Page 30 of Love Me Brazen


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The dry, stiff paper on my tingling face feels like sandpaper. I manage to roll down the window, the cool breeze on my cheeks the only thing keeping me from vomiting again. Linden rounds a tight switchback, the planes of his face hard and his fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

“Can you pull up your pant leg?” he asks, shooting me a glance.

I tug the fabric up with my fingertips but I can’t look. It’s turning my stomach to noodles.

“Okay,” he says, sounding satisfied. “Is the pain getting worse?”

“It’s getting—” I pause as my throat tightens even more “—hard to…swallow.”

“Fuck.” He reaches behind his seat with one hand while he keeps his focus on the road, retrieving that first aid kid I remember from the night at The Limelight. He flips the clasps and with a quick glance at the contents, snatches up a yellow box with EPI-PEN written down it in big black letters.

“Oh God,” I say as he uses his teeth to rip open the box.

Of course I’ve been trained to use one of these, but I’ve never seen one in real life. One with a real needle and real epinephrine spring-loaded inside it to save a life.

“I don’t think we’ll need this,” he says, glancing at me. “But I want it ready in case we do.”

I whimper, staring at the thick injection pen clutched in his fist.

As we round another curve, the flashing lights of an ambulance fills the view.

“Finally,” Linden says, yanking the wheel tothe side. We lurch to a stop and he jumps out then races around the hood to my side. I think I’m going to be sick again. The shivers are violent but I can’t control them. My wheezing breaths hurt my throat and chest.

Linden gathers me in his arms and hurries toward the ambulance. I’m jostled and the sky whirls above me. My leg is on fire and my stomach is cramping.Please don’t let me be sick again.

I’m lifted into the back of the ambulance and then I’m on my back blinking back tears at the metal ceiling.

“Take my hand,” Linden says.

I grip it and squeeze as sobs rattle through my frame.

“Luck’s on your side, shortcake, because Hutch is the most skilled medic I know,” Linden says, giving the medic a quick glance. “He’s going to take excellent care of you, okay?”

I swat tears from my cheeks. “Okay,” I manage.

“Little poke,” Hutch says before a cool flush races up my arm. Linden and Hutch banter back and forth, their voices tense. Closing my eyes, I try to tune them out. The ambulance rocks and sways as we descend the washboarded mountain road.

Linden covers me with a warm blanket from knees to my chin. The weight of it alone helps soften the shivers rocking through my muscles. Then Linden takes my hand again.

Hutch is talking into a radio while examining my lower leg. Drawing on it with a Sharpie, tickling my tight skin. Then he’s back at my side, peeling open a vial.

“I’m gonna push fifty milligrams of Diphenhydramine.” Another cold flush up my arm.

Hutch returns to the foot of the bed, relaying numbers and shorthand into the cell phone while working on the bite wound. Though the ambulance sways, I feel less and less like puking and the searing pain in my leg is more diffuse, though it’s spreading into my thigh and hip. Like the poison from the bite is seeping into my bone marrow.

“We’ll be at the hospital soon,” Linden says in a low tone. “They’ve got the anti-venom ready. Do you have any allergies?”

My molars clatter together. “No,” I manage.

“Okay,” Linden says. “When we get there, they won’t let me go back with you, but you’ll be in good hands. The team at Evergreen is top notch.”

The thought of him leaving my side makes me start to cry again. It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t fight it.

“It’s going to be okay,” Linden says in that soothing, calm tone. “I know it hurts, and it’s scary, but they’re going to take the best care of you.”

The ambulance pulls to a stop and the back doors fly open, flooding the space with bright light and a gust of cool air. Voices from outside the back doors filter in. They sound tense, and another wave of fear spikes inside my chest. Linden said I’m not going to die, but how would he know for sure?

I’m lifted down, then wheeled into the hospital by two men in dark blue scrubs. Inside, the space is flooded with bright lights and the rapid movement of doctors and nurses. Packages rip open and my pants are cut from me and whipped off. Next come my boot and sock. A fresh blanket is laid over my right leg and upper body while a nurse rattles off my vital signs and another staff member peppers me with questions.