Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

from me.”
    “Pawned. You can get them back next paycheck. Nurses make a ton.”
    “Jake—” I pointed at my door with my left arm. My hand was shaking, either from disuse or anger.
    “I’m going, I’m going. Let me get my things.” He turned and ran down the hallway.
    “At least you still have things!” I shouted at him.
    “I left you the couch!” he shouted back.
    “Only because you couldn’t carry it yourself!”
    He returned with a small backpack and my keys on a chain. “Your cat’s almost out of food. Your neighbor’s kid is creepy. And you have shitty taste in music.”
    I snatched my keys from him. “Shut up.”
    “No one listens to Merle Haggard anymore.”
    “Get out, Jake.”
    He mimed a salute in midair. “See you around, Sissy.”
    I watched him walk out my door, and then followed to watch him leave from my doorway, his backpack on his back.
    “Jake—Christmas?” I called after him.
    “Yeah.” He waved a hand without turning around.
    It was cold out this morning, tonight’d be freezing for sure. I hoped he made it to the shelter in time. I watched him till he turned at the end of my apartment complex’s parking lot, my healing hand throbbing in the cold.
    *   *   *
     
    First order of business was me and a long shower. I hadn’t let anyone give me a bed bath during my internment—it was humiliating enough to be in Y4 for my recuperation, bed baths from coworkers would have made it intolerable. Where were easily intimidated nursing school students when you needed them?
    After that I changed the sheets on my bed and crawled into it. A shower, clean sheets, and a bed without side rails? This was high cotton. I fell asleep without a second thought.
    When I woke it was dark. Just before nine P.M. with winter outside making it seem later, between the early sunsets and the omnipresent clouds. I could still remember the nearly full moon from the emergency drop-off zone—I might not see another until April or May. I lay back in my dark room, pulled the sheets high, and tried not to think about anything.
    It was hard. For the first time in a long while, I felt rested. I’d kept night shift hours in the hospital, the company of my own coworkers far preferable to those on other shifts. It’d been easier to distract myself with people to talk to and TV to watch, under the comforting dullness that Percocet pulled up every four hours. Here at home, without drugs or distractions, it was hard to forget that I’d done at least three stupid and potentially horrible things: I’d accidentally killed a patient, I’d intentionally killed a vampire, and I might have set a monster loose on the world. Minnie emerged from wherever she’d been hiding, to stroke her head along my outstretched hand.
    “I’m glad he listened to me about that at least, Minnie.” I knuckled the space between her ears. There was no way I was going to get any more sleep, not tonight.
    I petted Minnie till she couldn’t stand it any longer and she squirmed out of reach. Then I sat up in bed and stared into my open closet, my shoes and clothing illuminated by the parking lot’s lamplight filtering in through my blinds. “I’m alive, I’m awake, and I’m not on call,” I announced to myself. “I should go out.”

 
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
    Going out means different things to different people. For some, they like to go to a movie or dinner alone; for others, they go out to get lit and laid. For me, it meant dancing, with a side of laid, should a worthwhile opportunity present itself.
    The ten pounds of weight night shift had put on me hadn’t sized me out of my favorite skirt just yet. I pulled it on, then found a matching shirt that clung in all the right places. My hair was wavy, shoulder length, generically brown. My eyes were a complimentable blue, and I had a good smile. I knew when I went out that I wasn’t the prettiest girl in the club—but I also knew I could hold my own in someplace with a few shadows