Darkness Torn Asunder Read Free

a blank chart and started asking the minimum number of questions she needed answered before she could safely render treatment. Unlike a lot of her patients, he had both an address and a job. He was also older than she expected. He looked as if he might be around twenty-five but he was more than ten years older than that. Talk about good genes.
    “One last question, Mr. Sloan, and then we can get you all fixed up. Any allergies to medications or to latex?”
    Emmett frowned before he answered. “No problems with latex that I know of, but don’t bother with any painkillers, Doc. They don’t work right for me.”
    She looked up from her notes. “What do you mean? What kind of symptoms do you get from them?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing bad, but evidently I metabolize them different than most folks. You might as well shoot me up with distilled water as give me lidocaine, for all the effect it has.”
    Jana considered their options. “I can suture the wound if you think you can stay still, even though it’s going to hurt like heck. Otherwise, I’ll drive you to the nearest emergency room. They’re better equipped to handle injuries when the patient has unusual reactions to medications.”
    “No hospitals. They give me the creeps.” He put his other arm behind his head to prop it up. “I can take the pain, Doc. I’ve done it before.”
    “All right; I’ll try to make it quick. And to be clear, I’m a nurse practitioner, not a doctor. I report to the doctor who’s in charge of the clinic, but I do most of the heavy lifting. And we don’t go for much formality around here. How about you call me Jana, and I’ll call you Emmett?”
    “Fair enough.”
    She got out a sterilized tray that contained everything she’d need, disinfected her hands, then put on gloves and peeled back the towel. She winced as she wiped away some of the blood to get a better look. The cut on the palm of his hand was jagged and long. It didn’t appear to be deep enough to have caused any muscle or nerve damage, though.
    She disinfected his hand, wiped away the sluggish flow of blood, and started closing the wound. As she worked, she was conscious of his dark gray eyes following her every move. Normally she didn’t like being stared at, but maybe it helped him ignore the pain. For sure, she gave Emmett full points for his stoicism. He barely flinched whenever the needle pierced his skin.
    “Two more and we’ll be done.”
    A few moments later, Jana tied off the last stitch. She cleaned the area around the wound one last time and watched to see if the bleeding had finally stopped. Satisfied with the results, she bandaged the wound.
    “That should do it, Emmett. You were lucky.” She set her tray aside. “How did this happen?”
    He held up his hand as if to check out her work. “It was no big deal. A couple of bottles got knocked over behind the bar. When I went to catch one of them, it hit the edge of the counter and broke just as I grabbed it. I don’t know which hurt worse—the glass cutting into my hand, or the cheap whiskey hitting the open wound.”
    His grin brought one of her own. “At least the alcohol will have killed off any germs that you might have picked up.”
    “There is that.”
    She gave his good hand a tug to help him sit up. “Sit there for a minute to make sure you don’t feel dizzy.”
    While keeping an eye on him, she added a prescription for an antibiotic to his chart notes. “I’m going to call in a prescription for a week’s worth of an antibiotic to the all-night pharmacy two blocks south of here. It should be ready when you get off work.”
    There was no delicate way to say this next part. Either he’d take offense or he wouldn’t, but it needed to be said. “I ordered the generic version, so it shouldn’t be too expensive. But if you don’t have the money to pay for the prescription, tell the pharmacist to charge it to my account. Since Dan said he’d reimburse you for the cost, one of you can