40 Souls to Keep - 13. Chapter 13

March 2010

Jase pushed through the doors of Northwest Hospital right before lunch, thinking more about his empty stomach than about the woman he was there to heal. He wound his way through the main lobby, happy to be avoiding the ER for once, and stopped at the information desk. Twenty-eight was close, but his gnawing hunger made focusing difficult.

“Is there a café or something here? You know...soup and sandwiches?” Anything too greasy was out of the question—the dream for number twenty-eight had been particularly vicious—there was bound to be a lot of blood. He wasn’t squeamish, just cautious.

“Of course, dear,” the elderly lady said. “Just through there. They opened at eleven.”

Jase thanked her, then stood in the lobby, waffling. His gut was pulling him in two different directions. Upstairs or around the corner to the restaurant? His conscience set his feet moving in the direction of the elevator, and he resigned himself to his grumbling stomach for at least a few more minutes.

The elevator stopped on the second floor, and the invisible thread between Jase and twenty-eight pulled him out of the car and down the hall. A few of the nurses gave him odd looks, and he soon saw why. The entire staff was dressed in scrubs, and there wasn’t a visitor to be seen. Several people lay on gurneys, their charts propped up against their leg or stomach. A large sign overhead read OR #3.

Jase pressed his lips into a frown. He’d never seen a pre-op so cold, bland and unfriendly. No wonder most of the patients looked scared. His senses led him to a gurney halfway down the hall, where he found a young woman with tears leaking from her eyes. Her rich black hair had been braided and slung over one shoulder. She clutched her chart in trembling hands. He laid a hand over hers, and his stomach clenched. Yes, this was the one.

“Hello,” Jase said, smiling. His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly, startling them both, and the woman broke into nervous giggles. “Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“I haven’t had breakfast yet,” she complained, then glanced around guiltily. “Sorry. I don’t mean to complain. Are you a doctor?”

“Yes,” Jase lied. “How are you holding up? You look kind of nervous.” He held out his hand for her chart and she relinquished it. Jase flipped to the most recent notes. “Gallbladder? Don’t be scared—” he glanced back at the chart, “—Linda. It’s a routine procedure.”

“That’s what they tell me. I’m still nervous.”

More than nervous. Terrified might be a more accurate descriptor. Jase took her hand and squeezed it. “You’re going to be just fine. Promise. What time do you go in?”

“Oh, not for another hour,” Linda said. “I hate the way they put you out here so far ahead of time. It’s nerve-racking.”

Nerve-racking and insensitive. Jase kept these thoughts to himself and patted Linda’s hand. “Would you like me to come back when it’s time? I can stay with you during the surgery, if it would make you feel better.”

“Oh! Please!” A smile lit up her face.

“No problem. I’ll be back in a bit.” Hallelujah. He saw soup and a sandwich in his future. An hour would be plenty of time, especially if the OR was behind schedule. Filling his stomach would only take thirty minutes. Obviously, something was going to go wrong with Linda’s procedure—negligence of some sort or a bad reaction to anesthesia maybe. No matter. Jase would be there.

Something niggled at him as he walked away, and it took a minute to pin it down. Going into cardiac arrest on the operating table was no picnic, and there would be blood obviously, but his most disturbing dreams normally preceded violent situations, and Linda’s dream had been one of the worst. What was so violent about getting a gallbladder removed?

His footsteps faltered. Stay.

Eat, his stomach demanded, and Jase, a creature of routine and his own invincibility, chose lunch over the subconscious warning.

The café was exactly where it was supposed to be, tucked into a corner of the lobby, as small and uninspiring as Jase had feared. Still, there had to be something to fill the hole in his gut. A line of at least a dozen people stood in front of him. Annoyed, but not so put out that he’d misuse his power, Jase thrust his hands into his pockets and stepped to the back of the queue.

Fifteen minutes later, he was one person away from being served and salivating at the chicken salad wrap taunting him from behind the glass case. At first, the clanging alarm didn’t register. To him, it was just another sound in a building filled with beeps and whistles, but the nurse in front of him turned and raised an eyebrow. “Why’s the security alarm going off?” he asked.

Jase groaned but held his tongue.

“Are you going to order?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Uh...yeah. Sorry.” The guy hesitated one more second before turning his back on Jase and rattling off his order.

She asked him to repeat it twice. “Will someone please find out why the security alarm has been activated?” she called over her shoulder. “I can’t hear a darn thing. Whoever decided a drill was a good idea during the lunch rush needs to be fired.”

“There was no drill scheduled for today,” a woman offered from farther back in line, and, cued, another alarm sounded, this one much louder and accompanied by running feet.

Several people turned, gasping. “That’s the lockdown alert,” the man in front of Jase said before dashing away.

Jase’s blood went cold. He dodged out of line and sprinted across the lobby toward the elevators, vaulting more than one couch rather than run around them. He ground to a halt in front of the metal doors, seconds behind a security guard. “Sorry, sir.” The guard placed a hand against Jase’s chest. “The elevators are not running at the moment. Please find the nearest emergency exit and proceed to the visitor’s parking lot. You’ll be given instructions there.”

Like hell. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make the elevators move with the power of his mind. “Where are the stairs?” he barked.

The security guard answered immediately. “There.” He pointed. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He jogged around the corner, belt flopping, and Jase followed. “You need a key.”

“Hurry!” Jase yelled, though the man was already rushing and Jase’s command only made him more upset. Key after key slid through his grip. Jase listened with increasing panic to the noises coming from the stairwell. They could only be emanating from the floor above, where he’d left Linda. He heard shouting and banging, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

Someone was screaming. A woman.

Finally the guard fit the proper key into the lock, turned it and stepped back. Jase thundered into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. He burst through the door and into chaos.

“Watch out!” An orderly rushed by him, arm slung around an elderly man. Moaning, the man clutched at his arm. Blood snaked over his fingers, trickling from where his IV had been ripped free. Jase managed to catch the stairwell door with his foot before it slammed shut. “In here.” He helped the two onto the landing. “Can you get him down by yourself?”

“Yeah.” The orderly pushed past.

“What’s happening?” Jase called as they limped down the stairs.

The older man answered him. Mouth twisted in a grimace of pain, he pointed a gnarled finger at the door behind Jase. “He just went crazy when they tried to give him the gas. Grabbed a scalpel and started threatening people.”

“Come with us,” the orderly called, gesturing to Jase. “Enough people have been hurt. They’ve got security on it.”

“Wait,” Jase said, confused. “One person is causing all this commotion? How hard is it to subdue one guy?”

The elderly man stumbled down the last few steps, but the orderly caught him before he fell, managing to keep them both on their feet. He threw one last look at Jase before hustling his patient out the door and into the lobby. “It’s just one guy. But he’s got a hostage.”

Jase’s knees went weak. Clutching the railing, he allowed himself three seconds of panic, then turned and got his feet moving. Careless! So careless, and now he was going to pay.

The hall had nearly emptied, but near the end a group of security guards ringed two figures in hospital gowns. One of the patients had his back to the wall. Eyes wide and dilated, he did indeed have a scalpel in his hand and was pressing it against Linda’s neck as he shouted at the guards to stay away.

Jase’s headlong sprint stuttered at the sight of blood dripping from her throat onto her gown. The man had done little more than hold the instrument to her throat, but its razor-sharp edge had cut into her skin like it was butter. Linda’s eyes were rolled up in her head, and her chest heaved with fear.

Before Jase could act or speak, one of the guards charged. Two others quickly followed. A child could have seen the folly in their plan. Jase yelled in denial as the sudden attack sent the man reeling back. The scalpel sank deep into Linda’s throat, and the trickle became a gush.

Dread blackened the edges of Jase’s vision. How long would it take for Linda to bleed out with her jugular cut clean open? A minute? Already the spurts of blood were becoming weaker as her heart slowed.

She was going to die. Because he had wanted a chicken sandwich.

He crashed into the throng at full speed, screaming for the men to move out of his way. His feet slipped out from under him on the blood-slick floor, and he went down hard, cracking his head on the tile.The security guards descended on the screaming madman while beside him, Linda thrashed weakly.

“Oh God, oh God,” Jase babbled. “Please don’t do this to me.” Half-stunned by the blow to his head, covered in Linda’s blood, he hefted her into his arms and placed his hands over her throat. “You’re going to be okay, Linda. I promised you, didn’t I?”

The power exploded out of him, as intense as always, and the flash of pain had him screaming into his shoulder, then collapsing sideways with Linda in his arms. It ripped him inside out, blinded him, but he didn’t care. It was Linda’s pain; he was taking it for her. Besides, he deserved it ten times over.

He came back to himself blinking tears out of his eyes and heaving ragged breaths. The euphoria was far away, beating in his blood, but Jase barely felt it. Several sets of hands were trying to pry his arms apart. “Sir? Sir! You have to let me get to her. Please let go, sir.”

Jase let go, and the young doctor slid Linda free of the pool of coagulating blood to check her pulse. “I don’t believe it.” He raised astonished eyes to the gathering crowd. “She’s alive!”

Jase laid his head on his arms and wept.

After Linda, when he found whomever he’d been sent to help, he stayed with them no matter the circumstances, for as long as it took, chancing nothing. He forged a promise to himself that day—a blood promise. Never again would he come that close to failing a soul he’d been tasked to save.

Never again.