Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander Read Free Book Online Page B

me.
    “Shoplifting. DUI. Something dumb,” she guessed.
    “No!” I protested. “I just hated my last job is all. I need to work here.”
    “I don’t want to waste time training you if you’re just going to leave.”
    That was a reasonable enough fear. I crossed my heart in a Catholic fashion. “I promise not to.”
    “Oh, well, now that you’ve crossed, I believe you for sure,” she said, her voice dripping with irony. “Do you even have scrubs to wear?”
    “Yes—I just—” It hadn’t occurred to me to bring them. I wasn’t used to wearing scrubs during the day. “I should have brought some in. I’ll bring them in tomorrow.”
    “If I did not see you jump in to help that gangbanger yesterday—” She ran a hand through her short hair. “ Tecatos are heroin addicts,” she said, and watched to see if I’d flinch. “You’re not going to get grossed out, are you?”
    “No. I’m good with addicts, Spanish or not.” At least here I’d get paid to deal with them, unlike all the times I’d tried to help out my brother. “Who else will I see? What else will I do?”
    “Didn’t you ask any questions?”
    “I was busy not getting hired—until I got hired.” I gave her a weak smile and she sighed again.
    “Well.” Her hands found her hips. “You’ll be double-checking the work the medical assistants do—there’s three of us. I’ve been here the longest, and I’m also a phlebotomist,” she said, like I ought not to forget those facts. “Other than that, there’s wound care, people with diabetes, missing toes, some ostomy checks, paperwork, more paperwork, oh, and when shit hits the fan, you’ll be doing triage.”
    “How often does that happen?”
    “Every few months. When the gangs go to war. The ambulances come for the dead guys, and we get the live ones.”
    “When’s the last time that happened?”
    Her lips thinned into a line. “We’re due. It’s the heat outside or something. Makes people angry and dumb.”
    “Does Dr. Tovar report things?” I didn’t want to straight-out ask about the bullet wound from yesterday.
    Her face said she got my meaning, even as she chose not to answer me. “Depends on the thing.”
    I gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Okay.” I wasn’t a stickler for the rules, especially when I didn’t know what they were.
    She handed over a set of keys. “Anything that can be stolen is locked down, and everything can be stolen.” I could see her mentally dismissing any prior hospital experience I had. “I’m not sure where you worked at before. Most people are nice, and even the bad ones need our help. But there’s a reason we’re separated from the outside world with bulletproof plastic.”
    *   *   *
    I was quiet while she gave me the rest of the tour. There were three small rooms that they saw people in, in addition to Dr. Tovar’s private office, and a slightly larger office in the center of the building with an attached break room. Then she put me into the first patient room and said, “Wait here.”
    I waited. I tried keys until I found the one that unlocked the cabinets, so I could figure out what was where. I was shoving boxes of gauze aside when the doors opened behind me and a man walked in.
    “He’s got a fever. His name is Frank,” Catrina called from the hall behind him.
    I knew hazing when I saw it—or smelled it. I stepped aside, and gestured for him to sit down on the table. He was Caucasian, but he’d been in a lot of sun. He stumbled over to the table, leaned against it for a bit like he might puke or fall to the floor, before remembering to turn around and sit down.
    He had an odor like stale beer and pee and whatever else you smell like when you never take a bath and you’ve worn the same pants for a month.
    “Hello, Frank. How can I help you?”
    He looked me up and down—even his gaze was disgusting. Between my nurse radar and a lifetime of being female, I knew then that the next phrase out of his mouth was going