grumpier, the thought that they were going to be late for morning rounds, or the knowledge that he’d tossed and turned through eight hours of non-sleep while Brady had peeled his hung-over ass off the floor of some random girl’s bedroom less than an hour ago and still managed to be more awake.

“Muchas gracias for picking me up, by the way. Your constant willingness to help out a dude in need is just one more thing that makes you so…a-ma-zing.”

Sam scowled. “Let me guess, you finally slept with that girl from Telemetry. What was her name? Becky?”

Instead of answering, Brady stuck his fist through the open window like he was about to joust an invisible opponent. “I am invincible!”

“Great.” Not only were they going to be late for rounds, but Sam would also have to run circles around Brady all day. His friend was clearly on a testosterone high, and that could only mean one thing: he’d spend the rest of the day thinking with his downstairs brain.

Luckily for Brady, they’d been doing this dance since the first week of med school. Sam would cover for his friend’s academic shortcomings, while Brady made sure that Sam didn’t over think…well, everything. It seemed like a pretty fair trade off, most of the time.

But not today, when Sam felt like everything in the world was setting his teeth on edge.

“Close the window, will you? It’s freezing.” He pulled onto the freeway and gunned the engine, watching as the speedometer crept to around eight miles an hour over the speed limit. It was something his brother had told him once, after Ben had gotten his driver’s license. As long as you’re less than ten miles per hour over the speed limit, most cops won’t bother pulling you over. As unrealistic as that advice was, it had sounded like doctrine at the time.

But then, Sam had always been a little too willing to believe anything his older brother told him. Like when Sam was seven, and Ben told him that he could fly if he just flapped his arms hard enough. Or when Ben had dared him to drink an industrial-sized bottle of food coloring to see if it would make his pee turn blue. It had, but their mom had freaked out when she saw it, and since neither of them wanted to cop to stealing the food coloring Sam had spent the next few hours in an emergency room. Sam was terrified they were going to give him a shot, and Ben couldn’t stop laughing.

It was more painful than usual, remembering that first time in the hospital. Maybe because this year, it wasn’t just another anniversary. This year, history was repeating itself—another young person had been robbed of a bright and promising future, for no good reason that anyone could see. And no matter how hard Sam tried to pretend that neither tragedy had anything to do with him, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that he was the only common denominator between Ben and Viola.

Twenty minutes and a lot of distracted nodding later, Sam pulled up to the hospital’s back entrance. Brady shoved the door open before the car had even come to a complete stop. He launched himself out of the seat, creating an explosion of donut crumbs in his wake.

“What are you thinking, ten minutes?”

“If we’re lucky,” Sam told him, glancing at the dashboard clock, which read 5:58 AM. “You know the drill. Just do the best you can.”

Five minutes later, Sam finally found a parking spot. It was a little tight, which wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do unless he wanted to suffer the wrath of Chakrabarti on top of everything else he was dealing with. He locked the car and sprinted toward the entrance, managing to ninja his way through the door behind a grey-uniformed housekeeper.

“Sorry,” he called back over his shoulder, as he left the startled looking elderly man in the dust. He yanked open the door to the stairwell and sprinted up three flights without stopping. At the top, he paused for two seconds to peek through the window and make sure the coast was clear, then shoved the door open and Steven Seagalled his way from one side of the hallway to the other. Inside the locker room, he ripped off his clothes, feeling like a cross between a stripper and the Tasmanian Devil. He shoved everything into his locker, pulling on his mint green scrubs without bothering to check whether they were right side out or not. Grabbing his starched white coat from its hook, he checked to see if his stethoscope was still in the pocket before shrugging it on.

The clock above the door read 6:11. It was the latest he’d ever been.

As he blew past the seventh floor nurse’s station, Sam could’ve sworn he heard Nurse Bouchard laughing at him. He rounded the corner and almost collided with the small herd of interns who were filing into room 716 behind Dr. Chakrabarti. Because he was so tall, there was no such thing as a subtle entrance. Luckily, Brady had his back.

“Hey Dr. Philips,” he asked loudly. “Did you get those lab results for 728?”

“No,” Sam answered, equally loudly. He grabbed his hospital ID badge out of Brady’s outstretched hand, clipping it on as he sidled into the line. “And I was waiting down there forever. They told me to come back in an hour.”

“Damn,” Brady shook his head dramatically. “Mrs. Colson was really hoping to find out whether or not she has…prostatic hyperplasia.”

A few of the other interns looked askance at Brady, and Sam had to fake a cough to keep from laughing. Brady had taken the joke too far, because he knew that women didn’t have prostates, and therefore couldn’t have prostate cancer. Didn’t he? God, Sam thought suddenly. Please let him be taking the joke too far.

“Quiet,” Dr. Chakrabarti barked, from his place at the patient’s bedside. Everyone in the room assumed ‘deer caught in headlights’ position, while those who weren’t in the room filed in quietly, heads down, eyes to the floor. Not bothering to wait for the stragglers, the attending physician picked up the chart and started rattling off the patient’s vital data.

“Swiped you in at 5:59,” Brady muttered from one side of his mouth.

“Nice,” Sam whispered back.

“Dr. Brady.” Chakrabarti had a way of zeroing in on a potential troublemaker the way a cobra focuses on a mongoose. “Would you like to tell us how Mr. Jenkins is doing this morning?”

Damn.
Sam fidgeted.
Any other morning but today.

“Well,” Brady floundered. “He’s looking a little yellow. Due to…jaundice.”

“Obviously.” Chakrabarti was not impressed. His thick Eastern accent made the word sound like it had more syllables than it actually did, and carried a curse along with it. “Please describe the possible causes of this jaundice, Dr. Brady.”