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  Great, now I sound like some sappy poet.

  Get it together, Zach. This is no time to be thinking about such things, especially since one wrong move meant we’d both be dead.

  “Please, sit down, the game will begin shortly.” To my surprise, he didn’t bother making Brooke sit in his lap. He was definitely up to something.

  As customary, he shuffled the deck and dealt the first hand before passing the cards to his dealer. The game went on smoothly enough. It was obvious that Ace was cheating, but no one dared to say a word. I kept my cool, scanning the area every once in a while. Just as I had observed in my first game, the guards switched positions every four hours. For about thirty seconds, certain parts of the room were left unguarded. That would be my ticket to getting out of here alive.

  “Raise,” I said, placing one of the larger chips on the table. I had a pretty good hand and I wasn’t even cheating. Maybe luck was still on my side after all.

  Ace grinned, calling my bet and nodding at his dealer.

  A golden ace of spades appeared on the table.

  The other players gasped. I was as good as dead.

  I felt the cold barrel of a gun against the side of my neck. In a flash, I grabbed the guard’s arm, yanking him forward, smashing his arm against the table so hard that it broke. The giant screamed, but the pain only seemed to anger him further. He charged, lunging for me, trying to push me into the wall, but he was much too slow.

  I was so occupied dealing with the bodyguard that I didn’t notice Ace grabbing Brooke. She screamed, a knife pressed against her neck. “I wouldn’t do anything stupid if I was you, Agent Moore. Or did you think I was foolish enough to fall for your little tricks.” He laughed, towing Brooke toward the fireplace, kicking her dress skirt toward the flame. If it got any closer, it would ignite and Brooke would be burned alive.

  This man truly was a monster.

  “Dozens of men just like you have come here thinking they could outsmart me, but they all went back home to their families in a body bag.”

  “Well, lucky for me, I don’t have a family. You murdered the only family I had left five years ago.” Sick of his bullshit, I reached for my sidearm and pulled it out.

  Once I pulled the trigger, everything went silent for a moment.

  Ace stood there like a statue and I thought I had missed.

  “Son of a bitch!” He bellowed, his shoulder now red with blood. He threw Brooke to the side as he charged at me.

  No one interfered in our fight, almost as if they were shocked by the fact Ace had been shot or that he was actually doing his own dirty work.

  Hell, he even took me by surprise, slamming me into the wall and winding me for a moment.

  It didn’t take long for me to get my bearings. I grabbed his arm and twisted it back, nearly ripping it out of his socket.

  He groaned, but flung his head back, hitting me in the nose. I heard it crack, blood rushing out like a fountain.

  Outside, the sound of sirens could be heard.

  “Don’t just stand there, you idiots! Do something!” He screamed.

  His guards went running outside to meet my squad, leaving me alone with Ace.

  All his so-called friends had high-tailed it out of there the first chance they got.

  We tussled on the ground, but I had the clear upper hand, my rage fueling me like nothing else. I punched his face over and over again until he finally managed to move out of the way. I rammed my hand into the ground. He flung me off him and scrambled for a nearby gun.

  Bang!

  ***

  I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I woke up, it felt like I had been hit by a train. Had I died? I hope not… If you can feel pain in Heaven that sure as hell sucks.

  Slowly, I tried to open my eyes, only to be met by a bright, white light.

  Great, I really was dead.

  So much for beating Ace.

  I groaned, the pain crippling, especially in my leg, like it had been run over by a train.

  “Zach?” The sound was distant, almost as if I was underwater. “Zach?” I heard it again, the voice familiar. “Zach!”

  Suddenly, there were arms wrapped around me, causing pain to shoot up my spine.

  “You’re awake! Thank goodness you’re awake.” Something wet touched my cheek and I heard someone sobbing.

  My mind was muddy, but piece by piece, things were starting to come together.

  Brooke!

  My eyes shot open and I finally saw her beautiful face, now tear-stricken as she held me closer. Wetting my lips, I tried to speak, but my tongue felt like it had tripled in size.

  She seemed to know what I was doing because she pulled away slightly. “Don’t try to speak…” She said, her hand on my cheek, her eyes watery. “God… I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “W-What happened?”

  She sighed at my stubbornness. “Ace shot you.” She explained.

  “Did he get away?”

  “Unfortunately, yes…”

  I started to get up, ripping the IVs from my arms. “I have to –”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She said, pushing me back down a little harder than she needed to. “You nearly died. You aren’t getting out of this bed until the doctor says you can and even then, you’re staying with me until you’re fully healed. I’m not letting you go out there and do something stupid again.” Her voice was firm and I knew she wouldn’t let this go.

  Suddenly, she kissed me, her lips full of desperate, unspoken emotion. Even without saying a word, I knew that she deeply cared about me, that she was scared of losing me.

  We broke away and she looked into my eyes. “Promise you’ll stay with me until you get better.”

  I gazed at her worried but determined face. “I promise. But then, I’m going after Ace and finishing him once and for all.”

  “Good, because I just enrolled in the police academy.” She winked.

  “Brooke...” I was going to say something about her decision but my body suddenly gave in and I dropped back to bed. I could still hear her voice in distance calling for a doctor as I was falling into sleep again.

  I may have lost the battle, but I sure as hell wouldn’t lose the war, especially not with Brooke by my side.

  THE END

  The Memory Of You

  Chapter 1

  “Dr. Pace where are you going?”

  Caleb Pace stopped in his tracks at the shriek and turned to watch the Head Nurse, Tiffany Kang, as she hurried from the ER to stand in his way.

  “My work day has long ended,” he responded.

  She glared at him as though he were delirious. “The Director of Doldam hospital will be arriving at any moment. He is not an ordinary patient, you have to stay to welcome him.”

  It was his turn now to shoot her an incredulous look, after which he stepped to the side and continued on his way. She hurried ahead of him and blocked his path once more, arms outstretched in to keep him from leaving.

  “Dr. Pace, please stay. And moreover, it is a Friday night. The ER might be plunged into chaos at any minute. You rarely ever leave on nights like this!”

  “I have somewhere to be, Nurse Kang,” he said quietly.

  “Can’t it wait?” she cried.

  “It cannot,” Caleb replied. “Dr. Reed and Garner are on call. They will handle whatever comes in my absence.”

  “We need you,” the nurse pleaded as he continued on his way.

  “I have you,” he said, without looking back. However, just before he shut the double doors to the hospital behind him, he shot her a glance. “Manage it all until I return. I will be back in two hours.”

  The relief in her tone was instant. “Thank you, Dr. Pace,” she said and returned to the ER.

  Caleb gave a deep sigh as he got into his car and drove away into the dark night. In a little under an hour, he arrived at the cemetery with a bouquet of peonies in on
e hand and a candle. He found her grave almost without thought, and sat down upon the grass in front of it, lighting his candle and placing the peonies by the side of her tombstone.

  “I’m back,” he said, as he read the name engraved upon the marble marker. Aisha Graves. He retrieved the scotch whiskey flask from his coat and took a deep long drink. “If I had known I would come visit so often, perhaps I would have had them bury you at the Lakehouse. At least it’d give me a reason to come home at night.”

  He took another slug of liquor, corked the flask and placed it aside. “I cannot stay long today,” he said. “It’s a Friday night.” He smiled at the memory that slid through his mind. “You used to dread Friday nights. Its relation to how much more people got into accidents plagued you to no end.” Caleb chuckled in recollection. “You were a great surgeon, a bit scatterbrained but, still great. It would have been nice if you were here to give me a hand.”

  “I’m thinking of quitting,” he said. “When I work, day in and night out, it all seems bearable, but in the quiet moments, such as now, I ask myself what I’m doing.”

  He let out a heavy sigh and took yet another drink from the flask as he stared into the dark gloomy night. There were tombstones all around him, but he paid it no mind. The quieter it was, the better. “It’s been four years now, and I still have not healed. I do not want to, but at the same time it worries me that I’ll become so damaged that even the escape that surgeries have become to me will no longer suffice.”

  “It’s all your fault,” he said, with a sadistic smile. “You should have stayed… been a bit more patient. Now I’m forced to talk more to you than I ever did when you were still here.” He muttered to himself. “You never goddamn respond.”

  Tears suddenly rushed to his eyes, so he looked away, and despite his better judgment, picked up the flask and took one last drink of hard liquor before returning it to his pocket.

  His phone began to ring then and at first, he ignored it, but it didn’t stop, and he knew that it would not. So he picked it up and listened calmly to the frantic voice of the head nurse. This was a new record. He had barely been gone for an hour and there was already chaos. How he hated Friday nights.

  “An accident has just been reported on Highway 55. Five vehicles and a truck are involved.”

  “How many patients?”

  “We’re not certain yet. The ambulance has just been called to the scene.”

  “They’re not there yet? Then how did you…”

  “Dr. Kate Hades informed me- the Doldam Director’s daughter. They were heading here from the city and met the collision. She was accompanied by two doctors excluding her father, so they are performing emergency first aid, and rounding up the patients.”

  “Alright, I’ll be there when my second hour is up.”

  “We need you this instant!” she roared. “They will be here any minute now.”

  “Get the two doctors on call.”

  “Dr. Garner has just bailed. He complained of food poisoning and went home.”

  Bastard, Caleb swore under his breath and blew out his candle. “I’m on my way.”

  It took him thirty-five minutes to arrive at the ER, and the moment he did, he was bombarded with reports.

  “Where is the Lidocaine and suture set I asked for?” someone barked from the opposite end of the ER, just as three nurses hurried towards Caleb. The first one to reach him jammed a chest X-ray into his hands. “Dr. Pace, he has a low BP and oxygen. He has already been given treatment for his shock.”

  Multiple rib fractures on the right, bilateral pleural effusions, Caleb thought to himself as he studied the film. “Give him high flow oxygen and send him away to OR three to await me. He needs surgery right away.”

  “Yes doctor!” she hurried off and another took her place.

  “Dr. Reed sent me. He has a patient with a flail chest and cardiac tamponade and another with an incised wound in the leg. He needs surgery to repair the artery.”

  “Contact the Director to immediately take this up otherwise the blood loss will increase the area of necrosis and he will lose that leg. Call Dr. Cart at Mayo Clinic and immediately arrange to send the cardiac tamponade patient to him.”

  “Got it!” The male nurse responded and went on his way.

  “Shard of glass embedded in the abdomen,” said the last nurse, and that brought his gaze from the chaos ahead of him in scurrying nurses, bloodied patients and cries of agony. “How big?”

  “About four centimeters,” was the response.

  “I’ll take a look,” he said and began to shrug off his coat. The nurse took it from him and handed him a pair of gloves.

  “Dr. Pace!” A call came, and he lifted his head to the Head Nurse as she hurried his way, two bags of blood in one hand. “There’s an orthopedic surgery patient with an open fracture on his right leg.”

  “What the hell is an orthopedic surgery patient doing here?”

  “He’s awaiting transfer to a different hospital. His bleeding was too excessive and the ambulance, ill-equipped to handle it so they brought him here briefly for a blood transfusion.”

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “His blood pressure spiked and the bleeding has gotten out of hand.”

  “Quickly bring him to the Hybrid Room,” he ordered, and an immediate yell was given in response. “Coming through!”

  He sighted the requested patient as his bed was rolled by two nurses and immediately stepped aside to allow them to entrance into the Hybrid Room. Before he joined them, however, he asked about their only present Attending Physician. “Dr. Hunt?”

  “He is at the other end.” A response came and as if on cue, he heard the older man’s bark from the far end of the Emergency Room, probably directed at one of their two residents. “Do you call yourself a doctor? Get yourself together!”

  He lifted the soft plastic flap that led to the Hybrid Room but before he could walk in, his arm was gripped by a wailing woman. “Doctor, please save my daughter,” she cried. “My child is dying! You need to save her this instant.”

  One of the nurses hurried over to loosen her hold on his arm but she wouldn't let go. Caleb looked to the male nurse for answers.

  “Her daughter was briefly examined by Dr. Hunt. She will need pediatric attention so he told them to await you. He diagnosed her hemoperitoneum, caused by a seat belt injury. ”

  His eyes widened at the report. “Hemoperitoneum?” He lowered his gaze to the woman. “Wasn’t she in a car seat?”

  The woman shook her head hysterically, tears streaming down her face. “I… she didn't want to so I just strapped her in the back with a seat belt.”

  “You put a toddler in a car without a car seat?” One of the nurses behind him shrieked, and Caleb turned around to give her a stern look. She lowered her head in remorse. The male nurse went on with his report. “She is currently unconscious, and her capillary refill time is dropping.”

  “Hybrid Room, now!” he ordered. “Get a CT scan and report back to me immediately. She might have internal bleeding within her spleen.” The Head Nurse led the woman away while he hurried to the Hybrid Room to assess the fracture patient.

  “Reduce the amount of fluid,” Caleb commanded. “Patrick, bring me a CVC, and a Foley Catheter.”

  He stabilized the patient and then immediately headed out. The male nurse hurried up to him with an update. “The child’s CT scan is ready, and you were right. It appears as though her spleen has been damage-“

  “Doctor Pace!” One of the nurses ran up to him, stopping his entrance into the adjacent Hybrid Room. “You need to take a look at the patient with the shard of glass embedded in her abdomen, I don’t know how much longer she can remain stable.”

  He stopped in his tracks and took a few seconds to consider his options. He made his decision and gave out his orders. “Nurse Kang, keep an eye on the child, I will be back in a moment,” he said and began to walk down the room to
wards the glass embedded patient. However, before he could arrive at her bedside, a bone chilling scream rang out across the ER. All eyes turned towards the nurse whose tray with equipment had fallen from her hands in shock.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled.

  Caleb followed her gaze and what he saw nearly stopped his heart.

  The patient with a shard of glass embedded in her abdomen had somehow gotten up from her bed and made her way over to the overweight patient in the station beside her. She had then proceeded to part her jaw with a laryngoscope and threaded an intubation tube down her throat and into her lungs. She now held an ambu bag unto which the tube was attached, and compressed it to supply oxygen to the patient, all the while leaning against the iron headboard in deathly exhaustion.