Lincoln Hospital (Trauma #1) Read online

  Glancing over his shoulder he saw an employee from the supermarket rushing towards them. “Call 911!” he shouted. The young woman nodded, her red ponytail flying behind her as she dashed back inside the store to do as he instructed.

  “I’m a doctor,” he told Sally as he turned his attention back to her. “Don’t worry. I’m going to make sure you get exactly where you need to be.” Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he mentally prepared for what was to come. He called forward the image of the abused children, the missing teenage girls and used those reminders to push himself forward with what he was about to do. This woman was a disgrace, a disgusting excuse for a human and needed to be punished—his way, since the judicial system had once again failed to do its job.

  Hearing the sirens in the distance, he reacted swiftly and pulled a needle from his pocket. Removing the cap, he expertly slid the pre-filled dose of the perfect amount of potassium chloride into her skin and re-pocketed the needle before the young cashier joined them.

  Sally’s mouth had formed an ‘O’ of surprise as she struggled to find the breath to shed light on what Cian had just done. “H—h—he,” she gurgled, trying and failing to lift an arm to point accusingly at him.

  “Yes, ma’am, I know. It was me that hit you, but you came out of nowhere, tearing across the parking lot. I’m very sorry, but there was no way I could have stopped.” Cian interjected smoothly over top of Sally’s attempts to expose him.

  “I saw, Mister. I saw from the window. She ran in front of the car,” the young girl’s green eyes were wide with excited fear.

  “Yes, she did. Give me that apron you’re wearing,” he ordered and once she’d obeyed, he tore a strip off it and used it to bind a bleeding gash at Sally’s elbow. The remaining parts of fabric he rolled into a ball and tucked under her head in a showcased attempt to make her more comfortable.

  As if on cue, the ambulance pulled into the parking lot and the paramedics rushed to their side. Cian stepped back to give them room and announced that he’d check her car for her personal belongings. Heading towards the mini-van, he scooped down discreetly and swiped the forgotten note from the ground and quickly put it in his pocket. He snatched Sally’s purse from where she’d dropped it and returned just as the paramedics were finishing up their initial assessment. Sally’s breathing had sped up and the portable monitor’s alarm started going off just as Cian dropped to his knees beside her.

  “She’s going into cardiac arrest. Get the ECG machine and get ready to push morphine,” he ordered, glaring when neither one of the male paramedics moved. “Are you fucking deaf? Let’s get moving!”

  “Who are you?” the first male asked. This one was cocky as all fuck, a big beefy African American with tattoos climbing down his neck and disappearing under his uniform shirt.

  “I’m Dr. O’Reilly. We’re taking her to Lincoln Hospital, let’s get ready to move.” Again, neither moved a muscle and Cian’s temper started to rise as his blood boiled. If they fucked this up for him...

  “Cian O’Reilly?” the second male paramedic asked. He was a bulky guy as well, although nowhere near the size of his partner. Caucasian with sandy-blonde hair and sharp blue eyes, he seemed to be the more sensible of the two. “As in the surgeon? That Dr. O’Reilly?”

  Yes, definitely the smarter of the two. “Yes. So if you’ve heard of me, you know that I’m being dead serious when I say we need to go now, or she dies right here.”

  “We need to be careful that we don’t do any more damage by moving her,” the idiot paramedic began, before Cian cut him off.

  “None of that is going to matter if her heart gives out, you fucking dumb fuck. Just get the fuck out of my way, I’ll load her on the stretcher myself.” The smart one stood and together he and Cian got Sally onto the stretcher and into the ambulance while the other man finally saw sense and went around to hop into the driver’s seat.

  He leaned his head into the cab of the ambulance and made eye contact with the paramedic sitting with Sally. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Nick. Nick Parker.”

  “Alright, Nick. Keep her alive until we get to the hospital. I’ll follow behind you in my car.” Closing the doors and pounding on them twice to signal they were good to go, Cian stepped back and noticed a small crowd had gathered around to watch. He immediately turned on the charm, addressing them as he moved to his car.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, everything is fine here. I’m a doctor, a damn good doctor, and I’m on my way right now to make sure that poor woman gets exactly what she needs.” He flashed a dazzling smile that was sure to weaken the knees of the females. There was a resounding sigh of relief and a few cheers and people calling out “thank you!” as he climbed in the car and sped out of the parking lot.

  Cian ran through the ER doors behind the stretcher, barking orders as he went. “Take her straight to OR-B.” Reynolds, you better be fucking ready for me. Two nurses and a resident rushed forward to take over from the paramedics, getting report as they ran down the hall to the elevators, Cian hot on their heels. He ducked into the attendings’ locker room and quickly discarded the syringe from his pocket in the Sharps container and moving to the shredder, pulled the note from his pocket and fed it through the teeth; watching as the warning he’d left for Sally disappeared into little bits of paper. I know who you are. I’m watching you. Get in the van at your own risk. His calculation of Sally had been on point, she was only out for her own survival and had bolted just as he’d expected she would, right into the path of his waiting vehicle.

  Recalling the way she’d flown up and over his hood gave him a sick feeling of joy that he relished. Making her pay was going to be such sweet victory.

  After scrubbing, he stepped into the OR and slipped his hands into the waiting gloves the nurse was holding out for him. Everyone in the room was hand-picked by him and he trusted them explicitly. Reynolds stood by ready to knock the patient out and wake them up again at his command, two trusted scrub nurses, Patricia and Lorna, that had been by his side for years were prepped and had his specific tools lined up and ready for his competent hands. With no acknowledgement to anyone, he reached over the instrument table and plucked a tool from the neatly arranged tray. Examining it, his face lit up with cold, wicked delight. The small metal scalpel twitched between his fingers in anticipation, ready and willing to perform his procedure. Leaning over, he brought the tip of the blade to Sally’s soft, smooth skin and pressed down slightly. As the first drop of crimson blood appeared, his grin widened. Let the games begin.

  Sally’s eyes flew open at the feel of the blade slicing into her. She screamed out from her gagged mouth and Cian leaned down to peer into her eyes.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Did you feel that?” She nodded frantically, relieved that he’d heard her and would do something about the pain.

  Cian waited a few moments, lulling her into a false sense of safety, allowing her to think that feeling the scalpel was just an error. When he was certain she was relaxed, he resumed his task of cutting shallow cuts up and down her right arm, watching as the blood flowed freely onto the table and then dripped onto the floor.

  “Ahhhh! Ah!” Sally screamed out behind the gag with each swipe of the knife, the pain was excruciating, she felt it in every molecule of her skin.

  “So you felt that as well. What a shame. Tell me, Ms. Pope, how do you think those children felt when they were beaten? When they were being sexually abused by the men you let in your home? Children. Some under four fucking years old. You exploited them, used them to make a few extra dollars. You make me sick,” Cian spat at her.

  Sally’s eyes had gone wide as saucers as realization dawned. It wasn’t a mistake that she was feeling everything the doctor was doing. It was deliberate. She was being punished; tortured. Frantically, she shook her head and tried to plead from behind her gag.

  Her begging only fueled the fire of his rage. He motioned for the nurse to step closer with the retractor. In one clean moveme
nt, he sliced down her chest diagonally, ignoring the way her body tried to buck off the table. She was restrained at the ankles and both arms were spread wide and strapped down to the table. Forcing the retractor into the incision he’d made, he cracked her chest and then shot her a look.

  “Well look at that. You do have a heart. Pity it’s just an organ to you, no real fucking emotion from you at all. Pliers,” he ordered, holding out his hand.

  When the instrument was in his grasp, he nodded at Reynold’s who slipped the gag from her mouth. Sally promptly started screaming bloody murder; Reynolds quickly wrapped his hands around her throat, cutting off her air just enough to keep her quiet. Cian fit the pliers over one of her bottom teeth and then locked eyes with her.

  “One of those children was missing teeth. It’s only fair you know the pain that child felt, don’t you think?” Sally squirmed and bucked but it was no use. With a ruthless yank, he pulled the tooth out from the root, letting it drop in a stainless steel basin. He repeated the motion four more times before stepping back.

  “Shame about you hitting the pavement so hard that it knocked your teeth loose, isn’t it?” Sally was reduced to almost inaudible whimpers of pain now, and he was pretty certain she’d soiled herself.

  “Let’s finish this, I can’t stand to look at her any longer,” Cian said and retrieved the scalpel. With a precise movement, he punctured her aorta. She’d bleed out in minutes, a much more merciful death than she deserved after the hell she’d inflicted on others, but it’d have to do. They were a little ahead schedule on this kill and Cian couldn’t risk any unwanted visitors coming into his OR.

  When it was over and she was finally dead, Cian looked around and was satisfied on what he saw on his team’s faces. They all had their reasons for what they did, but it was never spoken of. Their acts of vigilantism would never be accepted by society, especially in the way they performed it. Some may have wanted him persecuted for what he did, but the simple fact was—he killed people that needed killing.

  The need inside him grew with each passing day and when the twenty-third day of the month came around, he hunted down one of his selected victims and carried out the punishment they’d managed to escape. Lately, the hunger to take human life was growing strong and it was becoming more difficult to wait the standard time he’d set out for himself, making it difficult to balance the two sides of his life. The Dr. O’Reilly who walked in the daylight and was a legendary life saver, and the Dr. O’Reilly who emerged in the night and was the judge, jury and executioner for anyone that escaped proper justice for their crimes.

  “Same clean-up procedure. I’ll write up the post-op notes next shift. Good work.” He walked out of the OR without another word, riding on the thrill of another successful kill under the nose of everyone in the building. It felt fucking good, powerful, he was drunk on the adrenaline of it. It was going to be a long four weeks.

  ATHENA PAYNE GAZED up at the large, formidable looking building that would hold ninety percent of her time for the next several years. Lincoln Hospital was actually two separate buildings joined together by a skywalk built over a main road. The lawns and gardens were immaculate, an obvious triumph of endless hours of work by several talented gardeners. The bright early morning sun glinted off the windows casting a heavenly glow over the hospital. To the naked eye, it looked like a friendly, welcoming establishment. Those in the medical profession knew better. While it could be the place that restored hope when all was lost, the walls also held the ghosts of unspeakable grief. An ocean of tears spilled over lost loved ones would forever stain the floors; destined to never be mopped dry.

  As a first year surgical intern, Athena was not naive about the types of cases she would be working on. In order to even have a shot of holding the elusive scalpel in the OR, there first had to be some sort of tragedy. Especially in cardiothoracic surgery. And that was exactly where she wanted to be. It was the most hardcore of all the specialties, but she didn’t care. It was her dream to become a cardiothoracic surgeon and nothing was going to stand in her way. Looking down at herself, she smoothed the front of her sensible white dress shirt before running a hand through her thick, dark brown hair. Her Greek heritage on both her mother and father’s side gave her skin a year-round tanned glow that brought out the light in her olive green eyes.

  First day jitters had her lingering in the parking lot longer than she should. Shifting from foot to foot, she took a deep breath and willed her feet to carry her forward towards the sliding glass doors that splashed the hospital’s name in an elegant scrawl. When she still remained rooted in place a few minutes later, she gave herself a mental kick in the ass.

  “Athena Payne!” Athena spun at the sound of her name being bellowed across the parking lot. Her best friend and fellow intern, Sabine Adams, was sprinting her way, her coat flapping out behind her and her black as night curls going every which way. “Girl, I’m late, so what the hell are you doing standing out here like you’re waiting for the ice cream truck to pass by? You best be getting your ass in there and not considering bolting on me.” she ordered as she skidded to a halt beside her and blew out a breath.

  “I’m not bolting. This is me...non-bolting. I’m just waiting,” Athena replied, eyeing her best friend out of the corner of her eye. She had no doubt that Sabine had literally just rolled out of bed and threw on anything that smelled clean and rushed out the door. Her make-up was a tad smeared but the look worked on her and curly hair was tousled, but could be blamed on the wind. Her stretchy pants and oversize top dwarfed her, but the slouched look suited her. The only part of her that looked out of place was the tan raincoat style jacket that was now hanging haphazardly off one shoulder.

  “Is that...” she peered closer at her friend. “Is that a man’s coat?”

  Sabine blushed, completely out of character for her, and tugged on the ends of the belt. “No. Yes. Well, so what? A coat is a coat. Don’t change the subject, Athena. We’ve got to get in there.”

  Athena decided to let the matter drop for the moment but promised herself she would get to the bottom of the mystery owner of the obvious men’s coat Sabine was wearing. Straightening her spine, she nodded at Sabine that she was ready and the two stepped forward towards the main entrance. A squeal of tires and a sudden blast of a blaring horn had both jumping back out of the path of a silver sports car that came tearing around the corner. The car narrowly missed flattening their toes by inches and then slid smoothly into a front parking space. In shock, Athena stared transfixed as the owner climbed from the car and pressing the key fob over his right shoulder, engaged the locks on his car with a subtle beep beep.

  “Sorry,” he tossed to them in a way that expressed he was most definitely not sorry at all, before leaving them standing there gaping after him.

  “Jesus fucking fuck. Do you see him? Oh, my God he’s a walking orgasm maker. I think I just soaked my panties, Thene,” Sabine breathed, clutching her arm for balance.

  “Since when do you wear panties?” Athena muttered back almost absent-mindedly as she watched the rude man’s departure. Sure, he was dead sexy, but he obviously had some sort of God complex if he could almost kill them the way he did and then brush them off as though they were last week’s leftovers. In that one second their eyes had met, she’d glimpsed something in his almost black gaze. Something that spoke of power and authority. Whoever he was, it definitely wasn’t his first day on the job like it was theirs. His denim clad legs showcased muscular thighs and a tight ass. The black dress shirt stretched tight across his chest and arms, making him appear impossibly built. Yes, the way he carried himself and his flashy car—that she now recognized as a Jaguar—spoke of someone in a position of rank. But above all, he was a grade-A douche and she hoped they had no dealings with him at all.

  Sabine was still gushing on and on about his dark hair and wondering aloud if she could get a ride in his backseat after shift was over as they hurried towards the front doors.

  “Sabine, no. T
he guy’s an ass. He nearly ran us over and didn’t even care!” The sliding doors closed behind them and spotting a sign that announced Surgical Intern Orientation with an arrow, she steered them to the right while trying to talk sense into her best friend.

  “Who cares? I’ll take it as a hazard of getting a piece of that drop-dead gorgeous man,” Sabine shot her a sassy wink. Athena rolled her eyes and together they pushed open the double doors that the signs indicated lead to the intern locker rooms. The room was filled with around twenty men and women all talking excitedly while pulling on white lab coats and picking up pagers from a waiting table.

  In the center of the room, a middle-aged man stood calling names from a tablet, scrolling and tapping as people called out, “here!” in reply. Spotting them, he raised his eyebrows and then looked pointedly at the clock above their heads. Turning slightly, Athena took note that they were indeed fifteen minutes late, thanks to her cold feet and their near death experience with Mr. Asshole of the Year.

  “Names,” he ordered.

  “Athena Payne?” she answered automatically, grimacing when it came out as a question. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Dr. Athena Payne, sir. I apologize for being late. There was an...incident in the parking lot.” His nod was the only response she got to her lame excuse and she urgently elbowed Sabine to get her to pay attention.

  “Sabine Adams,” she called out after tearing her eyes away from a blond-haired, blue-eyed stud trying to nonchalantly flex his biceps after he caught Sabine’s eye on him. Her friend was as boy-crazy as they came and had more sexuality in her baby toe than Athena had in her whole body. She wasn’t a prude by any means, but chasing her next one-night stand was not as high on her priorities as it was on Sabine’s. She had goals, ambitions, a plan. Getting tied up in some messy hospital romantic drama was not part of it and she’d be damned if anything stopped her from what she’d worked so hard for in medical school. If she wanted to be the best, the only thing that would put her at the top was keeping her eye on the prize and proving herself as a serious contender very early in the game. Surgeries. She needed surgeries and a lot of them.