Runner: Book II of The Chosen Page 4

  She’s still asleep when I return. I open my door and slip in.

  “Sandy… Sandy.” I reach out and gently touch her shoulder.

  She bolts upright, her eyes wide.

  “What?!” Those green eyes dart around, alarm ringing in her voice.

  “It’s okay. We’re here at the hotel. I thought maybe you would rather sleep in a soft warm bed.”

  “Oh, yeah. That sounds pretty good, I guess.” With a big sigh, she grabs her backpack and slowly gets out of the car.

  She still looks pale. Even though she’ll probably argue, I think she should see a doctor after we get settled. Something just doesn’t seem right.

  Opening the trunk, I begin collecting the packages to carry to our rooms. Sandy joins me, and we start walking across the parking lot. Our trek quickly turns into a pathetic juggling act, and we laugh as boxes fall out of bags and handles rip. But we finally make it to the lobby where I commandeer a baggage cart.

  We steer it into the elevator and I’m glad to see that her nap seems to have energized her some. Her bruise is not the sharp contrast to her pale skin that it was, but then again that might be due to the makeup we bought.

  When we reach our rooms, I help Sandy unload her stuff. Whatever bit of energy she’d found is gone by the time we’re finished.

  “Thanks, Sunny.” She offers me a brief smile and sits down on the bed.

  “Hey, even though it’s kind of early, are you hungry for dinner? You haven’t eaten much today.”

  “No, maybe later. I think I’m gonna lie down for a little while. I’m pretty tired.”

  “All right. I’ll check back with you in a bit. Get some rest.”

  That’ll give me time to find a doctor. But hopefully a nap is all she really needs.

  Once inside my own room, I take a deep breath and feel the tension in my body begin to release a little. Even with Sandy’s calming presence, I still find it difficult to be with people for any length of time. Including her.

  Funny how quickly I got used to being with my own kind, when I didn’t have to hide what I am.

  Just who I am.

  Putting my packages on one of the beds, I glance around before taking the cart back downstairs. This will do for one more night. But it makes me nervous to be in Casper for so long. It’s too close to the Springs, just barely five hours away, and I worry that Nicolas may trace me here.

  And I don’t know why. As ready as I feel to run back to him, I also fear him finding me.

  Regardless of what I end up doing, I need to get this girl situated, because I can’t take her with me, wherever I go. It’s too dangerous—on so many levels. Yet the thought of leaving her disturbs me. I can’t believe I’ve gotten so attached in such a short time.

  To a human. To someone I could potentially kill at any moment.

  That disturbs me more than anything else.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Sandy.” I knock on her door. She’s been sleeping about two hours now, and I want to get her to the urgent care clinic before they close.

  No answer.

  I knock louder. The only response from within is a faint groan.

  Shit.

  I pull the spare key for her room from my back pocket.

  She’s on the floor next to the bed, lying on her side. Her nose is bleeding again, and there’s blood everywhere—on the carpet, on her bathrobe, on her.

  “Sandy!” Ignoring it, I rush to her side.

  “I fell,” she whispers.

  I grab towels from the bathroom. Terrified that my body will betray me at any moment, I try to staunch the flow.

  Bleeder. She said she was a bleeder. As in a hemophiliac?

  Oh God.

  “Can you sit up?” I shift to help her.

  Her weak attempt fails and I become even more alarmed. As I lift her, she winces and groans, and her bathrobe falls open.

  Sandy’s left side from her ribs down—the side she’s been favoring—is a mass of angry purples.

  This isn’t just a nosebleed.

  Examining her more closely, I realize she’s panting, her breaths shallow. Rapid, weak pulse, skin cold and clammy—she’s in real trouble.

  Instinct tells me there’s no time to wait for an ambulance.

  I prop her door open and rush to my room to grab car keys and purse, then race back.

  “Sandy, I’m taking you to emergency.” She groans as I scoop her up like a baby and stand.

  “My backpack… ,” she gasps. I balance her against me and grab it, then head to the elevator. When we reach the bottom floor, I hurry up to the front desk.

  The clerk’s eyes widen as she notes the girl in my arms and the bloody towel at her face.

  “Where’s the nearest hospital?” I demand.

  She quickly babbles out directions. “Don’t you want me to call an ambulance?”

  “Not enough time,” I snarl as I shove through the doors.

  Sandy’s heart is beating too fast and my blood sense tells me she’s in grave danger. I nearly run across the parking lot, cradling her as gently as possible, then carefully load her into the back seat. Her eyes are closed. I can’t tell if she’s still conscious or not.

  “Hang in there, Sandy. We’ll be there in just a minute.”

  I slide into the driver’s seat and tear off across the parking lot.

  The hospital’s only two miles away, but that might not be close enough.

  The BMW races down the street, ignoring the speed limit.

  Stopping outside the emergency room, I leap out and open the rear door, then reach in and carefully pick up Sandy’s limp body and walk into the ER.

  “I need help here! She has some sort of blood disorder and I think she’s bleeding internally. She needs to be seen—now!”

  Within seconds, a nurse comes into the waiting room.

  “Open her robe,” I order.

  The nurse’s eyes widen as the bruising on Sandy’s side is revealed.

  “The blood is from her nose—I think she hit her face when she fell.”

  “Follow me,” she says, closing the robe.

  We head through a door and into a curtained treatment room. I ease Sandy down onto the bed and step back out of the way as another nurse comes in.

  “What’s her name? How old is she?” One of them starts sticking little pads all over Sandy with lines that lead to a monitor while the other cleans the blood from her face.

  “Sandy. She’s… she’s eighteen.”

  I don’t know how they’ll react if they find out she’s a minor and I’m not her guardian.

  “Hello, Sandy. Sandy, can you hear me?” The nurse gently shakes her.

  “Yeah,” Sandy mutters.

  “Sandy, my name is Janeane and this is Zelle. Can you tell us what happened, honey?”

  “My side hurts. And I’m really, really tired.” Sandy’s voice is barely above a whisper.

  “Well, stay awake if you can. We’re hooking you up to a monitor to watch your vital signs.”

  Janeane turns to me.

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No, just a friend.”

  “I’m sorry, only family members can be back here. You can wait in the waiting room.”

  “No. Can’t she stay?” Sandy struggles to sit up. “Please?”

  “Easy, hon. Just lie back and rest.” Janeane glances at me. “Yes, she can stay.”

  Another nurse comes into the room with a clipboard and begins asking Sandy questions. Her responses fade in and out, but she manages to remain awake long enough to sign the forms. The pen slips from her fingers as she tries to give it back to the nurse, then her eyes close.

  “Okay, Sandy, I need to draw some blood and set up an I.V. You might feel a little sting in your arm.” Zelle says something about low blood pressure, but finally the tube begins to fill with red. She finishes with the remaining tubes, then hooks up an I.V. line. Clear fluid begins running into Sandy’s arm.

  The nurses continue talking to Sand
y as they work on her, even though she makes no indication that she hears them. Janeane is typing on a small computer near the bed when a doctor steps inside the room.

  “All right. What do we have here?”

  One of the nurses quickly fills him in and he requests they do an abdominal ultrasound. He spends a moment examining Sandy, but she doesn’t respond to his questions. He then turns to me.

  “And you are?”

  “Sunny. A friend.”

  “I’m Dr. Graystone. Do you know what happened?”

  “Not really. I picked her up hitchhiking last night, sometime after midnight. She said she’d had a fight with a truck driver.”

  He turns back to Sandy and peers at the bruising on her face.

  “And what’s this about a blood disorder? There’s no mention of it on her paperwork.”

  “She called herself a bleeder, said something about transfusions in the past and medication. She had a nosebleed last night that lasted awhile. Her nose was bleeding again when I found her on the floor in her hotel room, just before coming here.”

  The doctor nods and starts typing on the computer.

  One of the nurses comes back with the ultrasound machine and I step into the hall to give them more space to work. The other nurse—Zelle—directs me to a sink where I can wash Sandy’s blood off my hands and arms.

  On my way back to the treatment room, I remember the backpack.

  Maybe there’s something in it that will help—Sandy’s insistence on bringing it might be more than just a fear of losing her stuff.

  The doctor is leaving as I walk up. A nurse wheels Sandy’s bed out through the curtains while Zelle trails along with the I.V. bag.

  “Where are you taking her?” I try to keep the panic from my voice.

  “Over to radiology.” He stops in the middle of the hall. “We’re still waiting on the lab results, but based on the ultrasound, I’ve ordered a CT scan. It appears she may have some internal bleeding, but we need to determine the source and extent of it before choosing a course of action. You’re welcome to wait here.”

  “I… I just remembered her backpack. She insisted I bring it—it’s in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  “Good. If she does have an underlying medical condition, it might contain her emergency info.”

  The car is still running where I left it, and I quickly pull it out of the loading zone and into a parking space. Grabbing Sandy’s pack, I walk back to the room, set it on the chair, and start pulling out her things. Clothes, a sketchbook, a photo album, a few trinkets. I unzip one of the smaller compartments and take out a charm bracelet. Looped and fastened through the bracelet is another one, a simple medical I.D. bracelet like kids in school used to wear. The name Sandy Miller is engraved on the underside, along with an Ohio address and a phone number. Below that are words that might help the doctor.

  “Von Willebrand. This says she has von Willebrand disease.” I hand it to Janeane. She reads it, thanks me, and heads out into the hall.

  Zelle and the other nurse roll Sandy’s bed back into the room. The girl’s still unconscious, and I can do nothing but stand there and stare at her pale, bruised face.

  Ohio. She’s just a young, sweet kid from the Midwest who should be hanging out with friends, going to school, and enjoying life, and not lying beaten in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers.

  The doctor re-enters the room, followed by Janeane. She gives me the bracelet and I tuck it into Sandy’s backpack.

  “Any word from the lab?” he asks.

  “Not yet,” Janeane says as she enters more info into the computer.

  “Were you able to reach her family?”

  “The number’s been disconnected.”

  “Well, let’s try to wake her again.”

  He leans over Sandy and calls her name several times, then gently pushes up one of her eyelids and points a penlight at her pupil.

  Sandy jerks her head away and squints up at him.

  “Hi, Sandy. I’m Dr. Graystone. Can you hear me okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sandy, do you have von Willebrand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you taking any medication?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, you’re bleeding internally and we may have to do surgery to stop it. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  He continues to explain the risks of surgery—and the risks of not having surgery.

  Like death.

  Oh shit.

  I watch, horrified, as Sandy signs another form. The phone on the wall rings and Zelle answers it, then passes it to the doctor. He listens a moment, nodding, then hands it back and tells her to call Dr. Wilson.

  Everything begins to happen very fast.

  His expression grave, the doctor rattles off orders to the two nurses. I catch words like “hemoglobin,” “factor,” and “two units of type O negative” in his instructions, and both nurses fly into high gear.

  At some point in the flurry of motion, the phone rings again. The doctor picks it up, and after a brief conversation, barks out a quick “Thanks, Bill,” and hangs up.

  “All right. Let’s finish up—they have an O.R. team standing by upstairs.”

  He heads over to the computer and I stare at the bag of blood hanging from Sandy’s I.V. stand. Red life flows down the tube into the girl’s arm.

  I can’t help but compare her need for blood to mine. It’s as vital to her as it is to me. She will die if she does not get it, as will I, though it will take me much, much longer.

  That she could die from its loss while in my care, even though I’ve neither desired nor taken a single drop of it, is beyond cruel.

  The doctor finishes at the computer and turns to me.

  “It’s a good thing you found that bracelet.”

  “What is von Willebrand disease?”

  “It’s a blood-clotting disorder, similar to hemophilia, but usually not as severe. She appears to have been beaten, as you said, which explains the extensive bruising and nosebleeds. But her more serious injuries are internal. The CT scan revealed she may have a small tear in her spleen. Under normal conditions, it would heal on its own. But with the uncontrolled bleeding from the von Willebrand, we need to evaluate it surgically and perform any necessary repairs.”

  This is sounding worse by the minute.

  “You said this happened a little after midnight?” he asks, looking closely at me now.

  His scrutiny makes me nervous, as I’m sure his medical training enables him to pick up the subtle differences in my physiology. The beast inside me takes notice.

  I bend down and start putting Sandy’s things back into her pack.

  “It was around two a.m. when I picked her up outside of Wheatland. I’m not sure how long she’d been walking. She said that a trucker who gave her a ride tried to rape her and that all he did was push her around and slap her before she kicked him and got away. She did mention banging her side on the gear shift.”

  “Hmm. Well, we’ll need to examine her for evidence of rape or any other trauma. Why did you wait so long to have her seen?” His accusing tone triggers the beast, and I clench my jaw as I slap it back down.

  I zip the pack closed, stand up, and look the doctor directly in the eye.

  “Because she claimed to be fine. She had bruises and was favoring her side, but nothing seemed life threatening. She refused to see a doctor. It wasn’t until this afternoon when we were shopping that I realized something more might be wrong.”

  He flinches, then stutters something to the effect that it was a good thing I brought her in.

  “How long will she be in surgery? Where can I wait for her? I mean, she doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “Depending on the extent of the splenic tear, or any other injuries, it could be anywhere from four to six hours. You’re welcome to stay. The O.R. waiting room is up on the third floor.” He leaves and I step over to Sandy’s bed.

  “Hey, kid.” I s
queeze her hand and her eyes flutter open. “Hang in there, okay? I’ll see you when you get out.”

  She offers a weak smile and I step aside as the nurses push her bed out and down the hall. My insides knotted with worry, I shoulder the backpack, look at the time on my phone, and start walking. 4:23 PM. Sure hope the routine surgeries are done for the day and that the hospital’s having a quiet evening.

  I’d hate to turn the O.R. waiting room into its own trauma site.

  CHAPTER 6

  The crowded waiting area turns out to be more than the killers in me can handle. Since there’s nowhere close to go for a real run, I have to content myself with jogging countless laps along the poorly lit streets surrounding the hospital, stalked by memories—memories that threaten to rob me of my dwindling resistance to the siren call of Nicolas only a few short hours away.

  The emptiness in my core aches as I remember the first time I saw him, felt him, staring at me from across the street when I stepped out from the little shop in Colorado Springs just a few short months ago. How his emerald eyes peered into my soul, demanding to know who I was, and the little nod and smile he gave me as he vanished into thin air, too fast for even me to track.

  The emotions he stirred up by his very existence—fear, fascination, uncertainty—were only amplified later that night, rippling across my skin when I found him waiting outside the bar where I worked. I’ll never forget our first conversation over tea in the little coffee shop down the street, how his sophistication and mystery began to seduce me even then.

  And I’ll never forget how I felt as he unveiled his world to me, bit by bit, and my realization that I was no longer alone. That there were others like me, who lived on blood, yet were not the monsters of movies and books.

  Or so I thought.

  But I was too blind to see it at first—blinded by love and lust and the thrill of being swept off my feet by an elegant prince whose true darkness he kept hidden from me.

  Until it all came crashing down in a rain of blood and betrayal.

  Anger surges through me at how he set me up to commit murder, at his broken promise to allow me to make the Choice on my own terms, at the rage and cruelty he speared me with as I refused to be manipulated yet again.