Page 13 of Asphyxia
“You’re mine, sweetheart.” He growled. “Fight me all you want, but I own you, and if you pull this shit again, I’ll kill every single man that so much as looks in your direction—and that’s not a threat. It’s a fucking promise.”
AcrowdofDoctorsand Nurses rushed through the ED’s double doors. Their urgency and franticshouting told me all I needed to know—that we had a critical patient about to be brought in from the ambulatory bay.
As I casually rested my forearms on the counter, I watched Maggie, who had been manning the phones and nurses’ station all day.
The ED was louder than usual and packed with patients. Almost every bed was filled, including the ones in the hallways, and at one point, I watched a nurse as she ran and hid in the nearest janitor’s closet, bawling her eyes out. It was always hectic, and even though I hated working there, I thrived on the chaos.
“What’s happening?” I asked, tilting my head over to where the trauma team had just exited through the sliding glass doors.
“Violent sexual assault victim.” She cringed, pressing her lips together into a hard line. “They’re saying her boyfriend found her in an alley and brought her in.”
Just as Maggie had finished speaking, the patient in question was rolled in on a gurney and immediately escorted into trauma room three by an entire medical team. The white sheets wrapped around her body were already soaked in blood.
What the fuck did that man do to her?
I caught a glimpse of the woman’s boyfriend as he followed the medical staff closely into the room, and I slid myself in right behind him as the door was closed.
Standing silently at the far back of the room, I spectated as the woman was quickly hooked up to every available machine we had.
“Emily, start an IV with saline and push two of Dilaudid.” One of the surgeons in the room ordered as he looked over her chart.
I peered through a gap between a few of the nurses to see a woman completely battered and bruised, as though a rabid animal had mauled her half to death. Her left eye was swollen shut, and her face was covered in cuts from too many hard hits.
At first glance, it also appeared as though her jaw could have been fractured or broken.
“We need to control all of this bleeding!” A female voice shouted, another surgeon.
The woman’s arms were covered in scratch marks, and her nail beds were caked in blood; some of her nails were chipped and missing. She had fought like hell against her attacker, and most of the wounds that covered her body displayed just that.
There was a loud bang as one of the nurses covered her mouth and whimpered as she scrambled out of the room, knocking over one of the trays of surgical instruments that blocked her path.
“You’re going to be okay, sweetheart.” I heard her boyfriend speak from my right.
The nickname rattled my mind as I peered down at his bloody knuckles—which he quickly stuffed into his jacket pockets as his eyes locked on mine.You motherfucker…
Trying to be as loud as possible so everyone in the room could hear me over the endless beeps of the machines, I gripped the man’s forearm.
“Sir, I’ll need you to come with me to finalize your girlfriend’s paperwork so we can properly admit her into the hospital system.” My words were calm, almost cheerful—even though all I could think about was ripping his dick off.
The surgeon in charge of her care handed me the patient chart without hesitation, and I gave the boyfriend a saccharine smile.
To everyone else in the room, I was just taking the initiative and doing my job, but I was about to do so much more once I had him out of view.
“This way, please,” I cooed, gesturing him out of the door.
The man was reluctant to follow me, and he had every right to be as I led him out of the ED and down a somewhat secluded hallway.
I could feel him dragging his heels as I held on to him tightly, turning one more corner and shoving him into an empty patient exam room.
“Sit,” I commanded, glaring at him as I locked the door behind me and closed the blinds.
The boyfriend didn’t attempt to run or fight me, most likely assuming that there was nothing I could do to harm him and fully believing that he could easily overpower me if necessary, just like his defenseless girlfriend.
He couldn’t have been more fucking wrong. Sure, his six-foot height vastly towered over my five-six, but I was built for war, and I refused to lose.
Once satisfied that no one could see into the room, I turned to face him with a look that exposed everything I wanted to do to him. There was no point in being subtle when he was about to get exactly what the doctor—nurse—ordered.
“Look, this is cute and all, but if you don’t actually have anything for me to fill out or sign, I’m going back to be with my girlfriend.” He looked entirely unfazed by his current situation. Heshrugged his shoulders and blew me off as if I was nothing more than a gnat floating by his face.
