Medically Speaking

Chapter 15

Blearily, I pushed aside the dirty tupperware from last night in the dishwasher that Oli had used to bring me leftovers from his and Ramon's dinner to make room on the rack for my coffee mug. The first of many today thanks to a night of rough sleep and an early start time at the hospital. My backyard is still dark, and Echo has been blinking sleepily at me as she meows her displeasure at my being up and moving so early.

Mr. Darcy is still upstairs. The last time I saw him, his tail was twitching in annoyance because I turned on the bathroom light to see. It wasn't exactly my idea of a good time, either, but not all of us get to call lazing in the sun our day job.

Oli had been waiting at home for me yesterday when I got off from work. He had fed me the chicken Ramon had made for dinner before sitting me down and forcing me to tell him the full story of what had happened with the Academy guys. Followed quickly by two hours of us ranting and raving at each other about their behavior. Turns out, he had already been shown the video by Freddy and was just hoping that they'd done something redeeming in the hours in between.

There's a misconception that Oli is the softening effect in my life. That as the one more likely to fly off the handle, I am the bad influence. The devil on his shoulder. What they don't take into consideration is that even though Oli isn't the tallest person and seems like a pure little bean if you don't know him very well, the boy makes a living as a ballistics specialist and through studying skeletons that have been buried both recently and through the course of history. He knows his way around weapons and disposing of bodies.

To add insult to injury, if he wasn't a suspect, his team would probably be called in by the Academy to look for a missing member. Thanks to Cooper, he even knew what could throw off scent and cadaver dogs. All points he brought up while he brutally detailed what he should do to his friends for both mistreating the nurses and dragging my name through the mud, risking my job and my position with the Academy. Something that would affect far more than just Brandon if they decided they couldn't trust me.

Now, it was 5:45 in the morning and I was yawning on my way out to the car. Fortunately, leaving this early in the morning meant there would be next to no traffic, so I didn't have to leave quite as early, but it was still too early for me. And after the night I'd had, it was even worse.

It had taken a while to fall asleep without anyone there next to me. Once unconsciousness had claimed me, I'd been plagued by the shadows that had warped my dreams since I was a kid. I'd had bad experiences throughout my life, but nothing that indicated lasting nightmares the way I had them. Sometimes I'd dream about my loved ones dying and other normal bad dreams. Sometimes I'd dream about April and I still being kids and the events that had shaped who I had become, which is possibly my one claim to the right to have nightmares for the rest of my life but even that's debatable.

Most of the time, though, it was more of a feeling than a dream. Impending sense of loneliness and doom. Dread cradled into backdrops of unebbing nothingness that woke me hyperventilating and feeling cold. It's hard to fall back asleep once I'm awake and even when I do, there's nothing to say that one dream won't be followed by another, starting the cycle all over again.

Last night was one of the worst nights I've had in a long time.

Sheer dumb luck, instinct, and a lack of traffic is what gets me into the hospital, because I honestly can't remember anything after I pulled out of my driveway until I was turning into the parking lot.

"You're here early," Doug, one of the night security guards, mentioned as I made my way through the mostly empty, echoing atrium. The fresh smell of the new floor cleaner was still jarring, just enough to startle me out of auto-drive mode.