Lover Unbound

The one with the fantastic hair-God, was that stuff for real?-smiled a little. 'We're looking for Michael Klosnick, who came up from the ED. Admitting told us he was brought here after he was operated on?'

God… those irises were the color of buttercups in the sunshine, a true, resonating gold. 'Are you family?'

'We're his brothers.'

'Okay, but I'm sorry, he's just out of the OR and we don't-' For no good reason, Faye's brain changed directions, kind of like a toy train that had been picked up off one track and put down on another. She found herself saying, 'He's down the hall, room six. But only one of you can go in and just for a short time. Oh, and you have to wait until his doctors-'

At that moment Dr. Manello came striding up to the desk. He looked over the men and asked, 'Everything okay here?'

Faye nodded as her mouth said, 'Yes, just fine.'

Dr. Manello frowned as he met the men stare for stare. Then he winced and rubbed his temples like he had a headache. 'I'll be in my office if you need me, Faye.'

'Okay, Dr. Manello.' She glanced back at the men. What had she been saying? Oh, right. 'You'll have to wait until his surgeon leaves, though, okay?'

'He's in there now?'

'She's in there now, yes.'

'All right, thank you.'

Those yellow eyes bored into Faye's… and suddenly she couldn't remember if there was a patient in six after all. Was there? Wait…

'Tell me,' the man said, 'what is your user name and password?'

'Excuse… me?'

'For the computer.'

Why would he-Of course, he needed the information. Absolutely. And she needed to give it to him. 'FMONT2 in caps is the login, and the password is 11Eddie11. E in uppercase.'

'Thank you.'

She was about to say, You're welcome, when the thought popped into her head that it was time for a staff meeting. Except why would that be? They'd already had one at the beginning of the-

No, it was definitely time for a staff meeting. They urgently needed to have a staff meeting. Right now-

Faye blinked and realized she was staring into space over the nursing station's counter. Weird, she could have sworn she'd just been talking to someone. Someone male and-

Staff meeting. Now.

Faye massaged her temples, feeling like she had a vise clamped onto her forehead. She didn't usually get headaches, but it had been a hectic day, and she'd had a lot of caffeine and not much food.

She looked over her shoulder at the other three nurses, all of whom were looking a little confused. 'Let's head into the conference room, guys. We have to do a patient review.'

One of Faye's colleagues frowned. 'Didn't we already do that tonight?'

'We need to do it again.'

Everyone got up and went into the conference room. Faye kept the double doors open and sat at the head of the table so she could watch over the hall outside as well as the monitor that showed the status of every patient on the floor-

Faye stiffened in her chair. What the hell? There was a man with multicolored hair behind the nurses' station, leaning over a keyboard.

Faye started to get up, ready to call security, but then the guy looked over his shoulder. As his yellow eyes met hers, she suddenly forgot why it would be wrong for him to be at one of their computers. She also realized that she needed to talk about the patient in five right away.

'Let's review the status of Mr. Hauser,' she said in a voice that got everyone's attention.

After Manello left, Jane stared down at her patient in disbelief. In spite of all the sedatives in his veins, his eyes were open and he was staring up out of his hard, tattooed face with full cognition.

God… those eyes. They were unlike any she'd seen before, the irises unnaturally white with navy blue rims.

This was not right, she thought. The way he looked at her wasn't right. That six-chambered heart beating in his chest wasn't right. Those long teeth in the front of his mouth weren't right.

He was not human.

Except that was ridiculous. First rule of medicine? When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras. What were the chances that there was an undetected humanoid species out there? A yellow Lab to Homo sapiens' golden retriever?

She thought about the patient's teeth. Yeah, maybe make that Doberman pinscher to the retriever.

The patient stared back at her, somehow managing to loom even though he was on his back, intubated, and only two hours out of trauma surgery.

How the hell was this guy conscious?

'Can you hear me?' she asked. 'Nod your head if you can.'

His hand, the one with the tattoos, clawed at his throat, then grabbed onto the tube going into his mouth.

'No, that has to stay in.' As she leaned over to take his hand away, he whipped the thing back from her, moving it as far away as his arm would allow. 'That's right. Please don't make me restrain you.'

His eyes went utterly wide in terror, just peeled right open as his big body started to shake on the bed. His lips worked against the tube down his throat as if he were crying out, and his fear touched her: There was such an animalistic edge to his desperation, like the way a wolf might look at you if his leg was caught in a trap: Help me and maybe I won't kill you when you set me free.

She put her hand on his shoulder. 'It's all right. We don't have to go that route. But we need that tube-'

The door to the room opened, and Jane froze.

The two men who came in were dressed in black leather and looked like the type who'd carry concealed weapons. One was probably the biggest, most gorgeous blond she'd ever eyeballed. The other scared her. He had a Red Sox hat pulled down low and a horrible air of malevolence about him. She couldn't see a lot of his face, but going by his gray pallor, he seemed ill.

Looking at the pair, Jane's first thought was that they had come for her patient, and not just to bring him flowers and yak it up.

Her second thought was that she was going to need security, stat.

'Get out,' she said. 'Right now.'

The guy with the Sox cap completely ignored her and went over to the bedside. As he and the patient made eye contact, Red Sox reached out and the two linked hands.

In a hoarse voice, Red Sox said, 'Thought I'd lost you, you son of a bitch.'

The patient's eyes strained as if he were trying to communicate. Then he just shook his head from side to side on the pillow.

'We're going to get you home, okay?'

As the patient nodded, Jane didn't bother with any more Chatty-Cathy, you-need-to-leave shit. She lunged for the nursing station call button, the one that signaled a cardiac emergency and would bring half the floor to her.

She didn't make it.

Red Sox's buddy, the beautiful blond, moved so fast she couldn't track him. One moment he was just inside the door; the next he'd grabbed her from behind and popped her feet off the floor. As she started to holler, he clamped his hand over her mouth and subdued her as easily as if she were a child throwing a tantrum.

Meanwhile, Red Sox systematically stripped the patient of everything: the intubation, the IV, the catheter, the cardiac wires, the oxygen monitor.

Jane went ballistic. As the machines' alarms started going off, she hauled back and kicked her captor in the shin with her heel. The blond behemoth grunted then squeezed her rib cage until she got so busy trying to breathe she couldn't soccer-ball him anymore.