“Please! You have to help him!” I cried out desperately. I was starting to feel dizzy, but I didn’t care. My main concern was Brian. My nurse continued to ignore me and kept her attention on AJ. I reached my hand up to the bedrail, and started to pull myself up. I barely even noticed the dark bruise and the blood that oozed from the hole that was in place of where my IV was ripped out of. The dizziness turned into a pulsating pain. I felt like my heart was pounding in my head and the alarms started to ring. Still, I tried to get out of the bed. I had to get to Brian.
“Lizz? Oh my...” My nurse’s head shot up when the alarms sounded. They grew more and more shrill as I started to lose my grip on reality. Everything was spinning and it hurt to breathe. It was like de já vu all over again. My nurse jumped up and grabbed me before I slipped to the floor. She leaned me back in the bed, her face growing pale.
“I need some help in here!” She shouted over her shoulder. “What’s wrong dear?”
“Brian...he’s in...trouble...” I panted. Did it hurt this bad before?
The room started to fill with people and I thought I heard AJ’s voice. He sounded so far away. The beating of my heart seemed to grow louder. My vision was going out on me. The dizzy mess that I was seeing was fading into blackness.
“Shit! She is going to go into cardiac arrest! What the hell brought this on? What happened to her? Who was that woman that I saw run out of here?”
“Young man, are you okay? You have a good sized knot on your forehead.”
“BP’s falling.”
It was so far away. “Brian.” I whispered.
“What?”
“What did she say?”
“AJ?” My voice was so weak. “Get to Brian.
“What the hell is going on here?! People, we are going to lose her if we don’t...”
AJ raced down the hall, his head pounding from the fall. When he had come to, the effects of the Albuterol had already taken their effect on Lizz. She frantically pleaded with him to get to Brian’s room since no one else took notice that he was in danger. It took a moment for the cloudiness in his head to clear, but when it clicked, AJ hauled ass out of Lizz’s room so fast that no one had a chance to stop him.
He flew by the elevators and down the steps. People jumped out of his way and some even yelled at him as he almost barreled them down. The guard in front of Brian’s door, jumped in shock as AJ slammed through the door.
Howie looked up, startled, as did a woman in blue scrubs.
“You bitch!!” AJ seethed at her.
The commotion woke Brian up and he looked around, unsure of what was happening.
“Get the hell away from him or so help me...” AJ snarled.
Agnes smiled. “Too late again huh AJ? I think you best stay where you are. The second you move and this shit goes straight into his veins.” She held Brian’s IV line just how she held Lizz’s.
Brian’s eyes widened and Howie looked from AJ to Agnes. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean ‘too late again‘“ Brian whispered.
“I just shot Lizz up with the same shit she tried to kill herself with the first time. Now you are going to get a shot of this shit, whatever the hell it is.” Agnes smirked. Then her eyes clouded over. “My husband is dead and I will make all of you pay.
Brian paled.
“Over my dead body.” AJ glared at the woman that held his friend’s life at her mercy.
“That can be arranged.” Agnes said sweetly.
“Let’s think about this. You don’t want to do this. Is your revenge worth going to jail for?” Howie tried to reason.
“Don’t waste your breath.” AJ spat.
“Oh no, I really do want to do this. See, we don’t really need Brian and Lizz. It’s a liability to have them both around. Only one of them needs to be here in order to secure Carter’s future.” Agnes explained.
“What do you mean?” Howie narrowed her eyes at Agnes. AJ looked horrified and desperately hoped what he was thinking wasn’t true.
Brian gasped when it dawned on him. That was what Agnes had just said to upset Lizz so bad. Lizz knew. And now, so did Brian.
“If you kill us both, then what?” Brian shot at her, trying to keep the tremor out of it.
“Oh I didn’t give her enough to kill her. You on the other hand...” Agnes smiled to cover up her nervousness. On one hand, no one was going to move when she had this needle stuck in Brian’s IV. On the other, she was trapped. Unless she came up with another way out of this...
I could barely hear their voices anymore. I was slipping out of consciousness and it seemed like the harder I tried to hold on, the harder it got. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, my erratic heartbeat in my chest, filling my ears. God it hurt so bad. Was this it? Was I going to die this time? How did I make it last time? How did I survive this?
Nick.
Nick was there last time. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had a link. We still do. In a sense, we were affecting each other from the beginning. Almost from the very beginning we understood each other. Sometimes too well. We would say all the time that we could get through anything. And we always had. We helped each other and took it a day at a time. We can do this. We said it all the time. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t imagine him ever not being there and I couldn’t do it to him either. I can’t do this alone though. Was he feeling this? I wasn’t going to let go. I couldn’t.
Nick!!
The judge was sitting behind a large oak desk. He was leaned back in a
burgandy colored leather chair, his glasses were slid halfway down his nose,
looking over a file. The guard led me to the front of the desk, the judge
barely looked up at me.
“Sit down,” he mumbled.
I really didn’t want to sit, I wanted to stand and get this overwith, but the
guard pretty much forced me to the chair. I watched the judge as he laid
the folder on the desk, took his glasses off and folded his hands together.
He sighed heavily.
“They tell me you’d like to make a confession and Marshall Spencer resigned
from your case,” the judge began.
“Yessir,” I replied, I was trying to be as polite as possible.
“You realize that what you say to me here in the chambers sticks as much as
if you told me out in a courtroom. That is why I have our court recorder
here. She will record your confession. Do you completely understand what I
am telling you?”
“Yessir,” I again replied.
“Go ahead then,” the judge urged me on.
I nodded and took a deep breath in. “I wish to confess my g-g-g....,”
I couldn’t take a breath in, it was suddenly like someone was sitting on my
chest. I started gasping for air, it was like I was breathing through a tiny
straw. It must have been evident that something was wrong because the
judge stood up from his seat.
“Are you alright? What’s wrong? Can you speak?”
Clutching my throat, I couldn’t even shake my head yes or no. Funny thing
about this was the sound was going away and all I could hear was the sound
of my heart beating in my ears. It was going really fast and the faster it
went the dizzier I got. My legs were feeling rubbery and suddenly without
warning, they gave out from under me as I was making an attempt to grab
the desk only to be hindered by the chains around my wrists and waist.
Brian tried desperately to think of a way out of this mess. He knew in his
weakened condition he was no match for Agnes. He, AJ and Howie were each
privately trying to think of a way to foil Agnes before she injected the
medication into Brian’s IV. They each knew that if one of them made a quick
move towards her, she would panic and react.
Agnes looked at each of the men in the room, sweating out the situation she
was in. Her mind was calculating the different scenarios in trying to get out
of the sticky mess she was in.
“Oh shit,” Agnes mumbled as she looked towards the door.
AJ and Howie turned towards the door to see what Agnes was staring at.
They saw the security guard enter the room with another uniformed guard.
“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” Agnes demanded.
The guards hesitated at first and then started rushing towards her.
“NO DAMMIT, stay back!” AJ pleaded with the guards. His eyes shifted
from them to Agnes. He gasped when he saw her empty the contents of the
vial into Brian’s IV line.
The guards pushed Agnes away from Brian’s bed and pinned her up against
the wall.
“AJ, find out what she put in my IV,” Brian pleaded.
“You’ll never find out, I put it back in the box,” Agnes laughed.
“Oh shit,” Brian softly commented. All he could do was wait for whatever
was going to happen, happen. He could feel his heart start to flutter but he
wasn’t sure if it was nerves or the medication Agnes had used against him.
The guards led Agnes over to the corner of the room, away from Brian,
Howie and AJ. They had to wait until the state troopers came to relieve
them of their burden. Agnes just stood there, staring at Brian, a smirk on
her face.
As AJ hit the nurse button above Brian’s bed, Howie noticed that the wavy
flowing lines on the monitor were now becoming more erratic, growing closer
together and then far apart. It was no longer consistent. He looked at
Brian’s face and could see that he was pale, his face soaked in sweat.
The pains in his chest were more than he could stand. He wanted to cry out
in agony, but didn’t want to give Agnes the satisfaction. A soft sigh escaped
his lips and the heart monitor’s alarms started their shrill ringing.
Howie and AJ looked on in horror as the ringing kept up but the wavy lines
were now flat and a long beep permeated the air.
Doctor Doug MacMasters raced into the room. He was just finishing lunch when they paged him stat to Lizz’s room. When he reached it, it was already full of people.
“What the hell is going on?” He snapped some gloves on and began assessing the situation.
“I was on my way to check on Lizz and I heard a loud crash. Some woman almost ran into me running out of the room and when I got in here, there was a young man unconscious on the floor. I saw to him, meanwhile Lizz kept repeating to ‘help him.’ I assumed she was talking about the guy on the floor. Then the alarms sounded and I saw that she was trying to get out of bed. She was drenched in sweat and her pulse was very erratic. Meanwhile that guy tore out of here like a bat outta hell.” Lizz’s nurse explained while the team worked on her.
Before Doug could answer, another alarm started to sound. “Shit! She’s not breathing. Intubate!” He worked furiously and with precision. He was not going to lose this girl. They got the tube in and began to rhymthmically bag her. Her heart was still beating, although it was very unsteady. Doug was afraid that if it stopped, he would have to use the paddles, and it would be too much for her body.
“Something caused this and I want to know what it is. What the hell is all the blood from?” He demanded.
“Somehow her IV was ripped out.” Came the reply.
“Alright, I want a CBC, BUN and creatatinine, calcium and phosphate levels, potassium level, and a hematocrit level. I want to know what happened here.” Doug ordered.
