Page 26 of Sampled

“Well, she’s here, so she picked herself up,” Casey reassured him.

“You tell me what happened? Is he burned? I saw the news.” Vandy tried to control her rising fear.

“What is going on?” Sean raised his voice in volume.

“What does it look like? My boyfriend is injured, and I need to know what happened to him. Why does he sound weird? Does he have a concussion?”

“No, that would be the morphine and the Versed. It took a lot to keep him down.” The doctor didn’t stop his stitches.

“Yes, he fought the nurses and doctors. Kept wanting to go find Randy, whom I assumed was a member of his shift.” Sean’s words accused Casey more than Vandy. “Girlfriend?”

“I’m Vandy Patel. Royce was supposed to meet me at the Amtrak station this morning. My train was late and… who cares about me? What happened to him?”

“There was a high-rise fire last night. Royce and I started on Medic, but it got bad and they had to evac the building after two floors collapsed,” Casey said. “Since we were fresher, they had us escort the USAR—Urban Search and Rescue—guys up to the collapse zones. We were helping put up cribbing when more of the ceiling came down.”

“A three-foot long piece of metal punctured his arm and impaled him right through his Kevlar turnouts,” Sean said bitterly. “A few inches toward the center, it would have punctured his chest.”

“But it didn’t. And Royce had jumped on one of the engineers who wasn’t so protected,” Casey argued.

“I think it was unnecessary danger.” Sean crossed his arms over his chest.

“Not as dangerous as the firefighters who got stuck in the collapse zone during the flashover,” Casey didn’t seem like he was going to give an inch. “I’m his partner in this. He and I work together, so you don’t get a say in firefighting.”

“I’m his next of kin on his emergency forms after what that bitch did to him.”

The nurse and the doctor both paused, taking a quick glance at Vandy.

“Not me. The one before me,” Vandy supplied quickly and returned to Royce. “So the Versed is what’s making him loopy. Did you do a head CT?”

Silence.

“What?”

“I thought you were an accounting student,” Casey said.

“Both of my parents are doctors. Did the metal hit anything major? Arteries, brachial plexus?”

“If it had, he’d be in the OR right now. We had to wait in line for the CT angiogram because we were backed up from last night. While we were there, we did a head CT to confirm it was only the meds.” The doctor’s expression was difficult to read behind his mask.

“The Versed should wear off in a few hours,” the nurse reassured her.

“So he’s going to be okay.” Vandy had enough experience with the medical world to have pretty good bullshit detector when they were minimizing. This didn’t seem to be one of those times.

Sean didn’t seem any happier but was still directing his ire at Casey. “When did he get a girlfriend?”

“Three weeks ago. She’s visiting from Chicago,” Casey said.

“The train,” Royce croaked. “Have to get to the train.”

“No. No. Stay still. I’m here.” Vandy shoved her way past Sean and placed her hands on Royce’s face.

“You’re upside down?” He observed.

Vandy instinctively almost kissed him, but the doctor said, “No. None of that. Wait until after the stitches are done.”

“What does she do?” Sean ignored her and kept talking to Casey.

“She’s a student, like she told you,” Casey said. “Sean, Royce likes her. Can’t you leave it?”

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