Fallen Lover

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

            His sapphire eyes flicker, burning hotter than the flames that rise into the black sky. His hair drips rubies down his face and his muscular chest heaves as he comes toward me. Around us, bodies lie in gory heaps and what this beautifully dangerous entity plans for me now, sends bolts of panic through my fear-filled blood. I tear through the woods and hear him roar as he storms away from the clearing.

            He throws me to the ground and his hands dig into my wrists as he holds them above my head. He brings his mouth to my ear and his tongue flicks inside. I take a shuddered breath as he whispers hauntingly, “You’re mine now.” His mouth moves to my neck and he bites in, slipping the rest of the clothes from my body as I writhe. “You were always mine and I would kill them all again.”

            My bare skin feels vulnerable against him and blood smears across my stomach as he moves upon me. He opens my quivering legs and my body hums with longing. A submitting whimper falls past my lips and only thoughts from my darkest places remain as I give myself over to him. His beautiful body, supernaturally strong and crushing me into the ground puts pressure against my sensitive places and his burning lips claim mine. He presses his massive head against my deeply craving slit. I whisper weakly “Yes,” against his mouth and push my hips up in wicked anticipation…

* * *

            “Dawn!”

            My eyes snap open toward the voice that ripped me from my memory. My dream…

            Jan, the elderly day nurse bursts through the door in the break room. “The new guy is attacking the other patients!” she chokes out through her dentures and I hear shrieks and the pounding of feet in the hall.

            “Call a code,” I say and rip my hoodie off, letting it crumple to the floor. The one day I’m in charge of the supposedly quiet unit of this insane asylum and all has gone mad. Perhaps it was luck that finds me here, or perhaps madness is somehow drawn to me. Time for some fun, I think, and sprint off. Jan runs in the opposite direction.

            The depression unit of the behavioral health center has exploded in screams and roars followed by cringing thumps. The new patient who currently terrorizes the floor had originally been admitted to the acutely psychotic unit: the hearing voices and letting them talk you into taking your pants off and maybe eating someone’s face off, unit… But he seemed far too normal to be placed there after further evaluation.

            I run toward the mayhem and curse the day shift clinician who made the decision to place him here with quiet, already emotionally fucked up patients. “Stupid fucking bitch!” I yell, and the little white-haired lady in the day room watches me fly by.

            “You’re a bitch!” she says in her sweet, aged voice.

            I enter the white room and face the patient who stands six and a half feet and holds a woman by the throat. Code Gray sounds overhead, but the other nurse, Jan, and the pregnant orderly have found safer places to be right now. “Leonard!” I growl fearlessly. “Put her down and go back to your room, now.” Behind my back I hold a syringe full of Ativan. In emergencies a standing order for a 1 mg injection is prescribed, but my syringe holds 3 mg. The doctors are more than happy to under-prescribe to protect their license, but that hardly protects my pretty little ass. I suppose the Ativan would have some effect, I mean, it would certainly accomplish pissing this huge guy off as we held him down and stuck the big needle into his backside. “Let her go.”

            His eyes twitch about in psychotic indecision. “No. I’m gonna fuck her while she screams and you’re bothering us!” His voice holds an eerie, child-like note. He sniffs the girl’s hair. Tears squeeze from her eyes, her bandaged wrists flailing, and new liquid red fills the white gauze. Silvery scars slash across her arms and legs from years of emotional cutting as her thoughts swirled with memories of purpling skin, locked rooms and an unwanted nightly visitor. This would truly be the most fitting end for her: an ironic testament to her abnormal and disillusioned life. She died the way she lived, would be said at her Eulogy. Scared and once again fucked by a big guy who made her call him daddy.

            “This isn’t going to happen for you so drop her, now.” I step toward him and the patient in his grasp squeaks, her face flushing an alarming purple. “When the others get here, in about two seconds, we won’t hesitate to take you down.” I bite my lip and slide my thumb up the vial behind my back. “Trust me, we won’t be gentle.” Protocol tends to fly out the plexiglass windows around here when dangerous patients’ fists and teeth get involved. Of course, it is a rare day that such a patient would be placed on this peaceful unit in the first place. His size alone should have dictated a more acute spot in the loony hole but so many need beds and our revolving door is always in motion. I understand that mental illness makes a person do terrible things, but there are times when something else lurks behind their blank stares and puts purpose behind their seemingly uncontrolled violence.

            The female patient slips out of Leonard’s grip and he bulldozes toward me. Fear doesn’t exist as I move aside, the footfalls of my backup sounding toward us. Several men rush past me and collide into him.

            “He’s endangering the lives of patients, secure his arms and legs.” The four who finally showed up from across the way take him down per my instruction. He howls as they get his arms and legs secured within the 4-point nylon restraints and I plummet the 2-inch needle into his thigh muscle. He sneers at me, and with a vicious kick, the needle clanks to the floor. The air around us thickens with a horrible stench and his body goes limp. The orderlies and LVNs drop his limbs and look at each other with frozen expressions of confusion as his skin pales and cyanosis creeps into the corners of his face.

            “Get the crash cart,” I yell and forcefully press into the center of his chest. I had transferred here recently from the Emergency Department at the main hospital so people falling down dead is nothing new to me. The others at this psych center aren’t used to invasive procedures or medical emergencies so most of them look bewildered and wait for my direction.

            I feel Manuel’s eyes on me as I place the breathing mask over our big, dead dude’s mouth and breathe life into him. Manuel. He just looks badass with his tall, athletic build and slicked back onyx hair. His perfect lips make my thoughts drift, and I again feel them exploring my naked body. Even now, as my patient’s head lolls and his skin cools, I dream about Manuel shoving me down in an empty patient’s room and taking me brutally, making me hurt later…

Leonard flies forward and Manuel’s arm gets caught in his snapping jaw. Manuel snarls and attempts to rip away but groans as the patient bites in harder. I clench the pressure points in his jaw with ferocity, my muscles shaking, and he releases the arm. Manuel glances at his torn flesh for a moment then pulls his fist back and strikes the patient in the mouth. He falls backward, and as the others secure him, I rush Manuel into the nurse’s station.

My face expresses too much concern as I clean and bandage his wound and I know it, but I don’t care. I need him to know how much it hurts me that a bite has been taken out of his beautiful olive skin. A blond LVN, Michelle, rushes in behind us and eyes me knowingly. But, my obvious attraction to the hot orderly isn’t the only reason she resents me. Working here for ten years without any sign of moving up, while I am the youngest employee, and am already a charge nurse has a bit to do with it as well.

I hated working the hospital floor. Finding veins for intravenous lines in sick and dehydrated people just for them to yank the catheter out during an episode in the night made me seriously ponder running out of the gliding doors, never to return. Sometimes they cried for hours because they weren’t prescribed enough pain medication to take the edge off. After all, the doctors believed them to be med-seekers and were too jaded to put themselves in these people’s shoes any longer. They aren’t the ones who had to listen to them scream either.

Anyway, here with the crazies, they’re still spitting at me, but I don’t have to find an elusive vein or stick a catheter into their urethra while they do it.

Also… I like to fight. Exhilaration spirits through my being as I run into dangerous situations and act with skill and fearlessness. I look forward to the pulse-pounding insanity within this facility. The stories within these walls take me away and I find myself lost to distraction. Even now I look at the corner of the nurse’s station and see the ghost of a woman hit her head and collapse into a pile on the floor. I remember the long-haired young man who had delusions of vampirism, drop face-first into the carpet to lap up her blood.

Two doctors ring the bell at the front doors and stand sullenly with their clipboards, waiting to be let in. They’ll continue to wait while we all get our hands dirty.

“Ooh.” Manuel flinches as I lightly rub antibiotic into his torn flesh.

“Quiet now.” I flick my eyes up and run my fingers along his smooth forearm. “You’re good, baby boy.” I whisper, “I’ve bitten you up worse than this.”

Amusement plays across his handsome face. “Cochina,” he teases.

These moments with Manuel distract me from the unrest that boils within. I know what led me here: a dark soul leaving the world colder. But I survived, and my psychological masterpiece is a testament of what humans should never play with. I’m still here but feel myself spiraling toward something dangerous. Something like what I sense trapped inside my patients’ bodies. He calls to me and I draw ever nearer though I know it will mean my death. So I fight a little rougher, fuck a little harder and call out for someone to save me as my body jars up and down.

Is it you? My silent question floats in the air between us as I dab the blood on Manuel’s wound. I gaze into his dark sapphires, and they don’t penetrate me, nor do they strike me down, bound and broken to pieces before him. So, no. Of course you aren’t the one I’m looking for. I haven’t been able to find him again since that bloody and beautiful night four years ago.