"Is it really?" Mrs. Rikka said with a raised eyebrow as she glanced at Liz and then turned her laser like stare back on me. "I wasn't aware that Miss Baker had been sick."
"Oh she's been throwing up all day," I nodded vigorously trying to convey the seriousness of Liz's condition.
"I see," Mrs. Rikka said as she stepped closer to the gurney and shook Liz's shoulder. "Miss Baker, is this true? Are you ill?"
"I’m not sick just tired,” Liz mumbled into the pillow under her head. "Just need a nap.”
"Then perhaps you should get more sleep. Or maybe you should be checked by a doctor rather than laying on a gurney in the middle of the hall," Mrs. Rikka said sharply. "Get up, Miss Baker. I want you to see a doctor. Now."
"Liz, get up," I whispered into her ear with an urgency that seemed to cut through whatever fog had taken over my friend's brain. "C'mon, you need to see a doctor."
Liz slowly raised herself up off of the gurney and let me drape her arm around my shoulder so I could walk her down to the ER. Mrs. Rikka stared at us both. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully gave Liz a once over.
"I'm not sure what Miss Baker is suffering from, but it does not appear to be the flu," she observed. "Nonetheless, I want her checked out by a doctor, Miss Pierce."
"Yes, ma'am," I nodded as I helped Liz up and walked. I walked slowly hoping that Mrs. Rikka would let us go without further questioning. The sound of the supervisor's shoes clicking on the floor told me that she was leaving, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked at my friend.
"Liz, what have you been doing?" I whispered.
"Nothing, I’m just tired. Get off my back," she mumbled as I kept her moving.
In the ER, Leslie set up a cot to one side and we maneuvered Liz onto it so that the resident could check her out. Leslie let me take Liz's vitals and pronounced them normal as she did a few tests to see how awake and aware she was.
"Looks like she might have taken something," Leslie commented as she pulled up Liz's eyelids and checked her pupil reflexes. "But then again, she might be sick. We’ll run some tests and see what shows up. Do you know of anything she might have taken?”
"No, I don't ," I said shaking my head. I turned to Liz and asked, "Liz, are you on drugs?"
"Drugs? What the hell?" Liz said a little more coherently. "Jesus, I told you, I’m just tired. Would you all back off?”
"She's been saying that since I found her in the hallway," I shrugged. "No idea what it means."
"She'd better be careful," Leslie warned. "If Frau Rikka finds her--."
"She already did," I sighed. "She ordered me to bring her to find out what's going on."
"Aww, shit," Leslie said shaking her head slowly. "There's gonna be a report about this, and you're going to have to most likely answer a ton of questions. And if Liz has been doing drugs it’s likely she’ll be expelled from the program."
"Shit," I muttered under my breath.
"Indeed," Leslie nodded. "Rikka is a hard ass about rules and she rarely does anything that doesn't completely conform to them. She's a bitch in heels and she runs a tight ship."
"What can I do?" I asked. "How can I help Liz?"
"Well, the good thing is that Rikka has made so may enemies in every department, that we'll have a fairly good chance of thwarting her with a proactive approach," Leslie said as she looked out from behind the curtain trying to find the resident. "The second thing is that we've got time on our side. No investigators will be in until morning, so if we can stall the resident, then we can give Liz a chance to recover a bit. I'll hook her up to an IV line and we'll see if we can't flush her system out a bit just in case she did take something."
"Just tell me what to do," I said as I watched Leslie wipe Liz's arm with an alcohol pad and then quickly slide the needle into her vein. She hooked up the IV and slipped the bag onto the stand.
"You stand guard," Leslie said. "I'm going to clear out the rooms and get things quiet around here again, then we'll see how Liz is doing and get the resident in here to examine her."
I nodded as I watched Leslie disappear into the bustling ER. I turned and looked at Liz. She looked so small lying on the bed and she was unusually pale, even for her. For the next hour, I watched her like a hawk as Leslie did her best to steer everyone clear of the curtain.
"Liz," I whispered. "You're going to have to tell me what's going on when you wake up."
"Back the hell off, Pierce," Liz said in a sharp tone that she’d never used with me before now. “I’m just tired.”
It took Leslie two hours to clear the ER, and by then Liz was back on her feet and declared she felt fine.
"You're kidding me," I said looking at her skeptically.