The Wolf Took Me

Isabella

There are no messages on my phone the moment I get to work, and I obsess over it, they say that no news is good news, but living a life with an addict sister. That's just prolonging the inevitable. They say it's a long road to sobriety and you should never believe in an addict's words. Those were lessons from her last sponsor when she tried sobriety. A short path to coming back to where she is now.

Apparently, my worry is evident till I'm at work as Rosa pats my arms and smiles at me. "It takes one smile for it to be contagious" She cheerfully says.

I force a smile. "You only say that now when we're fresh to a 48-hour shift."

"Who knows, this shift might be different" Rosa pats my hand on the table before standing with a clipboard. She's ever idealistic despite having worked here for a decade now despite the conditions. "I'm going to my Doctor Patel for a minute, okay?"

I nod. "I'll man the station."

"Make sure you mind the john doe in examination one. He's a big boy there and it took a while to sedate him" She pats my back before finally leaving me in the ER.

It's quiet the moment I got here, a rare event to ever happen in this small hospital. We are close to the city and often become the first ones the ambulances can get to since we're also the closest to downtown. There are a lot of stabbings and shootings that comes by. Drop bys are often too.

I take note what Rosa said. She's twenty years my senior and had took care of me the moment I got here as a fresh graduate. She is still confused why I'm here, there were far better opportunities even for a fresh graduate than this one. This job isn't that great, but I still chose it.

A part of me believes that if my sister ever leaves, this is where she'll land. I know some of her dealers are just downtown and there are places she crashes there, since there is no guarantee she'll stay at place with Billy forever. I can't stop her though I tried. Both mom and I have tried and failed at that.

"Nurse Isa" Amanda's voice filters in the room. She comes in with the same grumpy look with a clipboard on her arm and the small walkie-talkie strapped on her shoulder. "Take the patient in examination one"

I stifle the urge to frown and did the opposite instead. "Sure, what did you want me to do?"

"Clean his wounds. We weren't able to do it after fighting the EMTs and the other nurses. He's sedated now, so instead of staring at your phone you should do your job instead" She throws the clipboard on the table just a few inches beside me before turning away.

I frown then. Cursing at her under my breath, I take the clipboard and looked at the file of the man.

There is no name, so all that's written is John Doe and the obvious that could have written. His height, weight, and the medications they given him to put him to sleep. I take the file with me to the examination room. A room separated only by a glass sliding door for privacy and his room is wide open.

The others are openly apprehensive passing by his room. I even see Nurse Ethan sporting a black eye and pressing an ice pack to it over a small desk. That slows me down. Nurse Ethan is the largest nurse with us filled with hard muscles. He's a tool, but he does his job well enough that no one has died. He's not one to start fights, but this patient must be larger and stronger than him to give him that

He spots me and smirks. "You missed all the fun"

I don't smile and kept a placating expression. "I heard"

"You should have been here; he was an animal. He was able to carry me over his shoulder and slam me on the wall"

I raise my brows. "What?"

"You heard me, he carried my tight two fifty ass and threw me on the wall. Took the three other EMTs to finally get him back to the stretcher. Most of them limped out of the ER."

I nod. "Thanks for the heads up"

"Still so heartless, Isa?" the mean glint in his eye doesn't sit well with me. it's a hobby of his to be a tool to everyone, especially me.

I ignore him. I step into the examination room and sure enough there is a mess left from the aftermath and I am the help who needs to clean this up.

This hospital might be my first job ever after graduating but even my classmates know that this is a walking health code violation and it would only be a matter of time before someone sees this and closes this, but this is also the hospital that is running in fumes and hires those who they can hire. A hospital that my sister would surely choose than a well-run one. A better hospital would call the police and it won't take long before they learn she has a son, and that's one call away to report to Child Protective Services.

I clean the mess up. Throwing the unsterile needles to the bin and those that needs to be washed in the laundry just outside the room. The counters that were filled with the basics in cleaning wounds and usual over the counter meds are thankfully untouched, but the counter across it is different.

There is a hole in the middle of a wall. Cracks on the wooden wall that might look like a body did flew to it. I look at Nurse Ethan who was busy nursing his eye. What he says might truly have happened.

It made me look at the patient. He's strapped to the bed that even large patients could fit in, but somehow, he made it look small with his large frame. He isn't overweight but he's tall and well built. The wounds on his body are slashes, but what looks like claws ribboning his flesh.

I look at his file again and sure enough it's not written here how extensive these wounds are or the fact that this isn't human made, but I couldn't blame them for the latter. We're in a small town, but the size of the claws on this man could not belong to an animal that lives here.

The largest mammal we have that could hurt humans are opossums. I shake my thoughts away, I have no time to think about that. I need to clean his wounds instead. I cut his shirt off, watching his face as I do so, nervous that he would suddenly wake up.

I work through him as fast as I can and softly as I can.

"Why are you working in the dark?" Nurse Ethan says out of nowhere, "Hey, not a ghost." He smirks. "Here, let me turn the lights on for you"

I was about to protest when he did what he said.

The room filled with light and I nervously look at the patient's face in nervousness. Praying under my breath for him to not wake up. My breath hitches as I study his face. It was dim before and I couldn't fully assess his face, and now that I see it, it's shocking.

Strong hard angles and jaw yet there he is with full lips and a tall nose that was once broken and wasn't set right on the bridge. It didn't occur to me to assess patients attractiveness but seeing him just blew my professionalism in me. he's handsome, painfully so.

Nurse Ethan chuckles behind me. "Scared and attracted. That's new"

I blink. pulling myself together before I face Nurse Ethan again. "Would you please let me work?"

"Let you have a date with John Doe?"

I stifle the urge to scowl. "No, I'm here to clean his wounds and leave"

He raises his hands. One arm swelling compared to the other. "Okay, okay, so testy today"

When he finally leaves, do I finally take a relieved sigh and begin working. Focusing on closing his wounds with my sutures and cleaning them as I go through it. taking out the debris from what happened to him and cleaning it with a saline solution.

It takes me an hour to be fully done at the number of wounds that he had. I had to check for more to make sure, but I can't really turn him over with just me. There wasn't any bleeding on the sheets as I worked on him and I take that as a sign that his back is fine.

Nurse Ethan could handle that.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. Almost immediately I drop my forceps and dirty bandages to the counter and fish it out of my pocket. There are only two people who contacts me and that's my Mom and my sister.

Finally I look at the text message.

I'm leaving w/ billy.

Don't look for us

Leave US ALONE

My heart falls to the pit of my stomach. For a moment, I truly couldn't breathe. My mind blank even though I'm digesting the message and the pain at the same time. I let out an uneasy breath.

"I have to leave" I say. "I have to catch up to her. I..."

There is a rustling of fabric and the sound of bones cracking and movement from behind me. my heart freezes in my chest. Unsure what to do, what to say.

A large arm wraps itself around my waist. Thick enough to scare me as the sight of the muscles flexing and contracting against my small body.

"You and I" a gruff low voice says. "Both"

Then chaos ensued