Page 30 of Keeping Her Under (Deranged Highway, #1)

Thirty

Patients say the strangest shit, so when Nurse Jones glances at me, I know I can brush Summer’s words aside with a smile. But I can’t. Not when I feel like I’m choking on my own intestines. Like the floor is opening up and dragging me into Hell.

But not because she called me a devil. Of course she wouldn’t call me an angel. When has an angel ever saved her? She knows it’s the villains who protect their women from the monsters in the dark. And I did that. For her.

She loves me…

So why is she looking at me in horror?

“It must have been scary for you,” Jones says as she moves to her bedside. “It isn’t uncommon for patients to experience nightmares while they’re in a coma.”

Fuck. Was she suffering from nightmares all that time? Dream or not, they would’ve felt real to her. She would’ve felt so trapped, panicked, and scared...

Holy shit. I did that to her. For nearly two weeks, I made her suffer...

I swallow hard as I start to shake.

“But you’re safe now.” Jones grabs her hand and squeezes it in both of hers. Her voice softens. “Can you tell me your name?”

Summer is still looking at me, but her eyes are fluttering closed as sleep drags her back down.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt, not wanting her to think I’m dismissive of her pain – whether it was caused by a dream or not. After all, all reality is, is a wrinkly organ without any senses trying to decipher electric pulses via hundreds of trillions of connections.

No one ever experiences true reality. The amount of time it takes for the brain to work through all of the information it’s given means it’s constantly lagging and making things up to fill in the blanks.

It’s why we sometimes read lines of text in the wrong order.

Smell childhood scents at the oddest of times.

Why we think we see things before we do a double take.

They’re not hallucinations; they’re the brain having filled in the blank with the wrong image, then scurrying to correct itself.

It’s why when we hear a new accent, we don’t understand it until we do.

But those noises themselves never changed; our brains did.

Our realities did, shifting with the next update.

Her dreams were her reality for a time, and I want her to know that I’m sorry for what I put her through.

But her eyes are fully closed, and I’m not sure she heard me.

I take a step forward, but Jones is on her feet and in front of me in an instant.

“Come on,” she says, nodding towards the door. “She needs to rest, and you need to go take a break.”

“I don’t –”

She cuts me off with a harsh whisper. “You can’t apologize to a patient you put into a coma. PR will have you on leave, if not worse.”

It’ll be seen as an admission of guilt; then it’ll make it easier for her to sue us.

But I don’t care. All I care about is her.

I start to open my mouth to say as much, but Summer might not hear me when she’s asleep.

Though even if she does, she won’t have the ability to respond and tell me how badly I fucked up.

Which means, any apology now will only be for me and my own guilt.

So I nod and take my leave, determined to come back when she’s fully awake.

Jones follows me out, glancing in the direction of the VIP.

“How is she?” I ask, my voice soft with concern, and it is real concern.

I wanted Ryan to give her enough insulin to kill her last night, but he decided to give it to an old man instead.

He was too scared of being caught by the bodyguard.

Now I worry I haven’t taken care of my girl’s demons well enough for her.

Perhaps that is why I’m the face of her nightmares?

I’ve let her down just like everyone else has...

Jones shakes her head. “She coded twice in two days, the poor girl. They managed to resuscitate her, but she suffered a post-cardiac arrest brain injury two nights ago and slipped into a coma. Her pit bull hasn’t left her room since.

He had a friend bring him a bedroll and a month’s worth of rations. ”

A month? He’s fucking optimistic. Even if she doesn’t die of natural causes, I’ll figure out a way to kill her before then.

Maybe I’ll stage it as a murder-suicide.

He is clearly in love with her and has been for a while.

It will be a tale as old as time: man obsessed with woman, she shuns him, he kills her.

Though it’ll be easier to frame him for killing her as a mercy, I don’t want the world weeping over their “great love.” I want all of her accomplishments to be reduced to how she died.

Miserably and alone.

And then fucking forgotten.

Summer deserves to live in a world where no one worships that bitch, and I will make it so.

As I leave the ICU, I make a mental list of all the other things I need to do for her.

I need to build her a library and pick up all the books from her house, as well as anything else she has that might be of value.

I need to pay off her rent and sort out her debt.

I need to stock the kitchen with every possible food until I can find out what she likes. And, of course, I need to kill her mom.

Step one to all of that is quitting my job and freeing up time to do all those things. So I head towards the Chief Anesthesiologist’s office as I type up my letter of resignation on my phone.

I’m hoping that with my recent “fuck-up” with Summer and with PR’s fear that the VIP’s reps will be looking for someone to sue, he will let me quit without working my 120-days notice.

But instead, the fucker doesn’t budge. He talks some shit about being understaffed, and it doesn’t matter how hard I play the burn-out card or act like I’m suffering from too much guilt, he makes it clear that I will need to stay on for another four months so he can find an adequate replacement.

“I understand,” I say with a tired smile. Then I leave his office.

But I don’t leave it in defeat. Because I know I’m about to be put on mandatory leave.

My next patient is obese, and propofol, a drug we use for general anesthesia, isn’t validated for a girl of her size. So she has a higher chance of being aware during her operation, locked in and unable to scream despite seeing everything we’re doing to her. Perhaps even feeling it.

She has a higher chance of dying too. To keep a patient under, I have to constantly give them anesthetics. But it’s not just a case of “calculate the right dosage, automate it, then play on my phone.” It’s more like trying to keep a bathtub level while someone else keeps fucking with the plug.

If I let the level fall too low, they’ll wake.

If I let it overflow, they could die. But because propofol is absorbed into the adipose tissue, part of the “water from the tub” is basically being pulled into another faucet.

When their body fat finishes breaking the drugs down though, that faucet is going to open. As a trickle maybe.

Or as a mad gush that could damn well flood the bathroom.

She looks up at me nervously as I wheel her into the OR. I count her down, smiling into her trusting eyes.

And all goes well.

For a while.

Then the stress of being overworked starts to get to me. The guilt of my “mistake.” I struggle to stay focused. Keep sharp. I miss things…

And so she suffers a stroke.

Aw, damn. Now the Chief Anesthesiologist will have to scramble to save his own ass. He knew I was crumbling under the pressure, but he left me in the field anyway.

Tsk. Tsk.

By the time the operation is over, my superiors are waiting for me.

And look at that, I’m put on mandatory leave.