I waved to Keifer as I went in, and he flashed only briefly to me before he disappeared once again, set to recon the building in hope that no enemies followed us, as well as to prevent any from coming in if he could.
I walked straight into the ER and moved up to the first person I saw, which happened to be a security guard.
“Sir,” I said.
The man turned, surprised at me just showing up. Then blinked at me as I held a getting-more-incoherent-by-the-second Brooklyn in my arms.
“Yes?” he asked, moving out of his little office.
“My wife was bitten by a rattlesnake,” I offered without preamble.
He blanched.
“Come with me,” he said, directing me to a big brown door.
Brooklyn didn’t protest being my wife.
What she did protest, however, was me trying to place her on the gurney.
“When was she bitten?” a doctor asked after the security guard led him into the room.
“About half an hour ago,” I admitted.
Although I knew it wouldn’t look like it was only a half hour.
The wound was already healed.
What wasn’t healed, however, was the poison slowly seeping through her veins.
“I’m not seeing an entry wound,” the doctor said in bafflement.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, fabricating a wound on her leg like the one I’d seen earlier, and the doctor hissed once my illusion hit his mind.
“Ahh, I see it now,” said the doctor, then turned to me. “What kind of snake was it?”
I opened my mouth to tell him, but Brooklyn beat me to it. “A six foot long Diamondback Rattlesnake.”
The doctor blanched, but, nonetheless, relayed the information.
“Nancy, we need anti-venom!” he called to a nurse.
I leaned down until my forehead was touching Brooklyn’s.
“I’m sorry,” I said roughly.
She picked her hand up and let it rest on my face.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”
How true that statement was.
I didn’t do anything.
Mostly because I hadn’t known that I’d need to prepare for that kind of threat.
Now, though, I would prepare.
They wouldn’t slip past me that way again.
“Alright, Mr…” a woman at the front of the room said.
I turned. “Vassago.”
“If you’ll come with me to fill out this paperwork,” I held up my hand to stop the woman.
“I’m not leaving her right now. You can ask me in an hour or so, then I’ll give you whatever you want,” I said, trying not to sound rude, but coming off that way anyway.
The woman smiled congenially. “That will be fine.”
“Anti-venom is expensive as hell,” Brooklyn said. “And I don’t have insurance.”
I snorted. “I got you insurance a day after you came to stay with me. And, as for the money the anti-venom will cost, that’s not an issue. I’ll have that money before you can even spell billionaire.”
She looked at me with wide eyes.
“I suppose we never really got to talk about that part of our relationship, did we?” she asked, holding her arm out as the nurse put an IV into her wrist.
I shook my head.
“No. Not yet. But it doesn’t matter, what’s mine is yours,” I offered.
She grimaced.
“You know, I have a degree. And I passed my boards. And I want a job,” she said stubbornly.
I suppressed a smile as I watched the nurse that the doctor had yelled at earlier hook up multiple IV lines…more than I’d ever seen run into a person before.
The nurse followed that up with a bag of filmy looking liquid in a clear bag and hung that up connected to the first large bag.
“It’s called a piggyback,” Brooklyn said, seeing where my attention had gone.
I looked down at her.
“What?” I asked.
“That smaller bag will run first until it’s completely empty because it’s higher than the big bag. Once the smaller bag is finished, then the bigger bag will resume,” she informed me.
“Ahh,” I said, even though I technically didn’t see.
I was too busy watching as the filmy liquid dripped into her veins.
One tiny drip at a time.
“How long will it take to know if there’s been any damage?” I asked the doctor.
He shook his head. “Days. Hours. I don’t know. It shouldn’t be too long, though. Diamondback Rattlesnakes are very rare, but since you got her into the hospital within two hours, I don’t expect any complications.”
“What kind of possible complications are there?” I asked, watching as Brooklyn’s eyes slipped closed.
“Common symptoms include swelling, severe pain, tingling, weakness, anxiety, nausea and vomiting, hemorrhaging, perspiration and eventually, heart failure,” he said. “But, like I said, it’s very likely that nothing will come of the bite.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“What’d you give her?” I asked.
“A sleeping medication to calm her down and relax her. We don’t need her heart pumping anymore because she’s anxious. We need her calm and relaxed to give the anti-venom the chance to work,” he explained patiently. “This would be a good time to go get her paperwork taken care of. We’ll need to know of any allergies. Whether there’s a possibility she could be pregnant. And old medical records. Anything you can think of would be helpful and useful information.”