Page 25 of Sampled

Forcing herself to calm down, she did a quick internet search on her phone. The local Cleveland news had plenty of coverage about an apartment building fire downtown. The stories mentioned civilian casualties but nothing about dead or injured firefighters.

She entered the building’s address into a map and determined it was close enough to MetroGen that injuries should have gone there. Besides, if memory served from her parents’ past discussions, no other hospital in Cleveland was a Level 1 trauma center.

For a brief moment, she considered asking Raj for more help. He could look up Royce and tell her where he was and what had happened to him.

Then again, it would also get Raj in a lot of trouble if he didn’t have a good reason to look up Royce.

Besides, then Raj would know the name and occupation of her new boyfriend. Their unofficial brother sister pact of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ would be violated. He wouldn’t have plausible deniability if their parents ever got wind of it.

However, she could go to MetroGen on her own. As a doctors’ kid, she’d been in and out of hospitals her whole life. If you knew what to say to the right people, you could go almost anywhere… except maybe Labor and Delivery.

Thus decided, she used Uber to get dropped off at the front door of the MetroGen ER.

The waiting room was full, so Vandy waited in line as people checked in ahead of her. By listening carefully to what the check-in clerk asked, Vandy figured out exactly what she needed to say.

“How may I help you?” the check-in woman said.

“My boyfriend was injured in the fire. He’s a firefighter. Royce Murphy.” Nothing in there was a lie. Vandy certainly didn’t resemble his sister, and her sundress precluded a visit in any professional capacity.

The woman checked her computer and confirmed what Vandy had feared. “Yes, he’s in the standard care pod. Let me call back and see if they’re accepting visitors right now.”

It took a quick phone call, but then Vandy got a visitor sticker and was waved through the automatic double doors.

The MetroGen ER was huge, and a place she had never visited, despite various forays into the hospital. She realized the ‘standard care pod’ didn’t mean much to her because the nearby signs said ‘Trauma Pod.’ It was a huge hive of moving feet, faces, and people in multicolored scrubs rushing in every direction.

Fortunately, like most hospital units, there would be a desk clerk somewhere in here. Vandy zeroed in on the Black woman seated behind a computer. She wore a bright blue scrub top, and her nametag read ‘Cassie Odon.’

The woman was getting off the phone. “Okay. Well, if that’s all you need from the MetroGen ER… you stay safe. How can I help you, ma’am?”

“They told me my boyfriend Royce Murphy was in the standard care pod.”

“Yes.” She tapped a few keys and scrolled her screen. “He’s in one of the standard care pods. Each pod has twenty-five beds. He’s in room 69.”

“Okay, and where is that?”

“This is the trauma pod with beds 1-25, then if you go down the hallway, turn left at the fork. That’s pod 3, our second standard care pod. Follow the room numbers to 69. There’s going to be a lot of people in hallway beds, so keep that in mind.”

“Thank you.” Vandy followed the instructions and made her way through the crowded ER. She knocked on the door of 69 and went in.

Vandy should have been struck by the hottie bonanza that was stuck in one exam room. She recognized tall and blonde-haired Casey Jensen easily. Standing next to him was an older version of Royce in a police officer’s uniform, which meant he had to be his older brother Sean.

Sean was a little bit taller than Royce with his hair cut short and no visible tattoos. If she hadn’t been sure of his identity, his eyes would have convinced her. They were the exact same shade of green but had a sullen, cynical edge to them, which Royce lacked.

However, Vandy was more concerned about the fact that her boyfriend was in a hospital gown on a table getting his left arm sewn up by a gray-haired male doctor.

“Who is she?” the brother said. “Do the nursing students usually dress like this?”

“Oh, my God. What happened to him, Casey?” Vandy asked as the brother blocked her coming closer.

“I said, ‘who are you’ and why are you here?”

“And I asked Casey what happened to him.”

“You’re here?” Royce’s emerald eyes opened sleepily, and his voice sounded odd.

“Don’t move.” Casey skirted around Royce’s right side and place a hand on Royce’s chest. “You stay still so the doctor can sew. I’ll talk.”

“But I’m so late,” Royce mumbled.

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