Page 63 of Deacon

It wasn’t.

About an hour later, our charge nurse caught Evan and me at the station wearing the expression that always meant somebody was about to lose a chunk of their evening. “I need you both to stay over,” she said. “We’re short.”

Evan groaned like a man receiving a prison sentence while I glanced at the clock and reached for my phone. “I need to call my daughter.”

Jade answered on the second ring. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, baby. I have to stay late.”

A brief pause followed before she answered, “That’s okay, I know the drill. I can go hang out at Chloe’s for a while so you’re not worried that I’m just sitting at home alone. I’ll be back before too late.”

Relief loosened something inside me almost immediately. “Okay. Text me when you get there.”

“I will.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up feeling steadier. Not good exactly, but better.

The next few hours disappeared the way they always did once the floor accelerated. Chest pain filled one bay while another held a busted hand. A toddler burned with fever down the hall, and a drunk man tried to fight triage because the wait offended his personal brand. Evan and I moved through it the way we always had, trading supplies and reading one another’s expressions fast enough to keep the floor from tipping too far into madness.

Then the radio call came.

MVC. Teenagers. Suspected alcohol involved.

The gurneys burst through the ER in a blur of fluorescent light, noise, blood, gasoline, and vomit. One girl had a head wound and an obvious injury to her arm. Two boys were loud through their pain, booze heavy on their breath and their pupils telling me alcohol wasn’t the only thing in their systems.

My hands were moving before my mind caught up with their faces.

Then I saw the girl.

Chloe.

Cold swept through me so quickly I almost lost the rhythm of the room. “Where’s Jade?” I heard myself demand before I consciously decided to speak.

One of the boys laughed, high and ugly with intoxication. “Not here, lady.”

The other smirked through a split lip. “That frigid little prude wouldn’t be caught dead with us.”

Heat replaced the cold.

The first boy looked at me, sensing the opening with the cruel instinct boys like him always seemed to possess. “It’s like nobody can get in her pants the way this town gets into her mom’s!”

Evan lunged.

He didn’t get far before I caught his arm and yanked him back. “Evan.”

“I will kill him,” he hissed.

“No, you will not. Not on my shift.”

Every muscle in him remained locked for another second before training finally won over fury. We got Chloe stabilized together, and I passed her parents’ information to another nurse with instructions to make the call. When Evan moved away for supplies, I leaned closer to the bed.

“Chloe,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “Where is Jade?”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Tears had started running down her face, whether from pain, guilt, alcohol, or some ugly mixture of all of it.