Page 227 of The Night Shift

I go down hard, body hitting the floor like a ragdoll.

Darkness presses in around the edges of my vision. Pain. Blinding and boiling hot. But it’s distant now. Like it belongs to someone else. I hear footsteps, but I can’t tell from where. I try to roll over, to see who the hell just cracked my skull open in my own flat, but my head lolls to the side and —

Nothing.

The light’s gone.

And so am I.

Chapter 42

Holly

The next afternoon

EGH morgue

Something is off. I don’t know what, but I can feel it in my bones.

I flick the light on. The morgue brightens under the hum of overhead fluorescents.

“He died around forty-five days ago. No next-of-kin. No calls. Nothing.” The tech wheels the covered table into the lab space.

I pull on a pair of gloves, and lift the sheet back to expose the upper chest. “Horizontal mattress sutures. We’re starting at the clavicle.”

All three of my interns file in like they’ve drawn the shortest straws in existence. One of them flinches when the tech leaves and the doors swing closed. Another looks like she’s seconds away from gagging. The third guy swallows a lump in his throat like a cartoon dog.

“Do you all want to faint now or later? I prefer now. It’s less disruptive.”

The one with the eye twitch mutters something under his breath and steps forward.

I honestly don’t get why people have such an aversion to the morgue. It’s a perfectly fine place. I used to love it here as an intern. It was peaceful and uncomplicated. Still is. Nobody yells. Nobody bleeds out in your hands. It feels like control.

Though, right now not even the cold air and the smell of death is helping.

Intern Eye-twitch — Raul? I’m pretty sure that’s his name — makes the first pass with the needle. His angle’s too shallow. I say nothing for now. Instead, my hand drifts to my pocket and I pull out my phone again.

Still nothing from Theo. No texts. No missed calls. He was supposed to be here hours ago.

Kennedy was discharged today. He didn’t show for that either.

She gave me the goodbye card she made for him. She seemed pretty sad about Theo’s absence so I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the card was really fucking ugly. Huh, maybe Theo is right. Iamgood.

I told her he got pulled into emergency surgery. I didn’t mention he hadn’t shown up yet. Or that the last time he missed a shift without warning, I found him half-conscious, broken and bleeding on his apartment floor with a shattered hand and a gutted kitten. The memory sends a sharp pang through my chest. Too much information for a kid, I guess.

“Um, Dr. Moore?”

I look up.

“Should I be going deeper with the needle?” Raul asks. “Aren’t horizontal mattress sutures supposed to pick up more subcutaneous tissue for strength?”

“Only if you’re planning to reinforce a thoracotomy incision.”

He fumbles slightly with the needle driver. “Oh, okay. But I just thought —”

I cut him off, stepping beside him and pointing to the barely-there bite of his last stitch. “You’re not doing this on live skin. You’re just learning technique. And if you start digging like you’re tunneling to China, you’re going to blow out every dermal layer and I’m going to make you start again from the toe up.”

His mouth opens like he might argue.