Wild Ones (17 page)

I conjured up a
picture of the anatomy of the neck vessels in my mind, and decided
to use the internal jugular approach, but angle it straight
downwards, hoping to hit the carotid, that big artery carrying
blood  straight to the brain. Usually this would be a disaster
in a patient, but here it was a target, an aspiration. The more
this guy bled the better. 

Now, how to
distract him. He was strong and fast, and I knew I had little
chance of sticking that needle in his neck and depressing the
syringe plunger as fast as possible unless his attention was
focused on something else. Now what would distract this freak long
enough for me to do what needed doing? What floated his boat?

Obvious answer.
Me. Or certain parts of me, anyway.

I grinned to
myself, and started easing the trousers of my scrubs down over my
hips, and along my thighs. Instant reaction from the front.

"What are you
doing?" he wanted to know. It seemed we were making progress in our
relationship. He hadn't called me bitch.

"I'm looking at
the stab wound in my leg," I told him in a sullen and subdued
voice.

"I had to make
sure that you screwing the dog hadn't affected the way you taste.
You wouldn't open your legs without a bit of motivation."

What was this.
Was he trying to explain? I said nothing, just eased my trousers
right off. I looked at the wound. It was about four centimetres
long, and clean. It was still oozing blood, and I wondered what I
could use to apply pressure. Blanket? Yuk. Who knows where that had
been. I looked down. White cotton undies, nice and sensible for an
eight hour shift in ED. Probably a pretty good dressing under these
particular circumstances. I started  easing them over my hips
too.

"What are you
doing now?" came another demand from the front.

"Using my
panties to stop the bleeding."

Silence for a
few seconds as I pulled them all the way off. I lifted one leg to
pull my foot through, and he hissed. 

"Jesus."

I adjusted my
position to remove the undies from my injured left leg, allowing my
thighs to fall apart as I pulled them over my left foot.

"Jesus,"
he said again, his eyes in the rear-view mirror wild and excited.
The car started slowing. "Give me your panties
now
."

"I can't. I
have to use them to stop the bleeding," I tried to explain.

"Fuck the
bleeding, bitch. Give them to me, or I will make you bleed some
more in a couple of seconds."

 
So
much for the progress in our relationship. I balled my panties up
into my right hand, and eased the sheath off the needle with my
other. I hesitated, wondering if I could do this. Wondering what he
would do to me if it failed. Probably not much worse than he was
going to do to me anyway. 

I leaned
forwards and placed my panties in his outstretched palm. He
snatched them from me, and held them in his fist for a moment, as
if wondering what to do with them, and then he held them to his
nose, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. As soon as his eyes
had shut I had started moving, and as he inhaled I plunged the
needle into the space just above his clavicle and started
depressing the plunger with my left hand, fast as I could. He
jerked in his seat, but I hung on, pushing as hard as I could on
that syringe, and watching the level of the thick white liquid sink
as it flowed into his body.

The car slowed
even more, and he swivelled around and tried to bat me away with
his right hand. I felt the blow land on my shoulder, and allowed my
body to be flung against the door next to me, but I clung to that
needle with both hands, still pushing, and viciously cursing the
viscosity of propofol. And then I felt something give, and the
fluid flowed faster, and my attacker's movements slowed, and then
they stopped and he slumped in his seat. I paused, then shrugged
and depressed that plunger until every last millilitre was gone. I
leaned over him to try and steer the car, but it had already driven
onto the grass verge, and had been stopped by the trunk of a pine
tree. Big surprise there.

I retrieved my
undies, and dressed hurriedly, weighing up my options. Leave him in
the car and run? I wouldn't get far. And if he woke up, he would
come after me. I tried the back door. Locked. So I clambered over
the front passenger seat and climbed out of the car. Limping like a
crazed zombie, I dragged myself around the car, and pulled Creepy
Vampire out, dumping his body on the grass. He was heavy, but I had
adrenaline and gravity on my side. I stepped on him as I got in the
car, breathing a sigh of relief as the engine coughed into life
first time, and reversed. I can't be one hundred percent sure, but
I think I may have driven over some part of the vampire. Either way
there was a bit of a struggle getting over some obstruction and I
had to accelerate slightly. OK, a lot. Must have hurt. 

I turned the
car in the direction we had come and accelerated out of there. I
glanced in the rear-view mirror as I drove away. The vampire lay
where I had dropped him. I wondered if he was dead. 

With any luck
he would be.

I managed to
find my way back to the hospital, and drove to the patient's
parking lot, gleefully taking a ticket and knowing that this was
one that was unlikely to be paid. I climbed out and limped
carefully up to the doors to ED. My leg was starting to throb like
mad again now that the adrenaline had worn off. It had also
stiffened up in the drive back to the hospital. I should probably
have stopped at the local police station, but I had decided to go
straight to the hospital. They could call the police from ED if
they needed to, and I wanted painkillers.

There were a
couple of police cars parked out front, and I knew they'd be inside
either talking to the shape shifters or accompanying some violent
drunk while the ED staff treated whatever wounds he had sustained
from his most recent altercation.

I was greeted
at reception with consternation and surprise. 

"We thought
you'd just left," the receptionist on duty told me. "Simon has
already phoned around to get someone else to cover the rest of your
shift." Simon Alexander was the senior consultant for the day, and
basically in charge of the ED. He was a nice enough person, but did
tend to jump to conclusions. Clearly.

"You OK?" the
receptionist asked, probably noting my dishevelled appearance and
pale face. I was starting to feel lightheaded just standing
there.

"Not really," I
smiled wryly at her. "Some nutcase stabbed me in the leg and then
he kidnapped me. I'm probably going to need some sutures. And I
will definitely need to speak to one of the coppers who are
here."

Her mouth fell
open in surprise, and then she started calling out to the nurses in
the main department, and a few moments later I found myself lying
on a trolley, and being wheeled into a bay. I lay back, exhausted,
and let them get on with it. My bloodied scrubs were cut away to
reveal the leg wound, which had started oozing again, and was
looking inflamed around the edges. Melissa had pushed her way into
the cubicle, four tablets in a tiny plastic cup clutched in her
hand. 

"Take these,
Liv. What the hell happened to you? We thought you'd just walked
out after those two guys were brought in. Simon said you'd taken
one look at them and turned white as a sheet. I was surprised.
You'd never done anything like that before. And now I hear that you
were stabbed and kidnapped? My God, are you OK?"

"I'm fine,
Liss, but I need to speak to the police as soon as possible. The
laceration can be sorted out after I've spoken to them. How are
those two guys, by the way?"

"Them? They're
fine. Simon got the surgeons to take them to theatre, and they
washed the small bowel and stuck it back in and stitched them up
again. No internal injuries, fortunately. They're in the ward right
now."

"That's great
news," I smiled at her. "Policeman?"

She grinned at
me. "Still so bossy, I see. I'll go and get one. Shouldn't be hard
to find. This place is crawling with the buggers now. They're
trying to figure out who did this to those two guys."

"I might be
able to help them out there," I said. Her eyes widened and she
nodded and disappeared through the curtain that was draped around
the bay. I closed my eyes, suddenly very tired.

I heard the
curtain rails rattling as someone stepped into the cubicle, and
opened them again, expecting Melissa or a policeman. Instead, Hugo
stood there gazing down at me, his face pale and haunted. I smiled
at him and held my hand out. He grabbed it and held it in a vice
like grip.

"He hurt you,"
he said intently. I nodded.

"I hurt him
back," I told him with satisfaction. He looked puzzled.

"How?"

"Two hundred
milligrams each of ketamine and propofol into a big vessel,
possibly his carotid. And I drove over one of his limbs, I think.
Might have been his head."

He looked
incredulous for a moment, and then he chuckled.

"Impressive, my
little love. Where is he now?"

"Well, I left
him lying by the side of the road. About twenty miles north of here
on highway 22."

"I need to let
Atticus and Julius know. I'll be back in a sec."

He
stepped out as a policeman stepped in. He held a notepad, and l
spent the next ten minutes filling him in on everything that had
happened. He filled several pages of his notepad. I left out the
wolf and vampire bits, of course. I expect he would have written a
lot less if I had mentioned those. Maybe just one word.
Crazy
.

Eventually he
was done with me, and he stepped out too. Then Hugo was back,
accompanied by Melissa and a suture tray. They argued briefly about
who would do the suturing, but Hugo pulled rank, and rolled up his
shirt sleeves. I eyed him suspiciously.

"If you hurt
me, I'll cry," I warned him.

"You know the
local anaesthetic will hurt, love. But after that you will feel no
pain at all, just a tugging sensation," he explained with a grin,
as if I knew nothing about this procedure at all.

"I bet you say
that to all the girls," I said. He winked at me, and then set about
cleaning my wound, and injecting local under the skin. It stung,
I'm not going to lie. It stung a lot. But I gritted my teeth and
shut my eyes, and eventually the sting was replaced by a soothing
numbness. A few minutes and six small neat sutures later, and it
was all over. He taped a dressing over the wound and tidied
everything away. I watched his face as he worked, taking in the
tenseness around his beautiful mouth and the frown that creased his
forehead. He looked up at me, catching me staring.

"We need to get
you to the witches," he said. I nodded.

"Yes," I
agreed.

"Cade and I can
take you now. It will take us a couple of hours to get there. We'll
stop at your place so you can pack a few things if you want, but
then we have to get going. Atticus and Julius are going to need our
help to nail the bastard who did this to you."

"You know who
it was?" I asked incredulously.

"Shh," he
whispered, holding his finger to his lips. "I'll explain in the
car."

"OK."

"You done in
here?" Melissa poked her head around the curtain.

"Yes, thanks.
And I'm about to take Olivia home. Would you be able to sort out
the paperwork?" he asked her, smiling.

"Of course,"
she gushed. "I've told Simon what happened, and he said to take a
few days off, Liv. He's found someone to cover you for at least a
week. Let Michelle know when you'll be back." Michelle was the
woman who created the roster out of dissent and chaos. It was
almost magical how she managed it.

"OK," I smiled
gratefully at her, pleased that I wouldn't have to worry about
letting my colleagues down. Working in ED was hard enough. Working
a shift that was short of even one doctor could be a nightmare. We
were that busy.

"Right," said
Hugo, and he bent over and picked me up as if I weighed almost
nothing. Melissa pulled the curtain back for him, and he carried me
out of there. I felt the curious glances of the staff as we left,
but I closed my eyes and ignored it all, wrapping my arms around
Hugo's neck, and resting my cheek against his shoulder.

I watched
Leif drive away with his brothers. I had been surprised at how
similar they were, apart from the colours of their eyes, until they
spoke. Cade was slightly bigger, but much more intimidating. He
moved and spoke with an innate reassurance, almost arrogance, and
his green eyes held a challenge for anyone who looked into
them.
Take me on,
they
said.
I will fucking break you.

Hugo was
different. Blue eyes weighed you up, assessing and analysing
everything. Leif had told me that he was a surgeon, and I could see
that it would be a profession that suited him. He was cleverer and
colder than his brothers, but arrogant too, and he moved with easy
precision.

Leif was
somehow warmer, but in the presence of his brothers, in the
anticipation of the fight ahead, he had hardened, a frown settling
on his brow, and an icy focus in his grey eyes. I felt slightly
afraid of him then, even though he had shown me nothing but
compassion and consideration. But I still felt unimaginably bereft
when he was gone, leaving me with a bunch of people I didn't know
and nothing but the clothes I wore. Oh well, could have been worse.
I could have been with Jack and his lot, wearing no clothes at
all.