I don’t have any clothes?”
Lucas’s narrowed eyes made her want to take a step back but she forced herself to hold her ground. “You were shot, remember? Twice. You were bleeding profusely when you arrived, and we had to...cut them off.”
She expected him to focus in on the last part of her sentence, but instead his gaze sharpened. “We had to?”
Licking her lips, she tried to explain. “I don’t mean we, literally. I mean the team who worked on you.”
“I see.”
Did he? Because he sure didn’t act like it. She didn’t understand why he was so upset all of a sudden. He acted like they’d done something obscene to him while he’d been lying helpless on that table. “I assure you everyone acted professionally.”
“Were you there?”
“Well, no, but—”
“You weren’t?” The line of his jaw relaxed so suddenly that she found her own muscles untensing as well.
“No. None of us knew who you were when you arrived.” She hurried to add, “That ‘us’ is also figurative.”
“It’s okay.” He gave a half-shake of his head that seemed self-deprecating, his mouth twisting into a half-smile. And just like that his mood shifted back toward that of the charmingly flippant man who’d strolled toward her desk less than a week ago. The man whose ass she’d never quite got a good look at. “But I don’t think I should leave the hospital like this, do you?”
Her own lips curved. “It didn’t seem to bother you before. You’re lucky we didn’t have any cardiac patients milling around.”
Just then, the sound of some kind of commotion made its way through the heavy metal door, along with a shout. Sophia straightened, her head turning toward the noise.
“Socorro!”
The desperate cry for help grabbed her.
She threw a glance at Lucas. “Wait here.”
Pulling the door open in a rush, she saw a man standing at the nurses’ station wearing a gown just like Lucas’s, only he was holding something...waving it around. She couldn’t tell what it was. But what she did see turned her blood to ice. He’d grabbed the nurse on the other side of the desk by her wrist and looked like he was physically trying to drag her over the barrier. Then Sophia caught a glint from the thing he held in his other hand. A scalpel!
Deus!
She rushed forward, yelling at one of the other patients who’d peeked out of his room, “Dial 111! Tell Security we need someone up here now.”
It was lunchtime and most of the doctors had already done their rounds so there weren’t a lot of people on the floor at the moment. She shouted at the crazed patient, “Let her go.”
Judging by the yelp that came from the other nurse, the man squeezed even tighter. “Stay back! This one’s infected. I can see it in her face.”
What?
Her eyes went to Paulina, whose skin was as white as a sheet, her free hand digging at the man’s fingers, trying to get him off her. Luckily the scalpel was waving aimlessly in the air, the patient didn’t seem to be actively trying to cut her.
Yet. Who knew what he might do next?
This man had to be disturbed...or high. In fact, there was a long line of stitches over his right eye and in spite of the clean hospital gown he wore, his socks were filthy and crusted with blood. Had he been in a fight? Was he drunk?
She took a few more steps, circling around the man, only to hear him growl low in his throat when she ventured too close. “It’s okay,” she said, deciding to play along. “We know all about the infection. She’s taking medication for it.”
“You’re lying!” A few drops of spittle flew from between his lips.
Out of the corner of her eye she spied Lucas, who’d somehow come down the hallway on silent feet and was easing toward them. One turn of the crazed man’s head and he’d see him as well. Sophia didn’t dare gesture for him to get back. Besides, she was damned glad to see him, even though she’d told him to stay put. And although it seemed like hours, less than a minute had passed since she’d asked the patient to call for help.
Lucas was now about twenty feet away.
Trying to maintain eye contact with the patient, she eased further to the left, glad when the man’s unblinking gaze followed her movement. It reminded her of a cobra, ready to strike at the first hint of weakness.
“I’m not lying,” she murmured in as soothing a voice as she could manage. “Her hair has light streaks of color in it. It means the treatments are working.”
Are you insane, Sophia? What are you trying to do?
Keep him busy. Until someone could get to them. Anything to stop that scalpel from slicing through the air and hurting Paulina.
The patient’s lips thinned as his feverish gaze tripped from her to Paulina and then back again. The fingers holding the deadly weapon trembled for a second or two. “I don’t see anything.”
“Because you’re not a doctor. You’re not trained to.”
Just then, Lucas succeeded in covering the last few feet that separated them and grabbed the man’s knife hand. An enormous roar came up from the patient’s chest. He released Paulina and pivoted with lightning speed toward Lucas. Sophia lunged forward and caught the guy’s other hand to keep him from twisting the rest of the way round. The man was as strong as an ox. He threw her backwards, sending her skidding across the floor, where she flailed as she tried to maintain her balance—only to fail miserably and land on her butt.
She scrambled back up just as the sound of tinkling metal hit her ears, along with Lucas’s grunt of pain when the man’s fingers closed around a fistful of his hair and hung on. Before she could run toward them again, two men in uniforms stepped out of the elevator, took one look at the scene and charged, each man grabbing a gowned figure and wrestling them apart.
“Dammit! Let me go!”
The oath came from Lucas, who was now pinned securely in front of one of the guards, one elbow locked behind him, while the injured arm dangled awkwardly, the sling bunched along his forearm. Amazingly, the troublemaker had gone totally limp once subdued, moaning as if mortally wounded. He looked like the victim, rather than the guilty party.
As she put a hand to her throat and struggled to catch her breath, one of the guards glanced expectantly at her. “Which one did you call us about?”
“The one on the left.”
Poor Lucas looked like he’d been through the wringer. His hair stood straight up where the other man had grabbed it and his gown had twisted sideways, revealing quite a bit of one taut thigh.
Releasing him, the guard said, “What happened?”
“That man attacked Paulina, yelling about some kind of infection.”
Just
