Free RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) by James Somers Page B

you, but you were completely gone.”
    I realize he isn’t upside down. The man is pushing me from the head of the stretcher. I squint my eyes and open them again, pushing sleep away.
    “Where are we going?” I ask.
    “I’m taking you to have that arm x-rayed,” he explains.
    “And you are?”
    “Hu,” he replies.
    “ Uhm, you?”
    The man laugh s. “No, Hu is my name. Hu Takashi.”
    “Oh,” I sa y. “Are you a nurse, Hu?” I assume he must not be a physician. If Hu was a doctor, he would introduce himself as Doctor this or that. Since he isn’t Dr. Takashi, then he must be some other kind of healthcare provider.
    “Actually, I’m a med student,” Hu explain s. “Just working here to pay the bills until I graduate and do my residency.”
    “Oh,” I reply. This, at least, makes sense. I can tell, though, that Hu wants to introduce himself as Dr. Takashi. He just isn’t allowed to do so.
    We ma ke our way into an elevator and then ascend two floors before disembarking. He steers me down another corridor until we come to the x-ray department. An x-ray tech meets us inside the department and takes my chart, scanning the notes inside.
    “All right,” he sa ys. “Let’s get a shot of that arm, young man.”
    The x-ray tech is middle-aged, quite a bit older than Hu Takashi. His name tag simply reads John H and gives an abbreviation of his title. John and Hu maneuver my stretcher alongside a special table in the middle of the room. They lower the rail on the left side and put the beds together.
    “Can you scoot over here?” John ask s.
    I nod and cradle my arm closer , as I scoot over from the stretcher to the x-ray exam table.
    “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to move your arm a bit,” John warns. “I’ll be very careful.”
    He remov es the sling, unfastening it and slipping it out from under my arm first. Then he gingerly maneuvers my arm while I do my best not to wince and tear up at the pain. It takes a minute to get it there, but eventually he has it laid out enough to take the x-ray. I am sweating by this point and dreading having to move it again to put it back into the sling.
    A beep later , the image is taken and displayed onto a nearby monitor.
    “Yep,” John sa ys, “just like I thought. A clean break of the ulna and radius.”
    They help m e get the sling back on, which is just as terrible as anticipated. Then Hu wheels me down the hall again.
    “Are we going back to the emergency room?” I ask.
    “No, to the pre-op unit,” Hu replies. “We’re going to get you on the schedule and get that arm fixed.”
    “What will they do?”
    “I’m not sure,” Hu says. “Maybe a pin from your wrist back through the bone to line it up right. Then they’ll put a cast on it. Wish I could be in there.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m hoping to do orthopedics for my residency,” he explains. “They say it’s a lot like shop class.”
    “That’s okay . You don’t have to explain,” I manage, feeling a little queasy at the thought of my arm going through what I’ve seen in a real shop class.
    Hu laugh s. “Sorry, about that. No problem.”
    We c ome into another room, this one with many stretchers parked in curtained stalls. There is a lot of equipment around, monitors showing vital signs and stuff. Hu parks me in an empty stall and is joined by a nurse in brightly colored scrubs.
    “Hi, Jonathan,” the nurse sa ys. “My name is Janice. I’m going to be taking care of you and getting you ready for surgery. Do you know what Dr. Schultz is going to do for you today?”
    “Fix my broken arm?” I guess.
    Janice nods, marking something on my chart.
    “Now, your foster parents have already signed the consent with Dr. Schultz,” she explain s.
    “Where are they?” I ask. Naturally, I expected they would come to see me before anything like this is done.
    Janice lean s closer. “I think the police officers wanted to speak to them in one of the consultation rooms. Don’t worry. They