A/N: You are all are amazing! Here, I thought I had taken a wrong turn, but your reviews tell me otherwise! Thank you for taking the time to comment and put this story on alert. Also, thank you to pandorablueskies for the medical advice. To Guest who wants more Chris whumping: Not a problem. You might also want to check out my Sideways series.
Thank you to those who continue to ask for quick updates. I really typing and plotting as fast as I can. ;) So appreciate you all!
Loretta hesitated for a moment. Having recently been a victim of gun violence she stood frozen for about half a second, as alarms started to go off. She was only about three feet from the bed but it might as well have been three miles. Two still bodies were slumped over one another. In her experience, this usually meant someone was dead.
And the blood, where was it coming from? With Bethany laying over Chris it was hard to tell. Loretta's only saving grace was that the woman wasn't moving. Her mind started to tick with all of the possibilities, Chris had managed to pull the petite woman over the bed railing, in doing so had her hand curled in on herself when the weapon discharged? If, so she would have a bullet in her abdomen or in her chest. But it her arm, had remained straight, then Chris LaSalle was more than likely bleeding to death.
Prioritize, Loretta she coaxed reminding herself that she could play the part of the medical examiner later. Right now, she needed to play the part of the doctor and save Chris.
The IV! Given the fact that Bethany had been packing a gun, it was a safe bet that the syringe had contained something life threatening. Frantic, she yanked the tape that was holding the IV port into place on the back of his hand and pulled out the tube that was feeding the poison into his system.
"Hold on, Christopher. Just hold on." Loretta pleaded, ordering an injection of epinephrine as an assortment of hospital personnel began to enter the room.
"Hurts to breathe," Chris wheezed uncertain if the pain was due to his already injured chest and ribs or the woman that was lying on top of him. He was fairly certain that she had been the one to take the misfired bullet but given the amount of pain he was in it was hard to tell. The agony in his chest made it feel as if both of his lungs had suddenly turned against him. He wouldn't realize until much later that it was actually the fact that his throat was closing up due to the onset of anaphylaxis.
He knew he shouldn't move but he needed the dead woman off of his chest. Wriggling about, he only managed to cause himself more pain as he attempted to remove the one hundred pounds of dead weight.
"You need to be still," Loretta scolded, fearing that somehow in all of the commotion he had managed to shove one of his broken ribs into a lung or worse. He could be bleeding internally and wouldn't even know it. Judging by the monitor his pulse and oxygen levels were dropping fast.
Fear began to devour her as an unknown hospital personnel began to swarm around Chris and Merri. Inwardly, she knew that the majority of them were good caring people, but there was always that one what if. What if there were another Bethany in the crowd she thought as Borin's words came back at her
She needed a plan.
By the time, Pride had arrived the entire room had been sealed off, police were roaming everywhere. Hospital policy dictated that the facility be placed on mandatory lock down.
"Loretta!"
"Loretta!" Pride's voice sounded frantic.
"In here, Dwayne." Loretta's voice echoed as Pride and Borin ducked underneath the yellow crime scene. The room was wreck. Borin was the first to notice the empty beds. Both Brody and LaSalle were gone. "Where are they?" she asked Pride as his eyes shifted to the blood on the bed.
Pride heard her, but was still focused on the blood in the empty bed. Thankfully, the body lying on the floor was that of the nurse who had been treating Chris and Brody, and not one of his agents.
"Christopher and Brody. Loretta, where are they?"
Loretta looked around cautiously making sure she was out earshot to any hospital personnel. "They're in the morgue with Sebastian." She whispered as not to be overheard, while the color drained from her colleague's faces. She could understand their fear given Chris and Brody's current location. As it turned out, the morgue had an overflow section which had been utilized during Hurricane Katrina to house the bodies that the rest of the hospital could not accommodate. It wasn't much to look at, but with a little tweaking, it could be used as a fully operational hospital room in a pinch.
"With the exception of Christopher recovering from a near lethal injection and a punctured lung, they are both fine, relatively speaking of course." Shortly, after the staff had removed Bethany's body, Chris had been whisked away to the operating room where under Loretta's watchful eye, doctors had inserted a chest tube to repair the pulmonary damage caused by one of the broken ribs.
"Relatively speaking," Pride repeated, placing a hand of relief on his old friend's shoulder. Although, Loretta's actions were a bit morbid for his tastes, it was actually the perfect idea for drawing out the would-be killer.
What if he announced to the world that LaSalle and Brody were dead? It would be one way to keep them safe. If today was any indication, they needed protecting more than ever.
"I'm going to talk to our suspect and try to figure out what the connection is between him and nurse dead body here," Borin said softly as they started to move from the room. When the call had come in about Bethany trying to kill Chris, the suspect that Pride had apprehended had almost been forgotten.
"I'll be there as soon as I check on Chris and Brody," Pride smiled wrapping an arm around Loretta.
AN II: My apologies for the short chapter, and the lack of Brody's thoughts but this seemed to be a natural stopping place. Can you just imagine what Chris and Brody will say when they wake up in the morgue?