After Shock: A Novella (Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers Book 4) by CJ Lyons

Author:CJ Lyons [Lyons, CJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

Now

6:31 p.m.

“Forty-year-old female, restrained driver, rollover MVA,” the medic called out as they wheeled Lucy into the ER’s trauma room. He’d added two years to her age, but that didn’t even bother her. All she wanted was for everyone to stop talking long enough to hear her and get her a goddamned phone.

Her fear had been replaced by frustration, which had morphed into fury. Bad enough to be hauled from one place to another like a loaf of bread, but to be tied down and ignored?

Another lift and bump as the medic finished his report, and they moved her onto the hospital’s stretcher. Men and women appeared and disappeared in her vision as they cut off her clothing, replaced the medics’ monitor leads, adjusted her oxygen mask, checked her vitals, started another IV and drew blood, listened to her heart and lungs, ran cold jelly and an ultrasound over her belly, took X-rays of her neck and chest and foot, all the while poking and prodding every inch of her body.

There had to be a clock in the room, but she couldn’t see it from her position, restrained to the backboard. What time was it?

The doctors and nurses talked above her and around her, their words sounding like some kind of strange foreign tongue as they circled her captive body like sharks in a feeding frenzy. She thought she had a chance to make herself heard when one of them bent to shine a light in her eyes, but then his partner called to him from the foot of the bed and he was gone.

“Hey, did you see this?” one of the doctors said, his voice tight with excitement. He stood at her foot, and she braced herself against the pain that his touch was about to bring. “Open metatarsal fractures, ankle and calf basically shredded. Thought this was an MVA?”

“There are ligature marks on her wrists and neck,” a woman’s voice said from beyond Lucy’s vision.

“Let’s call Three Rivers about that foot—it’s going to take a vascular repair. We might have to Life Flight her over there,” an older man said as he examined Lucy’s foot, releasing a fresh wave of anguish. The machine monitoring her heart rate sang out in a staccato beat. “No. Wait. Are those tooth marks?”

As they talked about her instead of to her, Lucy was busy working one hand free of the Velcro restraints. The nurses had replaced her clothing with a hospital gown and had her warming under heat lamps. As she thawed, she felt more of the aches and pains that barraged her body, but her focus also returned.

Once her hand was free, she watched for the next person to come close. It was a woman in scrubs. As she reached to adjust Lucy’s IV, Lucy snaked her fingers around the woman’s wrist and squeezed hard.

“Give me a phone,” she said, the words scraping raw against her vocal cords.

The woman patted her arm as if Lucy were a child. But she did lean forward to listen.

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