Page 5 of What Doesn't Kill Her

Seconds later, she woke to Roderick’s screams. He had missed the pillows and the padding. When she looked, she saw blood and shattered white bone sticking out of one leg.

The man on the balcony, the one in the robe, leaned over the edge and heaved.

EMTs burst through the screen door and knelt beside Roderick.

Another man came out behind them.

MAXIMILIAN DI LUCA:

TALL, DARK, HANDSOME, ITALIAN-AMERICAN, BROAD-SHOULDERED FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER WITH A SCOWL, WINERY OWNER. FORMER (PERHAPS FUTURE?) LOVER. SCOWLING, CLEARLY FURIOUS.

Max knelt beside her, grasped her hand, looked into her eyes. “Tell me the truth—how badly are you hurt?”

“I’m not dying,” she hastily assured him.

He closed his eyes, cradled her fingers against his chest, then opened his eyes and roared, “You couldn’t have called me directly? You called Rita instead? You couldn’t have waited for me to assist?”

Wow. For a moment, he looked as if he cared. “He was going to fall!”

“You’re bloody and you’ve got something sticking out of your hip. What the hell have you done?” Apparently it was a rhetorical question, because he yelled over the railing, “I need more EMTs up here!”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“So’s he, except for the compound fractures of his tibia!” Max put his hand toward the shard of roof tile sticking out of her side.

She flinched away. “Don’t! If you pull it out—”

“You’ll bleed to death. Yeah, I understand.”

Roderick must have gotten enough morphine in his system, because his screams quieted to the whining of the world’s largest mosquito.

Max gestured at the EMTs attending Roderick, and one rose, ready to attend Kellen.

Then, from the top of the spike ladder, at the outside edge of the balcony, a chirpy sunny childish voice said, “Mommy, that was awesome. You’re like Warrior Woman. That makes me Warrior Girl. I’m going to be Warrior Girl for Halloween. What are you going to be?”

RAE DI LUCA:

FEMALE, 7 YO, MIXED ITALIAN/NATIVE AMERICAN/ANGLO ANCESTRY. BLONDE, BROWN-EYED, TALL FOR HER AGE, FRONT TEETH TOO BIG FOR HER FACE, INTELLIGENT, RELENTLESSLY CHEERFUL, TALKS LOUDLY AND CONSTANTLY. PREFERRED APPAREL: PINK TUTUS, PINK TIGHTS, PINK T-SHIRTS WITH GLITTERY EMBOSSED WIDE-EYED OWLS, ANKLE-HIGH PINK FUZZY BOOTS. PREFERRED MENU: PEANUT BUTTER, CHEESE STICKS, YOGURT, ANYTHING COVERED IN BALSAMIC VINEGAR. HATES GOLDFISH CRACKERS.

Max stood and swiftly, efficiently grabbed their daughter off the top of the ladder. In his fierce father voice, he asked, “What have I told you about climbing trees and tall ladders? Haven’t I told you no?”

“Mommy did it!” Rae said.

Kellen intercepted a livid glare from Max and judged it a good time to pass out cold.

So she did.

3

By some accident of nature, probably that she had needed less triage than Roderick, Kellen’s ambulance got to the hospital first. Some cute young guys wheeled her through the ER entrance—they probably weren’t any younger than her, but really, they were cute, for all the good that did her—and down the hall to a room occupied by tall female in a white coat:

DR. CHERYL BRUNDAGE:

FEMALE, INDIAN ANCESTRY, 45, 6', 160 LBS. BROWN EYES, HEAVY BAGS BENEATH, BROWN SKIN, BROWN HAIR WITH GRAY STRANDS. SITTING ON A TALL STOOL, FEET PROPPED ON ONE ANOTHER, LEANING AGAINST THE WALL. WEARY.

Dr. Brundage took one look at the roof tile protruding from Kellen’s hip. Her eyes lit up, she stood, and in a booming voice, she said, “We don’t usually get good stuff like this in here. Usually it’s car wrecks and home canning accidents. Now this—this is something interesting.”

“Thanks,” Kellen muttered. “I do my best.”

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