“Why?” I asked, at the same time Julie scoffed something else. Beside me, Sarge tensed. He hated the feeling of anxiety when working in the E.R. room.
Dr. Griffen pursed his lips. He was a tiny man, but quite feared around the hospital, actually. He owned the damn thing. “We have no current cases for you to work on and a lack of doc’s in the E.R. Sorry, Jack.” Almost directly after he finished his sentence, the sliding doors opened, revealing a young body surrounded with paramedics. I cringed at the bang to the head the figure had taken.
“You take this one,” Julie muttered, motioning towards the body. “There’s supposed to be an MVC victim coming in. I’ll take that one.”
Without the time to argue, Julie bolted away from me, which left me to pace next to the moving stretcher she’d left me with, Sarge hot on my heels.
“Motor bike accident,” One of the medics yelled to me, a little louder than he needed to. “patient is Ember Pyro, age of fourteen.” I cringed when he said the age. Today wasn’t my day to babysit. I kept my mouth clamped shut as we entered the emergency room and I began stripping myself of my white coat and replacing it with a blue plastic gown, matching booties, and latex gloves a size too small.
“Fetch warm sheets,” I grunted to anyone in particular, standing at the foot of the stretcher. “We won’t be needing a catheter, either.” Behind me, I sensed another stretcher rolling in—-Julia’s patient. I ignored it, focusing on the one at hand as I threw out more orders and suggestions. I let my hands gently tug down the tops of the already blood-soaked sheets near the girl’s head—-then had an urge to put them back.
There, laying face up and unconscious, was the rat who’d lunged in front of my car earlier. I realized, with great disgust, that if I wouldn’t have stopped she would have ended up here anyways.
“Put the sheets back and sew her up,” I almost sneered, beginning to violently tug off my gloves. “All she did was whack her head.” I watched as an angry nurse with fresh warm sheets in his hands turned on his heal and storm back to where he’d came from.
“Dr. Daniels, shouldn’t you run a——OW, FUCK!!!” An E.R. doctor threw herself into a tray of instruments, causing them to scatter about the tiled floor. She was holding her hand, her eyes wide, staring at the patient.
“What?” I glowered, lamely. I motioned towards the unconscious girl. “Did she bite you?”
“No,” The doctor—-Dr.Withers——replied incredulously, still making no move towards the patient. “She shocked me!”
“Punch her back.”
“No! It was...I think we should check to see if there’s a shortage or something, to whatever she’s hooked——”
“She’s not hooked up to anything.” With my answer, Dr.Withers fell silent. The kid had awoken, her eyes almost as wide as the doctor’s.
“Jesus,” I muttered, gruffly shoving my latex gloves back on. I eyed the E.R. doctor with contempt. “You woke the bitch up from her nap. Why don’t you and your medical degree go into the lobby and tell her entourage that her head just fell off or something.” We shared a glare before Dr.Withers marched out of the emergency room, eyes on fire, towards the waiting room. I moved towards the medical instruments—-the ones that weren’t contaminated and thrown on the floor——to sew the kid back up.
“You...you’re the one...” She sputtered, her eyes lazily following me.
“Yeah,” I barked a laugh, picking up the tools. “Ironic, eh? I try to kill you and instead I’m forced to save your face.” She grunted something unintelligible, and I ignored her. She opened her mouth to say something again as I began the minor surgery. “You’re on pain meds. Unfortunately, you won’t feel this. I have no problem with knocking you back out, if you wan’t.”
“What...hap...hap..” Her voice trailed on, nerve-wrecked.
“What happened? You started thinking about me and this morning until your skull spontaniously combusted, unable to contain all of the built up guilt. Now, shut up, or I can make this scar ten times more hideous than what it’s expected to be. I’m supposed to fix you, not make you pretty. Then we’ll see if you want to head butt the morning commute...”
She opened her mouth to say something, then let her jaw softly close. I touched her forehead to begin the process, then gasped.
Vision
Dana rested her chin on Alex’s shoulder, her heart thumping rhythmically. ” Hey, I was thinking, you know how we are all like, a certain part of the Hourglass and stuff?” Her fingers intertwined with his, as the sun reflected off of his sunshine hair. Alex grinned behind her hair.” Yeah?”
” Yeah.. like, how Eli and Erin are the hourglass in a whole, big picture, but Star is the sacrifice and all? Well I was thinking...maybe me, you, Krystal, and Traven aren’t specific part of The Hourglass, but instead we are the protectors. I know, everyone is meant to protect it, but I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? That’s our purpose. To work together to protect the Hourglass. “ She rambled out the thoughts in her head. Her words seemed simple to her, but sent Alex into a spiral of questions.
” Traven is an element?” He asked, surprised.
” Yeah, he’s mother nature or something.” Dana laughed, swaying their bodies closer together.
” That's a good point though. But what about Kiorri? If the elemnts are the guards, Star is the sacrifice, Kobe is a sort of fate type thing, and Eli and Erin are the big picture of the hourglass in its whole, than what does that make Kiorri?”
Dana thought about this, not sure what to say. It seemed as if once they began to make sense of some things, other pieces of the puzzle would go missing. She pictured the young man’s face in her head now, his face full of stubble and comical eyes. ” I don’t know.” She admitted.
” Yeah. Its a mystery. But it’ll unfold in time.” Alex murmured after a moment, pausing to kiss Dana softly behind her ear.
” I love the way you talk.” She whispered, gently sliding her hands across his forearms, breaking away their embrace to meet his eyes.
” I love the way you look.” He chuckled back, both of their cheeks going rosy.
” Okay, enough mushy talk, let’s go inside.” Dana laughed, falling out of his arms completely, but holding onto his hand and heading for the door. Still worrying about the day she could lose him.
Now
I reeled back, appalled, my breath almost completely knocked out of me. Ember froze, thinking I’d somehow screwed up her entire left side of her face, and for a moment I had to be taken aback at how selfish kids were with their goddamn looks.Then, all of the color in my face drained, and I forced myself to touch her forehead again, to sew her now familiar face back together, silenced.
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