Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

“Sorry, DB,” he muttered. “It sucks to have it literally beaten into you why we’re meant to do it like that.”

Gently squeezing his shoulder, DB shrugged. “We all learn stuff the hard way, especially in this job. Have you been checked out?”

Naomi, who somehow knew Carter from their hometown in Florida, whispered, “Um, I looked him over when he got here, and he’s got some bruising and a few cuts that we disinfected.”

She’d done a first aid course when she first got the job here, and it was useful when we needed to be patched up. The correct forms were always completed for our records, so we spent less time at the ER, something which the mayor approved of. Less money spent on medical bills and insurance claims suited him just fine.

“You’re certain nothing’s cracked or broken?” DB pressed. “’Cos he looks all kinds of messed up from here.”

“I did advise him to go and get his jaw and cheek checked to make sure nothing was going on underneath, but he said it was okay.”

Tossing her a glare, Alejandro waited for the inevitable.

“In that case, seeing as how the advice has been to seek further medical care, you’re headed to the ER,” DB told him. “It pays to be careful with stuff like that, so that’s what you’re going to do.”

“I can take him,” she offered. “I just need to be back by four to pick up Shanti from daycare.”

“No, Logan will take him while Carter fills out the paperwork for the case,” DB decided. “Now, everyone else, get back to work and use this as your lesson for the day.”

Lifting himself gingerly out of the chair, Alejandro did some sort of penguin waddle toward me. “Just so you know, I don’t put out on the first date.”

Spotting him as he waddle-walked toward the cruiser, I pointed out, “You know, they have a lot of lube in hospitals. If you say pretty things to me, I’ll put out on the first date.”

A laugh huffed out of him as we reached the vehicle, making him groan. “Don’t make me laugh, fucker. I think a rib’s skewering my kidney.”

Helping him in, I jogged around to the driver’s side and got in. As we drove toward the hospital, I thought about the incident and was still confused.

“How the hell did the woman get the jump on you and beat the shit out of you with a broken arm?”

“If she’s still at the hospital, you’ll see.”

His tone was ominous, and his words ended up being the bringers of psycho juju.

“I’ll cut your balls off with my tongue,” the woman responsible, who was still being treated, screeched. “I’ll wear your guts for a belt. Let me outta here.”

Holding the new ice pack to his face, Alejandro murmured, “Now do you see?”

I kind of did but I was curious, so I walked down the hallway to where she was and looked around the corner. The woman looked to be of average height and average weight, but she was thrashing around so hard that she was close to tipping the bed over. A bed that she was cuffed to.

“I can’t believe she bit through the restraints,” one of the doctors said as he moved to join me in the doorway. “We used the standard ones on her, and when we came in, she’d managed to bite through one of them and was trying to get the other one undone with her free hand.”

Using DB’s words of wisdom, I repeated, “Meth’ll do that to you.”

Pointing at a file in a holder on the wall outside of her room, he whispered, “Her blood work came back, and she’s on more than that. It’s a miracle she’s still alive with the amount of things she’s popping.”

“Can you give her something to get rid of it?”

“There was a distribution problem with our main supplier, and we’re low on the medications we get from them—including Naloxone. The directors have told us we’re only to use it on overdose cases,” he relayed, chewing nervously on his lower lip. “It also doesn’t work on what she’s got most of in her system, because it’s mainly for drugs with opioids in them.”

“What about sedating her?”

“Let me go discuss it with another doctor to make sure what I give her doesn’t mess her up,” he sighed. “Whatever we use will have to be admitted intramuscularly, though, because she tore out her IV a while ago, and I doubt we’re going to be able to get a new one into her. I’ve got two medications in mind that, if admitted at the same time, will sedate her slightly faster than if I just gave her one of them.” Nodding, I leaned back so he could get her file from the wall. “It won’t be immediate, but at least it’ll do something.”

Then, hurrying down the hall, he disappeared, leaving me to watch the woman who was now panting and glaring at me.

I swear, if her head started spinning, I wouldn’t be surprised. She looked as possessed as she’d been acting.

“You’re ripping your wrists up,” I advised her, keeping my distance but taking a step closer to her. “And the doctors want to fix your broken arm. Doesn’t that hurt?”