Luckily, Beau’s comment about “knowing people” at Emory was a hell of an understatement: in less than an hour we were processed through the ER, both my wrist and face had been x-rayed, and I was installed in a private room with an IV drip and an attending on the way. We’d walked past a couple of patient rooms that were crowded with remnants, but the one I was in was ghost-free. I wondered if Beau had specifically requested it because he knew it wasn’t haunted. It was nice working with someone else who could see them.
As far as I could tell, Beau didn’t actually press anyone that whole time, and I figured he was probably a major donor, either to the school or the hospital. Or maybe both.
When the nurse came in to put in my IV, Beau went to wait in a chair outside my door. He said he wanted to keep an eye out for another attack—and, I suspected, make some calls to his people. I figured he could probably hear everything going on in my room anyway, but even the semblance of privacy was comforting.
The attending doctor on duty, a stout woman in her early fifties named Dr. Latham, came in a few minutes later to put eight stitches in my cheekbone, where the skin had split when I hit the pavement. By the time she was done, an orderly had delivered a file of my X-rays. Latham pulled out the facial X-rays first and jammed them into the light box on the wall. “As we suspected, the cheekbone isn’t broken,” she said.
I just nodded, unsurprised. It hurt like hell, but it felt swollen, not broken.
Latham pulled those films out and stuck two more in. “There’s a fracture in the left wrist, though.”
“Shit.” I’d been really, really hoping it was just a sprain.
“At least it’s your left and not your right,” she offered.
“I’m left-handed.”
She winced, glancing over at me. “Ah. Then . . . tough break?”
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “At any rate,” she continued, “it’s nondisplaced, which means—”
“The bone is fractured but already in alignment,” I finished for her.
“Well . . . yes.”
I gave her a grim smile. “It’s not my first time.”
“Right. Well, you’re in good health and I don’t anticipate any problems with it healing. Since you’re in town visiting friends, I would suggest you use a brace until you head home. Your own doctor can cast it once the swelling has gone down.”
“I can do that.”
“Meanwhile,” she said, picking up my chart and looking it over, “I’d like to keep you overnight for observation.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She glanced up at me over her reading glasses. “A tough guy, huh? All right, well, at least finish the bag of IV fluids. Your blood pressure was a little low.”
“Okay.”
She paused, looking at me hard. “Anything else you want to talk about? Any other injuries?”
I hadn’t told the admitting nurse about the bruising on my back. It didn’t exactly match the story I’d told about being side-checked by a jogger and falling on my face. Besides, they’d given me some hydrocodone, and the pain had already receded to a dull ache. “Nope.”
She frowned, lowering her voice. “Do you feel safe at home?”
I blinked for a second, before I understood that she was asking if Beau had really been the one who’d hurt me. “Yes. I’m fine, really.”
With a little shrug, she pulled a business card and a pen out of the pocket of her lab coat. She scribbled something on the back of the card and handed it to me. “All right, well. Mr. Calhoun is a major donor, and I’ve been asked to help you any way I can. If the pain gets worse, or something else happens, call me. I can at least tell you whether or not you need to come in.”
I took the card and thanked her, tucking it carefully into my pants pocket.
As Dr. Latham walked out the door, Beau was just coming in. He closed it behind him. “I’ve got the Horsemen installed at either end of the hallway,” he said in a low voice. “So we can talk.”
I gestured to the visitor chair, and he pulled it next to the bed, sitting down heavily. He looked anguished and haggard, which was not a normal look for a vampire.
“You talked to Maven, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “We needed to discuss the oath I’ve broken.”
I blinked several times. In all the uproar, I’d forgotten all about Beau’s promise of mutual safety.