Page 17 of Kept By the Loan Shark

Visions of drills and blood made my stomach churn. I wanted to run away. I wanted to escape. I didn’t want anyone poking around in my brain.

But…

“I’m a scientist,” I said, crying now. My head throbbed as I wept, but I had to get it out. My words were slow and some of them slurred as I tried to explain the situation. “All my life I’ve wanted to work in space. It’s all I know. It’s all I want. I have to be able to think. To do math. To do physics. So, whatever it takes to fix my brain? You do it.”

“I’ll take good care of you, Cassie,” Dr. Choi promised.

There was a sudden rush of activity as the nurses and techs prepared me for surgery. I asked about Hagen, but Shawn shook his head. “Your friend hasn’t been able to reach him.”

“My brother?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll check.”

Feeling so alone, I tried not to cry, but I was so scared. My stomach lurched suddenly, and before I could warn anyone, I vomited uncontrollably. Thankfully, Shawn was ready with the pink basin that had been sitting on my bed since I arrived in the emergency room. He and another nurse quickly rotated me onto my side, preventing me from choking or aspirating. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “Get it out. It’s the head injury.”

I groaned and tried to touch my pounding head. My arms felt so heavy, and I dropped them. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. We’re used to it.” Shawn wiped my face and made the basin disappear. “Let me see those pretty eyes, Cassie.”

I blinked as he shined the pen light at me, checking my pupils. My vision seemed even blurrier now, and I was seeing four of everything. All four of Shawn’s jaws flexed, and I knew it wasn’t good as he said more medical things I didn’t understand. The nurses and techs stepped up their speed, and in no time, I was being rolled down a hallway and into an elevator. I closed my eyes as the world started to spin again. The beep of the machine tracking my heartbeat started to speed up, and I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack on top of everything else.

When we neared the operating room, Shawn and the other nurse and tech stepped away from me as others came into view. Shawn smiled down at me and patted my hand. “You’re in good hands, Cassie.”

“Thank you,” I managed weakly.

New nurses and techs took over, all of them in scrubs and their faces covered. I was transferred to the operating table and an anesthesiologist talked to me about the upcoming procedure and what to expect. The idea of being awake while a surgeon drilled into my skull sent my heart rate skyrocketing, and the anesthesiologist gave me something that left me feeling calm and detached.

Someone—a nurse or doctor—started asking me questions and giving me words and numbers to remember. I couldn’t read the cards held up in front of me, and I started to worry that I was going to end up blind. The cold room was brightly lit, so bright it made my eyes hurt, and I closed them as the nurses and techs moved by body into the correct position. My head was secured, but there was no sensation of claustrophobia when I realized I couldn’t move.

Whatever the anesthesiologist was pumping into my veins was working. I didn’t even question the nurse who began to clip away a small area of my hair or flinch when they started sticking needles of anesthetic into my scalp to numb it.

“Cassie? It’s time, okay?” Dr. Choi stood in front of me, her face covered with a mask and shield. The lighting had been dimmed in the background. The surgical lamps above me were bright white. I could hear nurses shuffling around behind me, moving equipment and supplies.

Unable to nod, I said, “Okay.”

Dr. Choi moved out of my field of vision, stepping behind the drapes around my head. The anesthesiologist touched my hand, and said, “Just a little something to make you sleepy.”

My body relaxed, and I fixed my gaze on the wall across from me. Whether it was the drugs or the exhaustion or the brain bleed itself, I felt like a balloon floating above my own body. I could hear Dr. Choi talking to her assistant and the nurses. She spoke steadily, her voice clear and calm as she worked. When the drill started to whir, I tried to go somewhere else in my mind.

Hagen.

He was my safe place.

Or he was.

Janine’s angry words came roaring back to me. She had attacked me because Hagen had hurt Travis. Badly, if she was to be believed.

My emotions were muted by the medications, but I could still feel the burn of betrayal and the heartbreak of disappointment. Later, when the medications wore off, I wouldn’t be able to handle the emotional pain. I wasn’t strong in that way. I had been damaged by the death of my parents, and my reaction to Hagen putting me in so much danger would be one so brutally painful it might kill me.

“Cassie, we’re done.”

As if the invisible balloon I had been tethered to was losing helium, I felt myself float back into my body. My head still throbbed, but it was a different sort of pain, blunt and not sharp. Groggy but relieved, I let go.

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