Page 13 of Protecting his Heart

Evan leaned closer. “Oh, wow. That is a fantastic bike. I bet you can’t wait to get back on it again. It looks like it would go so fast.”

“It does! I think the flames make it faster.”

“I agree. So many flames. Well, when your arm has healed, you’ll be able to jump right back on it and see how fast it goes.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “I’ll be back in a little while to sort out sending him for the cast,” he said to the father.

The man stood and held out his hand. “Thank you.”

Evan saw the meaning behind the words, and it had nothing to do with him explaining the plans. He nodded. “No problem at all.” Sometimes people just needed to remember how much they enjoyed something before the bad thing happened to make them excited about it again.

He headed for bay five, sliding the curtain back, but no one was on the bed waiting, though the fluids still hung there. Glancing around the department, he couldn’t see anyone, so he decided to visit the girl first and come back to the guy.

Knocking on the door of room six, he entered, smiling at the girl sitting on the bed. She was a little pale, and her lips looked extremely red against her skin, as if she’d been biting them.

“Hello, Emily. I’m—”

He dropped the folders he’d been holding when someone shoved him forward and the door slammed and locked behind him. He stumbled over to the other side of the room before catching himself on a chair and spinning around. A guy with straggly blond hair and wide eyes stood beside the girl’s bed, squeezing her arm and holding something to her neck. Evan swallowed. In the dim light, he couldn’t see what was against her neck, but he was certain it was something he didn’t want to move.

He held out his hands to who he assumed was the drug user missing from bay five. “Okay. I’m here now. What’s the plan?”

“You need to get me some drugs. I don’t need that fluid shit. I don’t want it flushed from my system. I want more of it. I want to forget everything!”

“Okay. Any particular drug you want?”

The guy leaned closer to the girl. “You know what type will work! You’re a doctor!”

Evan didn’t feel the need to correct his mistake, so he nodded. “That’s okay. Am I to go and get it?”

“No!” the guy shouted, startling the girl, and she winced. A drop of blood slid down her neck, but the guy didn’t see. Evan did, though, and he needed to get him away from her.

“I can call a nurse to bring it in.”

The guy’s eyes darted around the room. “Yes. Do that. But you take it from them at the door. They can’t come in.”

“I can do that.” He gestured to his pocket. “Can I get my phone out? I’ll send them a message to bring it to me.”

“Don’t you have a walkie-talkie or something?”

Evan shook his head. “Usually, we fetch what we need ourselves, but in an emergency, we text or call someone else.” It wasn’t strictly true, but he didn’t know that. “I can show you what I’m saying and who I’m messaging, if that helps?”

“Yes.” He wrapped his arm around the girl’s shoulders, holding the knife, or whatever it was, to her neck again. “Come here, but don’t try anything funny.”

Evan stepped closer and reached into his pocket for his phone. He brought up a message to Marie and stopped beside the guy. Not close enough for him to see clearly, but enough that he would have to lean away from Emily a little.

“Look, I’m messaging Marie. Do you remember her from when you came in? She’s the head nurse here.”

The guy nodded, stretching his neck to watch Evan. Evan purposefully turned the phone a little further away so he had to move closer to see it. The moment he saw the knife—scalpel—drop away from the girl, he slammed the hands holding his phone down on the guy’s arm, swiped his foot behind his ankle and shoved him back, hissing in pain. The guy thudded to the floor, and Evan turned him over, locking his hands behind his back. He glanced over his shoulder.

“Are you okay, Emily? Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Emily shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. “Just my stomach and my neck a little.”

“Good. Could you please push that big red button above your bed?” Evan gestured to it with his head while dropping to sit over the guy’s thighs, the squirming rat that he was. He glanced at his arm and cursed, unable to do anything about it right then.

The moment Emly pressed the button, alarms rang out and people came running. The door flew open, and Marie stopped, mouth gaping. “What in the world…?”

Evan grunted at a particularly vicious motion from the man beneath him and smiled. “We need the police, and Emily needs to have her neck looked at.”

Two officers entered the room shortly after, taking custody of the guy. “Nice job,” one of them said.

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