Page 83 of Boxed In

Olivia took in the room. The equipment must have cost millions of dollars. And it was a secret.

The doctor straightened from examining Luke. “You have a bullet in your leg,” Dr. Valero said. “I’m going to put you out while I remove it.”

“No!” Luke sat up and tried to climb off the table. But it was Zabastian who spoke. “I do not know you. You cannot render me unconscious.”

The words were forceful, but the man’s strength had ebbed. The doctor and nurse pressed him back. “We have to remove the bullet,” Dr. Valero said.

“I understand that,” Luke acknowledged in a gritty voice. “But I must keep the box in my sight.”

Olivia hurried to his side and clasped his hand. “I’ll hold it for you. You can trust me to do that.”

He swung his head toward her. “I trust you. But I do not know these other people.”

“I vouch for them,” Frank said.

Luke’s face was hard.

Olivia took Frank’s arm and moved him to the side of the room. “Luke trusts you, but the guardian of the box is. . . obsessive about his obligations.”

“Yes, Beth told me about that,” Frank said.

She caught her breath. “You talked to Beth?”

“Yes, when we were trying to find you.”

“So you understand that Luke is . . . acting kind of weird.”

“Yes.”

Frank walked to Luke’s side, “We’ll give you whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

Turning to the doctor, Frank said, “He must stay awake. Can you give him something for the pain?”

“I can give him something, but if he’s awake, it’s going to hurt.”

“Do it,” Luke muttered.

The doctor looked resigned as he started an IV line in Luke's arm.

“Olivia must stay here—with the box,” Luke said.

“This isn’t the operating room,” the doctor said, his voice stern. “If she comes in there with us, she must put on a gown and mask—just like the staff.”

Luke considered the pronouncement, and she was afraid for a moment that he was going to leap off the table and start knocking heads together. But finally he answered with a tight nod. He didn’t look happy about letting the box out of his sight in this environment, even for a few minutes, but the doctor had made it clear that Olivia couldn’t stay with him every minute.

She went with the doctor into a scrub room.

“I guess you get some unusual cases,” she said.

“Yes.”

She cleared her throat. “Don’t you have to report a gunshot wound?”

“Technically. But in this facility, we have often bent the rules.”

“Okay.”

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