Page 96 of Tasting Fire
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When Emmy openedher eyes and tried to blink, they felt as if someone had stuck hundred-year-old contacts into them. With Gorilla Glue. And although the light above her was dim, it seared her retinas. Her throat felt as if she’d gargled with gravel.
She didn’t remember drinking that much wine.
Where were her mom and…
She gingerly turned her head and recognized the pale yellow walls. This wasn’t her apartment. She was in the hospital.
On the wrong side of the bedrail.
“Mom?” she croaked. “Kris? Riley?” The panicked feeling inside her ratcheted up with every name. She fumbled for the call button. Pushed it.
Pushed it. Pushed it. Pushed it.
Just the way the nurses hated.
When none of them appeared in two point four seconds, Emmy grabbed the rail and dragged herself into sitting position.
A halo of twinkle lights revolved around the edges of her sight, and her stomach was not charmed by them.
No puking.
She had way more important things to do, like getting the hell out of this bed and finding out what had happened. She and Kris had been sitting on the floor, her mom and Riley on the LSD-trip couch. Emmy had leaned her head back against her mom’s leg, letting the wine and the good feeling flow through her.
She’d been so satisfied. So happy. So… joyful. Even though Jesse’s death was still hanging over her.
She’d gotten up to go to the bathroom and the last thing she remembered was washing her hands. Wait… She’d smelled smoke… Had reached for the bathroom door and the smoke rolled over her.
As she yanked on the bedrail, trying to disengage the release lever, she noticed the IV snaking into her arm. Like that would keep her in this bed. She would march buck-ass naked through these hallways dragging a PET scanner to find her mom, Kris, and Riley if she had to.
She had one sock-covered foot on the ground when the room door swung open.
“Whoa! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cash rushed in and took her arm, the one that wasn’t clinging to the IV pole as if was a lifeline. “Get back in the bed.”
“Where are they? I have to find them.” She tried to slip out of Cash’s grip, but he didn’t budge.
“On this same hallway,” he reassured her. “Everyone’s getting fluids and being checked out.”
“Something happened. I don’t remember.”
“If you’ll get back into bed, I’ll tell you.”
It was then she noticed that he was in his station blues, but his hair and face were streaked with black and his upper and lower eyelids looked as if they’d been outlined with bright red lipliner. He helped her scoot her hips back onto the bed, but she didn’t lie down. Just sat there with her bare legs dangling from under a hospital gown. “I’m on the bed.”
“I saidinnoton,” he grumbled, gently brushing his palm over her cheek. “But it’s better than nothing. Em, there was a fire. When we arrived, all four of you were unconscious. You were in the bathroom. Not sure if the others were asleep before it started, but it looks that way. And smoke inhalation took them from sleep to…”
“Unconsciousness.” She rubbed her cheek and stared down at her smudged fingers. “How are they? When can I see them?”
“You were the last one to wake up. Of course, this was the only time I left you alone.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “I went to check on the others. Once the doctor gets a look at you, you can—”
“I am a doctor, and I say I’m fine.”
“Doesn’t work that way.”
She wouldn’t tell him that given how shaky her brain and body were feeling right now, she’d be lucky to correctly administer a Band-Aid. “What’s the damn benefit of being a doctor if you can’t treat yourself?”
“I often ask myself the same question, Dr. McKay,” a handsome fifty-something man in a white lab coat said from the doorway as he studied the tablet he held. When he looked up, he smiled, making his blue eyes crinkle at the corners.
