Chapter 69

“Niki, are you okay? Did he hurt you?

“Officer Mike?”

“Mike, yeah. It’s just Mike. Officer isn’t part of my name.”

I let that sink in for a moment, before beginning to tremble violently. Officer Mike, I mean Mike, looks concerned, and grasps me by both elbows.

“I need a wheelchair over here now!” he shouts.

“Hey, that’s my line.” I try to smile, and then I realize he’s calling the wheelchair for me. A nurse brings one, just before my legs buckle out from under me.

Mike runs alongside the wheelchair, while the nurse rapidly pushes it to one of those medi-surg tents set up in the hospital parking lot. Off to the sides are reporters with cameras flashing, held back from the tent by armed men in fatigues.

There must have been some kind of disaster while I was in the room with Frank.

With Frank…Frank’s dead. He had a gun pointed at my head. He wanted me to euthanize Nathan. He held me hostage…hostage. Oh my God, Frank is the disaster!

Suddenly, I’m sweaty and nauseous. I my vision starts getting black at the edges, as though I’m looking through a telescope.

“Get her out of the chair and on the gurney! Start an IV and hang NS! Get her supine, she’s passing out!”

On the gurney, I barely feel the IV poke. The NS is chilly in my vein. I’m shivering. The nurse who got the wheelchair has a warmed blanket, which she places over me. It feels nice. “Better?” she asks, while taking my blood pressure and temperature.

“Yes, the warm blanket feels good.”

A doctor introduces herself, but already I’ve forgotten her name. “Niki, are you hurt anywhere? Did he assault you in anyway?”

I feel sick again when I realize what she means.

“No, no he never touched me. He had a gun pointed at my head. He slammed Liz up against a wall though, she’s unconscious…Oh no! Where’s Liz? Is Liz okay? What about Nathan? Are they okay?”

I start to cry.

The doctor takes my hand, and with the other wipes the hair from my forehead. “They’re in separate bays. We’re checking them over for injuries now. Liz is conscious. She’s getting a CT. Nathan is sedated. He’s going to be fine.”

She examines me, and then asks, “Niki, would you like something for anxiety, something to calm you?”

“Yes.”

I feel warm as the medication does its job.