Page 2 of The Healer (The Blood of Legends #2)

Chapter Two

WELL, THAT EXPLAINS IT

I lona traced a rivulet of water with a fingertip, smudging the pristine glass on the car’s side window. The scent of polished leather filled her nostrils, mingling with Dad’s spicy cologne and Mom’s subtle perfume. Ilona sat in the back seat, not needing to see their faces as they argued over who spent the most time in surgery. “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven played in the background—one of Dad’s favorites.

“You know, I will always win.” Mom smirked calling forth a grin from Ilona. “I gave birth too.”

Dad laughed. “Nice try, sweetheart.”

“It counts.” Mom pouted, then winked at Ilona, reaching back to pat her hand as it rested on the satin of her black cocktail dress. “How’s our new doctor feeling?” She squealed in delight, shaking her fists in front of her, ruffling the dark pink cowl at her neckline. She had coiled her auburn hair into a thick chignon and painted her lips a deep red. As always, Mom looked beautiful.

“We’re so proud of you, honey.” Mom glanced at Dad. “Aren’t we, Gerard?”

Dad met Ilona’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I sure as hell am. At first, I thought using your grandmother’s last name was foolhardy when our names carry such weight, but I understand now, pumpkin, I do.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She squeezed their shoulders.

They were almost at the restaurant to celebrate completing her residency at Amity Community Hospital. She interviewed at eight hospitals, specifically in cities close to Fenneg. Her hospital of choice was Indes Pediatrics, and she had just yesterday received the email confirming her successful application. Other offers had begun to pour in, and more flooded in after Dad announced on his forums who his daughter was. As her proud daddy, she couldn’t fault him for it.

She could have met them at the restaurant, but she had dropped by their home instead, hoping to enjoy a pre-dinner coffee with her father while Mom dressed.

“Have you thought about your fellowship?” Mom twisted to look at her at the same time Dad met Ilona’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He flashed her a wink before focusing on the road.

Smothering her smile, she readied to reveal her good news. “Oncology.” She blinked at the bright lights penetrating the windscreen as Dad stopped at a red traffic light.

Mom beamed. “That’s amaz—”

“Shit,” Dad bit out.

Ilona screamed, throwing out a hand like she could stop the semi when it plowed into them head-on. A moving wall of metal scrunched the front of the car. The force shoved them back, shoving them into the car behind. Time slowed. Glass shattered and sprayed. Streetlights glimmered off shards tearing through obstacles. Mom’s blood-streaked arms rose as if floating underwater before snapping back in recoil. Dad lurched, his head whipping forward into the white airbags exploding to life.

Ilona’s vision filled with the floor, then the ceiling, her breath seizing in her lungs. Phones, house keys, pens, and coins shot around the cab.

When the car settled, metal tinkled, and the stench of gasoline burned her nose. Groaning, she unfolded her body, peeling her face off the back of Dad’s seat. Her cheek throbbed and burned as if on fire. She pressed her palm there then drew it back to study the blood smeared across her hand.

Silence reigned from the front.

She raised her gaze and blinked, unable to process what she was seeing.

Her door opened. A stranger unclipped her and dragged her out, his grip firm despite her squirming. A pleading wail penetrated her ears. Who is crying like that?

“My mom…” she rasped, wiggling for freedom.

“The ambulance is on its way,” the man gritted out, holding her in place on the sidewalk and away from the devastation.

Ambulance? Yes! Hope, warm, bright, blinding engulfed her. She stilled. “I’m…I’m a doctor.”

He blinked at her, studied her face for a second, then released her. With her knees weak, her muscles trembling, she staggered and crumpled to the tarmac.

Splaying her bloodied hands, she tried to push herself up, dazed as the cold rain trickled down her face and saturated her dress. The stench of blood and the rain hitting tarmac assaulted her. Across shattered glass and twisted metal pieces she couldn’t identify, she studied the wreckage. The full realization was slow to form. Their car was a crumpled mess. The driver of the semi was being lifted out of his cab.

“Dad! Mom!” Tears mingled with the rain, and Ilona whimpered, unable to hear a groan above the patter of the raindrops and the cooling metal.

She rocked to her knees, then onto her feet to stumble to the car. Running her hand along the dented roof, she slid down as she collapsed beside Mom’s shattered window.

One look contorted Ilona’s mouth into a wail, the sound she made unrecognizable. Her beautiful mother, her neck twisted, her lips smeared with blood, and her lifeless eyes staring at nothing.

Ilona fell onto her backside, raising her face to the dark sky, letting the rain pelt her. The agony cinching her chest stole her ability to breathe. Her vision spun, but instead of calming her breathing, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Mom… I love you. I’m sorry I never told you enough.” Dizziness assailed Ilona, and she bumped her head on the side of the car. She stayed there, allowing the cold metal to comfort her. Her temple pulsed, her face itched and burned—she might be concussed.

She gripped the door, inching herself to her feet. People milled around, gathering on Dad’s side. Someone had opened his door and was speaking to him. She held her breath, hoping to hear his warm baritone. He didn’t respond.

Crying out, she weaved through the carnage, one destination in mind. The man from earlier tried to stop her, but she shook him off. She rested a hand on the buckled rear of the car, needing its solidity to ground her. Dad could be fine, he had to be. Hand over hand, she pushed herself to hurry, but every step drained her with her limbs threatening to fail her, her body complaining at the abuse.

He slumped over the steering wheel with his face in the deflated airbag. She sucked in a deep breath and peeked between those trying to help. Blood trickled from an injury on his temple, but air misted with each gasp he took.

She nudged and tugged people aside, eager to reach him. When they tried to stop her, she screamed she was a doctor.

On a whimper, she stilled, and stared at Dad, forcing herself to calm, to think. What would he do? Mom was…dead. Her throat constricted, almost cutting off her breathing. She had to focus on the living.

Kneeling beside him, she feathered her hands over parts of him she could reach, starting at the back of his neck. Nothing felt out of place, but moving someone with broken vertebrae wasn’t wise. His airway was clear. His wrist and his leg were broken. Tiny cuts marred his skin.

While head wounds bled a lot and sometimes looked worse than they were, the deep laceration worried her because of the potential hidden damage to his brain.

The shrill of sirens piercing the rain’s hush was sweet. She wept amid chants of gratitude.

Pressing her palm to his head wound, applying direct pressure, she took his warm hand in her other hand. “I got you, Dad. I got you.”

Familiar beeps, trolley wheels on linoleum, and the sharp sting of antiseptic dragged Ilona from her sleep. Had she caught a nap between shifts? She frowned, unable to remember or to think past her throbbing head. Even her ears rang as if she suffered from tinnitus.

She shifted in the bed, and stinging barbs of fire lanced through her, skittering across her skin. Groaning, she tried to touch something obscuring her vision on the left side of her face but couldn’t, not with a drip in her wrist.

“What the…?” Her garbled words mimicked her confusion.

“Oh, thank God.”

“Gran?” Ilona whipped her head in the direction of the voice, all sounds merging to pulse a pounding headache behind her left eye.

In a chair sat her petite grandmother. Her skin had a parchment appearance, pale and brittle. The bright spots on her cheeks didn’t detract from the tears shimmering in her hazel eyes.

“What’s the matter? Where am I? Is this Amity?”

“There was an accident. A truck driver had a heart attack…” Gran shivered, then staggered to her feet, her gnarled hands gripping the armrests. “My Elise didn’t make it.”

“Mom?” Memories flooded Ilona of her mom’s lifeless eyes. She whimpered, agony sharper than her injuries squeezed her chest, her ribs, then her heart. “D…Dad?”

“He’s in a coma in ICU.”

Like sunlight on a cold day, warmth poured into every dark corner of her soul. Ilona melted into the bed with relief. “Good.”

“He’s stable, but there’s no brain activity.” Gran pinched her lips. “Living will, sweetheart.”

Ilona gasped and chanted a denial, “No. Please, no.” Sorrow strangled her voice. She wailed in silence as tears poured free, burning her cheeks.

“I didn’t need to convince them to let you say goodbye.” Gran’s smile was tremulous. “You know these doctors, nurses. Their hearts are…” She cupped her mouth, muffling a sob.

Ilona unstrapped her drip, slipped the needle out, and tossed it aside. “Have they run all the tests? CT? MRI?”

She flipped the blankets aside and grimaced. Bandages crisscrossed her legs, only then did she register the sting of grazed skin over the rest of her body, as if a thousand fire ants feasted on her flesh.

Gran straightened to her full height of five-foot-three and cupped Ilona’s hand. “You’ll have scars, and a modeling career is no longer an option.” She forced a smile. Ilona grabbed her hand, needing her touch and her core of strength to ground her. “Wearing your seatbelt saved you.”

“Saved me?” Ilona mouthed in disbelief. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed flooded her with weakness, and she swayed where she sat. “Concussion?” She ran her hand along the bandage across her face.

“And a nasty scar from temple to chin.”

“What are you doing, Dr. Devereaux?” Nurse Maddie crossed the room, placed a chart and a stainless steel kidney dish on the table, and crowded Ilona, preventing her from standing. “In you go, my dear.”

“My dad—”

“Isn’t going anywhere. Dr. Fernandez is on his way to chat with you.” She gathered Ilona’s legs by the ankles and tucked her under the blankets. As she worked, her gray bun bobbed, with escaped tendrils swaying across her ears. “I brought you Dr. Strickland’s chart.”

Ilona snatched it, running her bruised finger with its splintered fingernail down the results. Each one confirmed the worst, settling icy dread in the pit of her stomach. She slumped, sliding deeper under the blankets as reality sank in.

“It’s true?” Gran shuffled to the opposite side of the bed.

Maddie reconnected the drip, slipping a filled syringe from a kidney dish to insert into the injection port.

“Yes.” Ilona’s limbs warmed as the analgesics flushed her system, numbing her pain receptors but not the dark hole in her heart.

Time buzzed past. She didn’t stir until Gran kissed her goodbye. Gray shadows tarnished her porcelain skin, and exhaustion slumped her narrow shoulders. Ilona didn’t know what she could say to ease the sorrow twisting Gran’s lips.

She shuffled out of the private suite as Dr. Fernandez strode in. The wind his sharp movements generated whipped his coattails and tousled his salt-and-pepper ebony hair.

“Ah, Ilona, my dear, I’m so sorry.” By far her favorite mentor, his sympathy struck a chord.

An undulating wave of despair curled her fingers into fists—a pointless attempt to hold back the burning in her nostrils. She shouldn’t cry. Tears wouldn’t save her dad. Nothing in known medicine could.

“Let’s have a look at your injuries.” He peeled the bandage away from her face and smiled.

She twisted her lips in wry amusement. “That bad, huh?”

“It will scar, but you didn’t lose your eyesight. That’s a good thing, right?” His ‘patient’ smile remained in place.

Having to experience his bedside manner gripped her tongue, and she snapped, “Don’t make me read my damn chart.”

He huffed. “You’re going to do it anyway. Besides, I’m on my best behavior.” Taping the bandage in place, he lifted her gaze to meet his with a fingertip at her chin. “The laceration cut to the zygomatic bone. Thankfully, you were unconscious when we scrubbed it.”

She winced, having done that to burn and accident victims, hoping to save the patient pain at a later stage. An infection could occur if pieces of rock, sand, glass, and other matter remained in the wound.

“Did you task Kelly?” Of all the nurses, Kelly was the most thorough at scrubbing wounds.

Dr. Fernandez chuckled. “Only the best for you.”

Ilona sighed as he scanned her arms and legs before tucking the blankets around her. “I’ll survive.”

Against the influx of swarming emotions, she clenched her jaw. She had wanted to live, to suck the marrow from life, so to speak. Now survival was her only option.

Dr. Fernandez wrapped his darker fingers around hers. “As a doctor and a daughter, there was nothing you could have done, Ilona. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Not what she wanted or needed to hear. “Thank you, Dr. Fernandez.”

“Max.” He tapped her nose with his finger. “You’re one of us now.”

After he left her, Ilona stared at the door for a while. Was she one of them? A doctor, someone who could save lives and had the blessing of the medical board to do so? What was the point of eleven years spent studying, practicing, only to fail when those skills mattered the most?

No, she wasn’t a doctor, and certainly not one capable of handling the most precious gifts life could offer…children. Curling into a ball, she allowed the tears to saturate her pillow because her future, her injuries—none of that mattered against Dad’s impending death.

Twisting to smother a scream in the pillow, she lay there until the need for oxygen drove her to breathe. One thought circled, formed, dissolved then formed again, forcing her to decide. Dad’s living will was her responsibility. She couldn’t let Gran carry the burden.

Not now, though. Flipping the blankets back, Ilona slid off the bed, wheeling her drip stand beside her. The night nurses hurried about their tasks, smiling at her as she inched past. A few of Amity’s staff greeted her, and she bit her inner cheek, wanting to scream she wasn’t worthy of being called a doctor. Had Dad survived, he would have saved her and Mom.

The ICU doors opened as Ilona neared. She didn’t give them a chance to close on her, increasing her pace no matter how stiff her legs were. In the far corner surrounded by machines was her dad. They had thrown the works at him—bedside monitors, ventilators, endotracheal tube, and an indwelling urinary catheter—to name a few. Her steps faltered, and the drip stand screeched as she dragged it behind her.

“Dad?” Releasing the stand, she gripped the side of the bed, assessing his visible injuries.

A contusion darkened his temple, nose, and eyes, with swelling contorting his familiar features. His wrist and leg were in orthopedic braces.

“It’s me, Ilona. Gran says you signed a stupid living will. Why the fuck would you do this to me?” She pinched her lips to smother the rage boiling up her throat, pushing her to spew her sorrow, anger at the world and God for this unfairness.

Drawing in a deep breath, she laced her fingers through his. Crimson scratches marred his pale skin. The ventilator made rhythmic breathing sounds, and his heartbeat beeped. All looked good, except for the brain scans.

The ICU doors opened with a swish. The squeak of sneakers followed. “Dr. Fernandez ran the tests multiple times, Dr. Devereaux.” Nurse Maddie checked Dad’s blood pressure cuff, then fidgeted as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands. She worked Trauma and not ICU. “Time to head back?”

Ilona nodded. This wasn’t her dad. This was a vessel, a husk of the great man she had known. Dad was already with Mom, and even if there had been a hope, he’d signed a living will. “I understand now, Dad, I do.”

She kissed his fingers, ignoring her tears splashing onto his knuckles. Then with a final glance, she trudged out of the ICU trailing her drip stand.

She would kill her dad in the morning.