Passionate Rivals

by Radclyffe

  “It went great, though.”

  Syd let out a long breath. “I guess. I keep thinking I missed something.”

  “I can’t think what it would be.”

  “Neither can I.” Syd sighed. “I’m going to find an on-call room and crash here tonight. Kos wants an EEG first thing in the morning.”

  Emmett nodded. “I might as well stay too. There ought to be a room free somewhere. You ready?”

  “All right.” Syd tried very hard not to think about sharing a room with Emmett.

  * * *

  Waking up underneath Emmett was weird and uncomfortable, as if she was surrounded by quicksand with no clear path out. One step wrong and she might sink. Her brain was a bit fuzzy, but she was aware enough to know the disquiet was coming from her and not anything Emmett had done. Other than to be Emmett. Going to sleep with her in the same room had been just as strange and probably would’ve made her every bit as uncomfortable if she hadn’t been so exhausted a few hours earlier. But she’d stumbled to the bottom bunk, curled up on her side after kicking off her shoes, and mumbled good night. She’d slept in her scrubs, not for the first time in her life. Emmett had clambered up above her, muttered something similar, and gone still. As tired as she was, Syd had lain awake for a few seconds, listening. She’d heard nothing from Emmett. Not a snore. Not even a sigh. No movement at all. She must’ve fallen dead asleep as soon as she got horizontal.

  After that Syd didn’t remember anything at all until opening her eyes a few seconds ago. She hadn’t dreamed, and mercifully, she hadn’t been paged. She hoped that meant Cindy was stable.

  Carefully, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and felt around with one foot for her shoes. Slipping into her sneaks, she quietly made her way to the door and let herself out into the hall. Four a.m., an hour earlier than she usually started rounds, and a couple of hours before the place would really get busy. She wanted to get the EEG completed before things in the ICU got too hectic.

  Mostly, she wanted to know if Cindy was coming back.

  The lights were still turned down to night level, as if the patients would know or care if it was night or day. Everyone was either intubated or sedated. A few curtains were closed, screening the patients while the nurses changed linens or drew a.m. bloods or a resident performed a procedure. Nighttime in the ICU always felt like a held breath, as if anything might happen at any moment.

  Syd made her way to Cindy’s room opposite the nurses’ station. Her roto-bed, specially designed for spinal injury patients, was easier to handle in a larger space—hence the solo room.

  “Good morning,” she said to the nurse, a different nurse than the one who’d called her initially.

  If he was surprised to see her so early, he didn’t show it.

  “Morning. Are you the neuro resident?”

  She wasn’t exactly, but Kos had left her to take care of Cindy. “Yes. Syd Stevens.”

  “Roger Debakey.”

  “How’s she doing, Roger?”

  He grimaced. “All her numbers look good. Post-op orders said hold blood for an H and H greater than ten-thirty, so we’re waiting on another unit until we get her morning labs back.”

  “What’s her last count?”

  “Ten-five and thirty-one.”

  “Good. I need to schedule an EEG. Who should I call to get someone up here now?”

  He told her, and after a little bit of cajoling, she convinced the tech to come up right away. She examined Cindy while she waited. Like the night before, Cindy lay motionless, all her various vital functions supported by machines and medications. Her neuro exam was remarkable for the absolute absence of anything. Her pupils were fixed and dilated. Syd couldn’t elicit any peripheral reflexes, although she wouldn’t have expected any in Cindy’s lower body because of her spinal injury. But the arms had reflexes too, and those were absent. Possibly she was suffering from depressed central nervous function because of the periods of lack of oxygen during the multiple episodes of cardiac arrest, and possibly the dysfunction was temporary. Cindy was young and that helped most of the time. Sometimes, though, immature systems, particularly where nerves were concerned, were even more sensitive to insult.

  Bottom line, Syd just didn’t know, but the EEG would tell her.

  “Hey,” Hank said from the doorway. “What are you doing here so early?”

  Syd looked over her shoulder. “I’ve been here all night. What are you doing here?”

  “Scoring brownie points.”

  Syd laughed softly. “Points tallied.”

  Hank walked over beside her. “What happened? Is this why you came back last night?”

  Nodding, Syd filled him in.

  “Next time, call me,” he said. “I could have helped.”

  “Kind of above and beyond.”

  “I’m a little freaked I’m going to be done in a few weeks, and there’s a million things I don’t know.”

  “We’ll keep you out of trouble.” Syd walked to the nurses’ station to wait for the tech. “I’m going to stay for the EEG. Can you round on everyone?”

  Hank brightened. “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you later.” She knew by now he didn’t need her along, and she appreciated him picking up the slack for her. The EEG tech arrived with a portable machine while she was charting a note on her exam, and she followed him into the room.

  Twenty minutes later, she let herself back into the on-call room. Emmett was gone. The disappointment, a sharp jolt that swiftly came and just as swiftly went, was a surprise. As soon as it registered, she pushed it aside. She was glad Emmett was gone. Hiding out for a few more minutes in the semidark, quiet space—alone—was exactly what she wanted. She sat on the edge of the narrow bed where she’d spent the night and thought about nothing at all. Her body ached from the long hours of standing and the too little sleep. Her brain would’ve hurt if she hadn’t shut it off already. Right now, she was content not to think about anything at all.

  The door opened, and Emmett walked in.

  “Oh, hey,” Emmett said. “I thought you’d taken off. I grabbed a shower and checked the ICU, but they said you’d left.”

  “No,” Syd said flatly. “Still here.”

  Emmett’s hair was damp, doing that curly thing it did when it was wet, and she wore fresh scrubs. She stopped a few feet from Syd and leaned an arm against the top bed, looking down. “What’s going on?”

  Syd jumped up, feeling trapped with Emmett standing over her. “Nothing. I should probably shower too. It’ll wake me up.”

  “What did the EEG show?”

  “There’s no activity.” She heard her own voice, emotionless, robotic. She really was tired.

  “Fuck,” Emmett said under her breath. “No doubt?”

  “We’ll need a confirmatory EEG in twenty-four hours,” Syd said. “I already ordered it. But it’s not going to show anything different.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m going to have the transplant team evaluate her later today. I’m not sure she’ll be a donor candidate because of the arrests, but…” She shook her head. “She was talking when she came in.”

  “Syd,” Emmett said, shifting ever so slightly, forcing Syd to focus on her. “You know you did everything right, right?”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Syd said with a long breath. “Right from the get-go, I worried something else was going on. I just didn’t worry enough.”

  “Hey,” Emmett said sharply. “That’s bull. If you weren’t as good as you are, you would have missed what was going on last night.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Of course I do. It’s always been obvious how good you—”

  “Emmett, don’t. Not right now.”

  “Don’t what?” Emmett said, sounding perplexed.

  “Don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about. You don’t know me, whether I’m good at this or not.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Emmett,�
�� Syd said. “Just leave it alone for once.”

  The look on Emmett’s face, the flash of confusion that always made her look just a little bit young, followed by a flash of hurt, twisted something in Syd’s already battered insides.

  “Oh, Emmett,” she murmured, just before she kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty

  For a second, Emmett stood paralyzed while an avalanche of sensation roared through her, tumbling and turning her until she was breathless and disoriented. Shock blanked her brain. Instinct galvanized her body. The drive, the primal hunger to keep Syd’s mouth exactly where it was hijacked reason and logic. Syd’s hot, insistent, demanding mouth was kissing her as if she was the answer to every damn thing Syd wanted—and that was all that mattered. Emmett didn’t care where she ended up as long as the rush never ended.

  Syd was kissing her. Finally. At last. Again. All else was secondary.

  Emmett wrapped her arms around Syd’s waist and jerked her close, their bodies colliding so hard she gasped, as much as she could gasp without moving her mouth a single millimeter away from Syd’s. Syd’s tongue teased her lips and she opened her mouth. A flash of heat ignited at the glancing touch, turning her insides molten. She slid a hand into Syd’s hair to deepen the kiss and Syd pulled her in, matching hunger with hunger. Emmett gripped the back of Syd’s scrub shirt and pulled it loose, bunching it up until she found the soft, warm skin at the base of Syd’s spine. She stroked her, caressed the sweep of the hollow above her ass, and Syd moaned into her mouth. The sound exploded through Emmett like a gunshot. Her clit ached and her insides clenched. Syd tugged at her lip, her teeth a sharp promise of pleasure, and Emmett tilted her head, inviting Syd to explore, answering every teasing stroke with one of her own. Daring Syd to take what she wanted. Syd’s teeth grazed her again and she groaned.

  Take me flashed through her overloaded consciousness, clear and definite. Take everything.

  “Come on, Syd,” Emmett growled. “Don’t fucking tease me.”

  “Why not,” Syd murmured. She jerked Emmett’s shirt out of her scrubs and scraped her nails up the middle of Emmett’s belly to her chest.

  Syd’s hand closed around her breast, and Emmett stumbled back. Her shoulder hit the post of the bunk, her calves collided with the edge of the bed, and she dropped down, pulling Syd with her.

  On her back now, Syd somehow straddling her hips, their mouths still fused, kisses fast and furious. Somewhere a bell chimed, a reckoning denying retreat. No going back. No matter. She never wanted to go back. She’d only ever wanted the past to be the future. Half sitting, Emmett grabbed the bottom of Syd’s scrub shirt in both hands and pulled it up above Syd’s breasts, pressing her face against the sheer fabric enclosing them. Syd arched into her, and Emmett fanned her hands over Syd’s bare back.

  Syd’s flesh was hot beneath her cheek, her nipple a hard prominence beneath the satiny material. Emmett found a nipple with her mouth, closed around it, and Syd moaned.

  Somewhere the chimes rang again.

  Syd rocked against her, making her clit tense and pound.

  “Take your pants off,” Emmett muttered.

  “Emmett.” Syd gasped, shaking her head as if surfacing from a dream. “God, Emmett. No.”

  “Syd,” Emmett moaned. “Come on.”

  Syd opened her eyes, awareness pummeling her like icy rain. Her phone rang again. She took in the on-call room, her shirt pushed up to her neck, her thighs on either side of Emmett’s hips, Emmett’s hands on her breasts, her mouth—

  She jerked back, grasping Emmett’s wrists. “Emmett. Emmett, stop.”

  “What?” Emmett shuddered, her eyes wide and hazy.

  Syd looked away, afraid of what she might see there. Scrambling to her feet, she yanked her shirt down and tucked it in. “Somebody’s trying to get us.”

  “What?” Emmett repeated, looking around as if she didn’t quite know where she was. Or what she’d done.

  “Check your messages,” Syd said, more sharply than she meant.

  Emmett jerked as if she’d suddenly found herself somewhere she hadn’t expected to be. She sat up and ran her hands through her hair. “Syd. What the fuck?”

  “I don’t know…never mind,” Syd said. “Just…check your page.”

  Emmett grabbed her phone and got to her feet, her shirt still untucked, the strings on her scrub pants untied.

  Syd’s stomach dropped. When had she untied Emmett’s pants? Why had she kissed her? What could she say to her now when she was as lost as Emmett looked?

  “It’s trauma admitting,” Emmett said, looking at her phone.

  “I know.” Syd backed toward the door. “I got it too.”

  “Syd,” Emmett said quickly, as if knowing Syd was about to disappear. A thousand questions flickered in her eyes. “Just now—I mean, what—”

  “Not now, Emmett. We have to go.” She couldn’t give her any answers—she didn’t have any. No answers, no excuses, no idea what she was doing.

  “I know,” Emmett said softly. “Are you okay?”

  She should’ve known Emmett would go there first before anything else. Emmett, who had only ever been honest with her. Emmett, who she’d walked away from along with everything else. Emmett, who didn’t deserve to be caught up in her regrets and remorse.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” Syd said, knowing even as she spoke she was lying to both of them. Somewhere, she must have meant it or she wouldn’t have done it. She just didn’t want that to be true. She had been so much better not looking back, not remembering any of it. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “I sort of guessed.” Emmett laughed, a short hard sound. She hadn’t moved, probably sensing Syd would be gone if she did. “For the record, I’m really glad you did.”

  “We need to get downstairs,” Syd said.

  Emmett nodded. “Right. We do.”

  Syd reached behind her, found the door handle, and turned it. They didn’t have time for any of this now, and she was glad. She stepped out into the hall, Emmett close behind her, and almost collided with Zoey.

  “Busy night?” Zoey asked bitingly, taking in the two of them and the slowly closing on-call room door.

  Emmett just shook her head. “Trauma admitting is looking for us. Got to go.”

  “Us too,” Dani said, arching an inquisitive eyebrow at Syd.

  The overhead system announced a trauma alert, and Syd bolted forward. As long as there was work to focus on, she could pretend the rest of her life wasn’t spinning out of control.

  * * *

  Honor and Quinn were already gowned and gloved in trauma admitting when Emmett, Syd, Dani, and Zoey hurried in. Hank and Morty barreled in a few seconds later.

  Quinn glanced over. “Good, you’re just in time. We’ve got a house fire, three rigs on the way, with two adults and at least two kids.”

  “Wow,” Emmett said. “All one family?”

  “Unknown,” Honor said. “Reports are it’s a single family home, fully involved, but who knows how many occupants there might be or how they’re related.”

  “I hate burn cases,” Zoey muttered too quietly for Honor or Quinn to hear.

  Honor pointed to a couple of second year ER residents. “Lang, Sahir, you take the kids along with peds surgery. Make sure you have solid airways right away.”

  Dani motioned to Zoey. “You take Lang, I’ll go with Sahir.”

  “Right,” Zoey said with obvious reluctance.

  “You good?” Dani asked quietly.

  Zoey flushed, looking surprised. “Yeah, I just hate burns.”

  “Me too,” Dani said, although Syd had never heard her say that before. “Grab me if you need anything.”

  “Okay,” Zoey said, her brows furrowing as if she was trying to process something unexpected. “Uh, thanks.”

  “Emmett,” Honor said, “you and your team handle the adults. Depending on the extent of burns, we’ll either treat here or stabilize and transfer.”

  “Right.”
Emmett handed out gowns. “Hank—you’re with Syd. Morty, with me.”

  Syd gloved up and got ready. She moved to one side, out of Emmett’s line of sight. She wouldn’t be able to pretend nothing had happened, that she’d forgotten about the kiss, if she had to look at her. Once the patients arrived, she’d be fine.

  All three emergency vehicles arrived at once, and the stretchers rolled in one after the other, EMTs and paramedics calling out vital signs, status updates, and reports on emergency treatment rendered in the field. Syd and Emmett and the others descended on the stretchers and fell into step as they trundled in.

  Emmett caught the first adult, running alongside the gurney into trauma bay one. The female patient had extensive upper body second- and third-degree burns with obvious facial and peri-oral swelling. She was intubated and unconscious. Wet gauze covered the burns that weren’t in areas where IV lines had been inserted.

  “She wasn’t breathing when fire rescue brought her down,” the paramedic said. “We got a tube in and started ventilating as quickly as we could. Never lost her pulse but her blood pressure’s been borderline normal. She’s on her second liter of lactated Ringer’s.”

  “Do we have blood gases?” Emmett asked while listening to the patient’s lungs.

  “No,” the medic said.

  “I’ll get one sent,” Brinks, the ER resident, said. He drew blood from the brachial artery and took over the airway management from the paramedic. “Indira? Can you run this down to the lab—tell them we need it stat.”

  “On it,” the ER tech said, taking the syringe with the arterial sample.

  “Her lungs are wet,” Emmett said, slinging her stethoscope around her neck. “And she’s got crackles everywhere. Can you try suctioning the tube?”

  “Sure.” Brinks passed a flexible catheter down the endotracheal tube and connected it to suction. The mucus that returned was filled with gray particles.

  Emmett turned to the medic. “Was this a flash burn? Because she looks like she’s got soot in her lungs—which means she might have burns all the way down. If so, she’s going to need a trach.”