Too late. The orderlies are on him—giant guys shooting 34 with enough electricity to light a city. His big body jerks. He collapses. They keep shooting current into him.
“Fuck!” I go right into the thick of it. I pull one off. I hit another on the back. “Hey!” I kick. “That’s enough! You’re gonna kill him!” I finally get them all off and kneel beside 34. He’s out cold.
I press my trembling fingers to his throat. His pulse is thready. Weak.
Donny comes up on the other side of him, lip bleeding down his neck and onto his shirt front. He kicks 34 viciously in the ribs.
“Enough!” I stand and shove him away. “This patient is out cold. You do not attack an unconscious patient, or I will report that shit to the board. Any of you, I don’t care who it is.” I spin around, address the group of them. “If any of you do anything more to this patient, it’s actionable in a court of law.”
Donny wipes the blood from the side of his fish lips, hard gaze fixed on me.
Nurse Zara arrives, demanding to know what happened.
Donny jerks a thumb at me and tells her that I was stupid enough to go in there without the trio of orderlies standing by. He says it seems to have excited Patient 34, and he went in there just in time to save me from Patient 34.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You attacked me—you! Patient 34 was protecting me.”
Nurse Zara purses her lips and gives me a stern, scolding glare. My mouth literally hangs open when I realize she believes Donny. Or worse, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just wants me gone that bad.
My heart pounds. I kneel down next to 34. He’s really out. I check his pupils. I don’t care that much about what happens to me—I’ll be fine. But Patient 34 is screwed. It wouldn’t matter if he was fighting for world peace. He got out of his restraints—that’s the bottom line.
If he was dosed up enough to put out an elephant before, he’s going to get dosed up enough to put out two elephants. I try to keep my touch clinical.
One of the orderlies finds a pair of clippers on the floor. “He had this hidden.”
My head spins. Patient 34 had an escape plan, and he blew it for me.
To protect me.
“Heads are going to roll.” Donny turns to Nurse Zara. “And the meds—I don’t care about the guidelines—the guidelines don’t apply to this one. He’s got some kind of hellbeast metabolism. His meds need to be severely adjusted.” He straightens his shirt. “Severely. It’s high gravity pudding time for this guy.”
I kneel back down at 34’s side, feeling sick. High gravity pudding is what you feed to stroke victims whose muscles are too slack to swallow. One step away from a catheter and a feeding tube. Dosage at that level starts affecting the brain. Like a chemical lobotomy.
I shouldn’t have gone in there without a trio out there.
And right then, I wonder whether it was a trap. Like maybe Donny planned it.
He clearly didn’t count on 34 getting free.
He’s half on his side, one muscled arm out straight, one arm flung over his chest, legs akimbo, eyes shut. Downy curls dark and a bit too long.
I’m not here.
For once I know it’s true.
Nurse Zara is full of angry questions. I give my defense—I was just following state regs.
They put Patient 34 back onto his bed, back into restraints. Ignoring protocols about the possibility of spinal injury. Maybe it’s something they’re hoping for.
“I’m going to have to write this up,” Nurse Zara says. “This is number two.”
“Number two?” I protest. “What was my first?”
“Inability to get a correct BP.”
She wrote me up for that? One more write-up and I’m out. And then what happens to 34?
Chapter Eleven