Edge of Chaos

by Brynn O'Connor

  When she finally opens her eyes again the world has stopped spinning. As Kayla lays there she takes stock of her body and waits for the pain to hit. Amazingly, even though she feels like she’s just spent the last hour tumbling round and round in a dryer nothing appears to be broken. She aches from head to toe but she seems to be otherwise unhurt.

  “You’re alive!” Luke exclaims a few feet from her. Slowly he gets to his feet and comes over to check her out.

  “Yeah, I’m alive; just barely.” Kayla replies.

  “You got him Kayla. You just saved our lives.”

  “I seem to have lost my gun,” she replies looking around.

  “It’s okay we’ll get you another one. How do you feel?” He asks, looking straight into her eyes.

  “Fine I guess. I mean I feel like I just fell off of a speeding motorcycle…hey wait, I just did,” she jokes. Then seeing his very serious expression she catches herself. “Oh…you’re not talking about me physically are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “So you mean, how do I feel after…after…” She finds it impossible to finish.

  In all the excitement and all the other feelings that go along with fighting for her life, she has forgotten she just violated her sacred oath. Do no harm. True she’s not in the hospital ER but that doesn’t make her feel any better. She just shot and apparently killed another human being.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Aftermath

  Kayla and Luke have to wait two hours before some of Luke’s buddies are able to pick them up. For protection she and Luke ditch their helmets and walk a half mile from the scene of the crashed bikes, then turn down a side road and hike another half of a mile before coming to a stop. Hopefully no one will find them or connect them with the carnage they left behind. Fortunately they were able to recover Kayla’s Glock as well as Luke’s Mossberg. To slow down anyone investigating the accident Luke removes the license plate from his bike. He’s glad he had the foresight to remove any serial numbers that could connect the bike to him; he should be in the clear. Too bad he has to ditch a $15,000 bike in the process.

  Kayla sits in a truck between Luke and his buddy Seth for the ride to the hospital where she is scheduled to come on shift in a couple hours or so. She is only vaguely aware of Luke’s efforts to draw her into a conversation. She knows she has to snap out of this before she is due at the hospital or someone is going to know something is very wrong. On top of the mental anguish going on through her mind, her right arm is really beginning to cause some serious pain. It hurt before, but as her adrenaline leaves her body so does the endorphins that were shielding her from a majority of the pain. Now that she is safe and the danger has completely passed the full effect of the grazing bullet is making it really difficult to keep from crying out. Who would have thought a grazing wound could be so damn painful?

  Luke must sense something is wrong. He keeps shooting her glances out of the corner of his eyes as he and Seth talk quietly amongst themselves. Kayla grits her teeth and tries to think about something else but that last image of the dead guy, when she shot him the second time causing him to fall from his ride; that’s the mental picture that has burned itself into her consciousness. She squeezes her eyes tighter in an effort to somehow block that image from her mind but it’s just not working. How, she wonders for the thousandth time can Luke shoot so many people and not be tortured by their dead faces staring back at him. And that’s it, she keeps seeing the dead guy’s face which is really weird because she could only see his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

  Gradually at first, and now at a much faster rate, anger begins to build. How can Luke put the woman he supposedly loves in a position where she has to violate her do no harm oath? Shouldn’t he be making sure she is protected from the enemy as well as herself? For the millionth time she wishes she had a best friend to bounce things off of. Long ago she began isolating herself from others and that is what has made breaking away from Dillon so damn difficult. No one has been there to kick her ass and make her see the error of her ways. Really the only person she has actually spent any quality time talking to is Doctor Collins from her work. They can actually carry on a conversation that not one time from start to finish is littered with emergency room lingo or doctor- speak.

  The more time passes the more the anger builds until she is beginning to feel like some pressure cooker that’s unable to vent even a little. She’s afraid she’s going to blow her lid off at the wrong time and at the wrong person.

  “Kayla,” Luke tries to draw her back into the land of the living; a land where the love of his life didn’t just compromise her very soul by shooting dead another man. “Kayla we’re almost here. You’re going to have to shrug it off so—"

  “Shrug it off? Is that the best you can do? I didn’t just cut off another driver in the parking lot of K-Mart Luke. I shot another person dead. Somewhere out there is a mother who just lost her baby. I did that. Me! So can you tell me how I am supposed to just shrug that off?”

  Luke shakes his head. He really can’t answer that one and it was so long ago that he killed his first man he’s not even sure what it felt like. Besides, he was a different person than she is when he killed his first victim. He was a hardened soldier with his humanity safely buried far beneath the surface. It’s no wonder she’s having this kind of response. He has heard about and read about people who react similarly and he is pretty confident that she’ll make the adjustment and eventually she’ll be just fine.

  They ride in silence right up until he is about to drop her off at the hospital.

  “You’ll be safe here Kayla. I’ll have the guys checking on you the entire shift and I’ll be around as well as soon as I can break away from the club meeting. Don’t worry you’ll be perfectly safe from my father and his men while you’re here.”

  “Can you also protect me from you… or myself?” She replies bitterly. And when he doesn’t answer her, “I thought so.”

  That’s as far as they get before they pull up to the ER landing. Without another word Luke hops out and Kayla climbs out and walks into the emergency department without looking back. It is going to be a very long day for her; a very long one indeed.

  Ten hours later…

  Kayla collapses in an empty chair by the triage desk. She closes her eyes for one delicious moment and savours the break in action. After a few minutes Doctor Collins joins her. For him to be taking a break is highly unusual. He takes the seat next to her, swivels around and studies her with a practiced eye.

  “So what’s going on Kayla? You’re not yourself today,” he observes.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come one Kayla, we’ve worked side by side for over ten years. I think I know when something’s troubling you."

  She looks up at her favourite ER doctor. He is actually extremely handsome. He is tall, about six feet…three or so and very obviously spends a significant amount of his downtime taking care of himself. He looks to be in his late thirties but she’s pretty sure he is much closer to forty-five than thirty-five. He is the Michael Jordan of the ER. Jordan had the ability to dominate others with his mind alone before he even took a single shot. And that’s how Doctor Collins maintains control in the one of the most chaotic work environments there is. He can see when things are starting to spin out of control and his presence in the department is like a very powerful analgesic. People just calm down. But he also brings out the best in everyone too. They know how demanding he can be, and he’s like a hawk. His eyes don’t miss a thing and when you don’t make the best choice or do the procedure exactly right he gives you this look, kind of like your parents used to do. Kayla remembers as a kid when she screwed up and her parents would just sit down and tell her how very disappointed they were in her. She always hated that. Like most kids they’d rather their parents jump up and down and scream a little than tell them they have failed to live up to their potential and have truly disappointed them. Doctor Collins is the same way. You’d much r
ather have him go off and just start berating you than his silent talk. Nobody wants to disappoint Doctor Collins especially if you have aspirations of becoming a doctor; like so many of Kayla’s co-workers.

  “You’re not yourself Kayla,” Doctor Collins remarks as they sit and unwind.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Since when do you feel the need to constantly look over your shoulder? You are probably the most decisive Physician’s Assistant I have ever worked with. You never second guess yourself and your gut instincts are always spot on; except for today. What’s going on?”

  When Kayla isn’t immediately forthcoming he suggests they walk out onto the ER landing and stretch their legs. The weather is nice, the air is fresh, it’s a perfect time and place to tell the doctor about why she isn’t herself today, but she just can’t. They chit chat a bit about trivial matters and Kayla does start to feel better when the sound of an approaching motorcycle threatens to put her in a tail spin. She jerks around and looks in the direction of the approaching bike; a move not lost on Doctor Collins. When Kayla hears a second bike approaching from the opposite direction she just about bolts right then and there for safety of the ER doors. She just barely manages to clamp a tight lid on her rising panic, but no telling how long she’s going to be able to keep it bottled up. As Kayla looks from side to side for the approaching bikes she automatically reaches behind her back where a Glock has sat every waking minute for the past two weeks, but today it’s not there. The lid on her panic pops its first screw.

  “Kayla?” Doctor Collins notes the change that has come over her.

  She looks around at her surroundings. She is about ten yards from the emergency department doors, but only ten feet from the nearest vehicle she could crawl under if need be. She kicks herself mentally. She should have been paying attention to her surroundings when she first walked out of the hospital so she could make sure she was near an escape route or door or something; just like she had been trained.

  With a loud roar the first chopper comes up over the rise and into the hospital’s emergency parking lot. In about five seconds it’ll be on the landing itself and right in front of the glass doors to the emergency department itself. She stands frozen in place staring at the approaching biker. The whole world has suddenly faded away and the only thing she can hear or see is the bearded man on the chopper in front of her. While she is frozen in time he doesn’t seem to be at all. She watches in growing alarm as he reaches inside his leather motorcycle jacket.

  “Kayla! Kayla what’s wrong?” Someone from very far away is calling out to her. Who it is she can’t be certain as the voice is just too faint.

  “Kayla what are you doing?” Calls out the voice; just a little louder this time.

  The world for Kayla goes dark as her knees buckle and she slumps to the pavement unconscious.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Another voice inquires.

  Fifteen Minutes Later…

  “It looks like she’s coming around.” A familiar female voice says.

  “Kayla…Kayla are you awake?” A man asks.

  Kayla begins to stir, and then she opens her eyes and looks around. She is in one of the exam rooms, lying on a table, and Doctor Collins and one of the ER nurses are standing over her looking at her with worried expressions.

  “How do you feel?” Doctor Collins asks.

  “How… how’d I get in here?” Kayla asks, thoroughly confused.

  “When you fainted outside we carried you in.” Doctor Collins replies. He turns to the nurse, “could you give us a minute Joan?”

  “Sure.” Joan turns to leave, giving Kayla and Doctor Collins some privacy.

  “Spill it Kayla!” Doctor Collins commands. He smiles to take the edge off his voice. “I know you’re dealing with some crap right now, but you’re going to have to open up here or I can’t justify having you here at work today. We can’t have you fainting in the middle of an emergency.”

  Kayla starts to sit up. “It won’t happen again doctor.”

  “That’s because you’re not going back out there until you start explaining why a motorcycle causes you to go into a panic then faint.”

  Kayla thinks for a minute. This is a sticky situation and she’d better be careful how she frames her words here or she just may be out of a job. Slowly she sits up. Time to play up the, I’m a delicate flower, angle and milk it for all it’s worth.

  “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Doctor Collins pushes. “Those guys on those choppers…they’re looking for you, is that it?”

  She nods miserably.

  “Did you witness a crime involving them Kayla?”

  She nods again.

  “I’m going to assume you have been in touch with the police regarding this matter and ask you—"

  “They wanted me to go into the Witness Protection at first, but I just can’t walk away from my life here.”

  “Kayla what happened to you?” Doctor Collins presses gently. He takes her hand in his. “It’s okay, you can tell me anything.”

  She’s not sure how it happened, or what triggered it, but something tripped a switch inside of her and it all came spilling out. Maybe it was the soft touch of his manicured hand on hers, or just the pleasant timber of his voice that did it, but all at once she just lets it out. She starts from that awful day huddled behind the bar while rival bikers shoot it out. She tells about crawling across a dead man’s body trying to get out of the way of the bullets and flying glass. She recalls meeting Luke for the first time and how he gave her ex a beat down in the parking lot later that day. She tells Doctor Collins about her relationship with Dillon and the times he’s tracked her down and assaulted her. She goes on about her relationship with Luke and then the day she was shot and he left her for dead.

  The entire time Doctor Collins just listens quietly, not wanting to break the ‘spell’.

  Kayla tells of her kidnapping and torture at the hands of Luke’s father and how Luke came to her rescue. She tells about her training; learning how to shoot a gun, fight with a knife, and kill a man with your bare hands. Kayla tells Doctor Collins what is was like for her stepping into Luke’s world of violence. Finally she gets to the crux of the whole matter and what is really bothering her. In halting words mixed in with copious amounts of tears, she recalls the attack earlier and how she had to shoot the pursuing biker. She tells him about their harrowing out of control ride on the back of Luke’s wildly gyrating motorcycle and of shooting the biker just before they crashed.

  She remembers seeing his body react to the impact of her bullets and his bike disintegrating as he goes down at 100 miles per hour. And finally Kayla tells Doctor Collins how it was to shoot a man and how she feels about breaking her do no harm oath. She tells him how foreign it feels being here saving lives the same day she is out there taking lives. None of it makes sense anymore. Her whole life she realizes has been turned upside down because of one man. Kayla’s not sure how much more chaos she can take. Before this little ‘chat’ with the good doctor it really never registered just how crazy things have gotten, she has been so immersed in everything.

  Doctor Collins is silent for a long time after Kayla finishes talking, and it makes her wonder if she misjudged him. Maybe she should have filtered herself today and not told everything… or at least not every detail. Even as she tells it, it all sounds too unreal. It all sounds like some action movie with that Jason Statham guy and not the real life of Kayla Underwood. It doesn’t even occur to her until now that he may not believe a word of what she has just said. Sometimes she’s not even sure she believes it either. She’s just about to get up and leave when he starts talking.

  “Kayla, I’m not sure what possessed you to take up with a man like Luke, but he’s going to get you killed; or locked up in the Looney bin, either one. I mean, listen to yourself. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I wouldn’t believe half of what you just told me. But I do know you very well. Plus I just saw you faint at the sound of a
Harley Davidson motorcycle so…yeah I believe every word and I suspect you may still be holding some back but that’s okay too. If Luke really loves you, as you seem to believe, why would he put you in a position to need two weeks of training to kill people? You’re not a soldier headed off to some foreign war, you’re practically a doctor trained to heal people. Can you not see how very backward this is? And what does it say about him that his own father has you kidnapped and tortured for three days. Would it be a giant leap for Luke to go from where he is now to his father?”

  Kayla catches her breath. Good thing she omitted a few details about Luke. For some reason she completely left out the bit about his tattoos commemorating all his kills or that he used to be the US government’s top assassin and that he seems to have liked it. The good Harvard educated Doctor Collins would have been horrified.

  “How can a man who loves you keep putting you in… never mind. You don’t fit into his world no matter how you try to fit your square into his circle. He’ll never fit into yours either. Have you not figured that out?”

  Kayla nods, not trusting herself to speak. He makes sense. She cannot refute what he just said and it scares her. It’s almost as if she has been wandering around blind ever since meeting Luke and finally someone has just taken the hood off her head and what she sees is very disturbing.

  “Look, I realize my shift is not near over,” Kayla begins. “I think it would be a good idea if I left early to process some things. June is floating and she can cover for me here. She’s had a lot of ER experience.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Doctor Collins replies. “I think you’re right. You need to get your head in the game before you come back here or someone is going to suffer your lack of attention.”