Blackout

Chapter 7

Imaia Island

Max

Present

I’ve spent enough time covering shifts in the ER to know what a gunshot wound looked like. It looked a lot like the wound I was cleaning at the moment. Deep, with burned openings and blackened skin. This boy was lucky to be alive. If he had moved, or his shooter had aimed a little to the right...I sighed, shaking my head at him.

He was so damn young. Probably only sixteen or seventeen. He should have been doing his homework right then, not getting gunshots on his neck. The boy was staring at me with widened blue eyes and lips that were still shaking in shock. He still hadn’t registered the pain of his wound and he would not think too much about it until tomorrow. Moving his head was going to be a b***h come the morning. I anesthetized the area and started preparing a needle to give him some stitches.  

“This might hurt a little,” I warned and the boy licked his lips, moving to the edge of the bed and speaking fast to me. Imaia didn’t have an official national language. People spoke a bastardized tongue that was a mix of Spanish, Portuguese and English. The boy tried to speak, only to flinch when his voice died in a dry sound. I poured some water for him and he accepted a glass, swallowing the entire thing down before staring back at me.

“Esse homem vendio su alma o diablo,” he said, making me frown while I started to sew his wound.

“Who sold his soul to the devil?” I asked him, finishing another stitch, “are you talking of the man who shot you?”

“No, no...no,” the boy looked at the door, then back at me with apprehension, “I’m talking about the big guy. The one who was looking at you.”

I paused in the middle of my work, staring at the boy while I tried very hard not to groan. Of course people had noticed. I would have noticed too if two hypothetical strangers had looked at each other as if they wanted to devour their bodies. The objective word being hypothetical. The big guy and I were not strangers. Nobody knew I knew him, or the fact that three months ago he had indecorously asked me to spend the night with him. The same attraction I’d experienced towards him back in Miami had recharged and increased, like a battery that I couldn’t throw away, no matter how much time had passed. Now he was here, right here with me, making it clear to everyone that something must definitely be going on between us. I was a virgin but that attraction between us was out of the charts. Even I knew that. 

How exactly could I’ve imagined I would have found him at Imaia? These types of coincidences never happened. I thought I would never see him again. I thought that I could share with him my secrets and be honest to him, since I would not see him ever again. This entire encounter was beyond humiliating, awkward and embarrassing. If only I could be an ostrich. Alas, I’d never been an ostrich. The only way I managed to get out of the worst Little Havana neighborhood in existence and become a doctor was because I was always informed and prepared. Information was the key to survive the next six months at this place.

I first needed to know his damn name. What he was doing here and for how long. Maybe I was stressing over nothing. Maybe he would disappear by the end of the night like he had done in Miami. This man was a complete stranger to me. I literally knew nothing more than the basics and the fact he had saved my life three months ago... oh, and that he liked to eat. He could be staying only for a couple of hours. He could be vacationing. Hell, maybe I wouldn’t see him again. Statistics had proved that women stressed an eighty percent of the time over things that didn’t even happen in the first place. Arming myself with that modicum amount of reassurance I finished sewing the wound and covered it with a clean bandage.

“You need some vaccines in case you contracted tetanus or other possible infections,” I explained to the boy, filling his formulaire, “How can I contact your parents? I need their consent.”

“No parents,” the boy said fast, making me frown and look at him over the rim of the clipboard I was holding. The empty look in his blue eyes told me everything I needed to know. Either his parents weren’t around or they didn’t care enough to come if I contacted them. Sadly enough, I’ve seen that same look in a lot of teenagers I treated back in Miami. There were protocols to follow in these cases. I should contact the next of kin or a legal guardian, but this was no man’s land. I had zero idea if the same rules I’ve followed in Miami applied to Imaia. I waved my hand for the boy to walk behind me, making sure to keep him by my peripherals all the time. Kids like him thought that once they were stitched all of their problems disappeared and he got to leave the hospital. Not under my watch.

Together we walked to the end of the hall, where there was a wide room with multiple beds. I counted three beds occupied by ailing men. What? Those beds had been empty a couple of minutes ago. My eyes studied the closest man, the one that looked pale and was holding his right leg between whimpers. Ouch. A fracture on the tibia hurt like a mother. I wondered how he got that? Shaking my head I walked to the end of the room, to where I could see Dr. Spencer and Lidia, treating a man covered in bruises.

Dr. Spencer looked over his shoulder at me, never stopping his work.

“I see you are done with your patient,” he said when I stopped by his side. Lidia’s lips thinned in contempt but she ignored my presence altogether, choosing to step between me and Dr. Spencer as if I wasn’t even there. I would have rolled my eyes at the pitiful woman but I had a patient to treat and three new ones waiting for help. I didn’t have time for stupidity.

“My patient needs vaccines, but he is clearly a minor,” I stated fast, lifting an eyebrow at the boy, who seemed ready to bolt out of the room at any moment given the chance of escape, “Parents don’t seem to be available. What should I do in this case?

“Is it that hard to follow the protocol?” asked Lidia with a bitchy snarl and I swear, it took all of my professional experience as a street kid to know it would only take one hit to break her nose. I took a deep breath. Remembered I was a doctor and then smiled, keeping my eyes fixed on Dr. Spencer.

“Our protocol back in Miami might not apply to Imaia’s standards,” I explained, “What organization should I contact in this case? Is there like a Social Services Agency I could talk to?”

“There are no organizations,” said a deep voice at my back. At the sound of it the entire room seemed to grow quiet. The kid at my back moved closer to me, as if searching for my protection. The men on the bed stopped crying, trying their damn hardest to multiply themselves by zero and disappear. I turned around and sure enough there he was. Military man. His green-gray eyes found me at once and again I experienced a major upheaval to my heartbeat rhythm. He moved closer, staying only a couple of steps away from me. He frowned, folding his muscular arms over his chest while he traced a visual line between me, Dr. Spencer and Lidia. He gave me a flinty stare before speaking, “If there are no responsible adults available the jurisdiction of your patient’s treatment falls on your shoulders. The government in this place doesn’t require written consents for the medical sector to treat children.”

“That’s preposterous!” exclaimed Lidia, clenching her imaginary pearls and giving Dr. Spencer an incredulous look. Dr. Spencer fixed the bridge of his glasses and with a sigh he turned around, taking the clipboard out of my hands and then signing his approval for me to get the vaccines for the boy.

“Get him started with his vaccines and then check the patient with the broken tibia,” ordered Dr. Spencer and I nodded, relieved that I had an excuse to leave the room and put some well needed distance between myself and Military Man. After some quick instructions for the boy to wait for me I reached the hall, trying to remember where the medical equipment room was.

“Going somewhere Dr. Cruz?” His voice made me halt and look back at him. Military Man was coming my way, occupying with his presence all the empty air of the hall. Baby Jesus and his sandals. I’d forgotten how impressive he looked. All muscles, strong features and cordoned limbs. The black wife beater he was wearing seemed to roll over his muscles, making him look powerful, energetic, manly. The short hairs at the back of his neck looked soft to the touch when he stopped in front of me, scowling. I was very aware of everything that he was right then. Close, warm and strong. Those seemed to be the only facts my mind registered when he moved even closer, now dangerously close to stepping into my personal space. He talked to me in a low timbre, “I remember advising you before to not be a hero. In this place you shouldn’t be walking alone. Is dangerous here.”

“Why?” I snarled back at him and Military Man shrugged.

“You are too damn gorgeous for your own good,” he explained and at that I turned around, checking that nobody had heard that. Luckily for me we were alone. Bracing my hips with my trembling hands  I lifted an eyebrow at him, clenching my jaw in anger at his nonchalant tone. He c****d his head to the side, regarding me with a clenched jaw too, “Don’t fight me over this, woman.”

“Excuse me?” I raised my eyebrows at him, my tone chiding and full of rebuke, “Do I know you?”

His gunmetal eyes turned devastatingly darker.

“Don’t pretend we don’t know each other,” he said, moving even closer. His low, husky voice was like a balm to my tired body, awakening me from the inside out. Military man lowered his head, staring at me through thick, black eyelashes, “We know each other. We would have known each other a lot better by now if you would only let me.”

  “I don’t know your name,” I fought back, squaring my shoulders and looking him in the eyes. Men like him...you couldn’t give them an inch or they ended up chewing you and spitting you out. I took one step back, not escaping, but putting distance between us, “I don’t know you. In the future refrain yourself from acting as if we are friends. We are not.”

“That, we will never be,”he conceded, again using that damn deep voice of his.

“Good that you understand,” I nodded, stepping away and walking in the opposite direction from him. I don’t know why I was so angry at him. It was an accumulation of factors. Starting from the fact I didn’t like the way he talked to me in my workplace and ending with the understanding that he seemed to be in control at Imaia and I wasn’t. This was an uncertain place and I didn’t like uncertainty. I’d almost reached the end of the hall when his voice stopped me again, making my skin break out in goosebumps. s**t, I really hoped I would stop reacting like this to his voice. It would be impossible to hide my reaction to him if I developed a bad case of gooseflesh every single time he spoke to me.

“Callan,” he called after me and I paused, trying to calm my stupid erratic breathing, “The name is Callan Jameson, at your service.”

I didn’t say a word on my way out.

Callan. 

Even his name was sensual, interlaced with a darkness that was alluring and dangerous. If names could touch you then his name had blown a bazooka to my chest and poured salt to the wound. At least I knew his name now. The only fact that remained unchecked was the little matter of his stay at Imaia. Luckily he would be gone soon. Luckily I would not see him again. Luckily I would stop smiling like a moron and stop myself before I could make the biggest mistake of my life.