says, still placed in front of me. I hear Trav scribbling something down on a piece of paper nearby. “Plus, we’re supposed to keep a close watch on our patients. Lighting helps with that.”
“You need light so you can see my face,” I explain, just in case he didn’t get it. “I have a nice face, too.”
“Yes, Maggie, you have a nice face, too.” I can hear the smile in his voice and when his hand grasps my wrist, the shock of it spikes my breathing. “You have to slow down that heart rate or we’re going to get in trouble for not stabilizing you in the field.”
“That would be easier to do if you didn’t touch me.” I wiggle my toes. The shoes are gone. Crap. I hope they weren’t left out there with my car. Cora’s is going to have my head if I don’t return them. Maybe she won’t notice they went missing. Not a chance. Cora notices everything.
“You don’t want me to touch you?” He’s done checking my pulse, but his fingers still hover over my skin, fluttering my insides. “Cause I can switch with Trav and he can do all of this if you like. But I guarantee you, his ugly mug isn’t as pleasant to look at as my nice face.”
“Dude, you’re cruel.” Trav pipes up from his post along the side of the ambulance wall. “It’s not right to mess with them when they’re drugged.”
I nod—well more like roll—because nodding my head makes it loll side to side. If it weren’t attached to my neck, I think it might actually tumble right off my shoulders.
“I’m not messing with her.” He checks my pulse again.
“Whatever, Ran. What’s her rate?”
“158.”
A gust of air rushes out of Trav’s mouth and it smells like an odd mix of coffee and mint. “Dude, you seriously need to get that down.”
“Working on it.” Ran pushes off his seat and presses something into an IV bag hanging above me. It looks like a balloon. Weird.
“Are you qualified to do that?” I ask, gesturing toward the bag, lifting my hand slightly but it feels like there’s a twenty-pound weight coiled around it, tugging with an equal amount of resistance.
“Administer an IV?” Ran asks at the same time he clips the cap on whatever is in his hands. “Yes, I am. I’m a paramedic and have completed over 1,500 hours of training. That should give me a little authority.” He drops the syringe into a canister near him and it clatters against the plastic. “I’m more than just a pretty face, Maggie.”
Trav’s shoulders pull up and he situates himself in his seat. “Sit, Ran. We’re here.”
I blink my eyes. “Where?”
Ran slumps down next to me and wraps his hands around the metal frame of the stretcher I’m draped across. He stabilizes it as we rock over a speed bump and coast into park. “We’re at the hospital.”
I expel a hot sigh of relief. “Oh good,” I smile, my head spinning like I’ve just completed a dozen pirouettes en pointe. “That’s exactly where I was headed.”
CHAPTER TWO
I hate hospital gowns. They’re terrifying. They’re always faded, so I suppose they wash them, but I’m pretty certain the one I’m wearing is at least a decade old because I can’t even tell what the original pattern was to begin with. Looks something like flowers, but it could be cats for all I know, it’s so old and worn.
And they don’t have backs to them. Mortifying problem number two. Worse than that, with my luck, the last person to wear mine probably died in it. Hospital gowns completely suck.
But I guess my clothes sort of do at the moment, too. My skinny jeans had to be cut off of me, though I don’t remember much about that. I don’t remember much of anything, really. Especially not how I got the six-inch-long, three-inch-deep laceration in my upper right quad. When I came to after the accident, I’d assumed the warm liquid on my forehead was the result of a cut from all the glass that coated me like enormous shards of glitter. I’d never suspected it was from the steady seeping of my leg wound dangling above me, releasing copious amounts of blood; the steady flow of a sink faucet twisted on.
I think I blacked out—well, I know I did—because all I remember is arriving at the hospital and saying something to Ran about how this was all really convenient since this destination was in my plans