Sitting there thinking about her life, and her less than ideal upbringing with not having a father and having a mother who worked three jobs to keep them afloat meant Emily spent most of her time alone. Usually at the local library, which is where she learned of her love for graphic design. In a way, it was a blessing because she was able to learn all she could about designing websites and creating flyers for local mom and pop shops in her small town of Olds, Nebraska. Population less than she could count on her hands, she thought sardonically. It was the smallest place she had ever been, having only one of everything: grocery store, library, gas station, liquor store, motel, and diner. There were a few fledgling businesses that would pop up here and there, but they didn’t last long. When she was sixteen, her mom got a great job with a law firm in Lincoln, the state’s capital.
In a way her life was good. It allowed Emily to graduate high school early since she pretty much only did school work in her spare time, when she wasn’t making new designs. But she was also able to take a few online courses to get her degree, and at eighteen, she was officially done with school. Her mom was happy at the law firm and Emily was happy with her designs.
Until that fateful day. Everything was ruined then.
Her life. Her chance at finding her own happily ever after.
It was all gone.
Having not seen her mom in the nearly two years she had been gone, Emily tried to keep tabs on her through the website the firm had that her mom worked at. She at least knew that her mom was now a Legal Secretary. It made her happy to know that even though she wasn’t there, her mom was doing well.
Pulled from her thoughts when Dane shut the truck off, she saw that they were at the police station. Getting out and looking around Emily blurted out, “Oh, I don’t fucking think so.” before trying to make a run for it.
PUSHED
A. F. Crowell
BOOK ONE IN THE TORN SERIES
www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.
PUSHED
Copyright ? 2015 A.F. Crowell
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ISBN 978-1-942886-70-9
A.F. Crowell Author
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Chapter One: Leila
The ER was relatively quiet for a Friday at 4:45 a.m., especially since it had been raining for the better part of the humid summer night. I was a four-year veteran of the Shock Trauma Center at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Over the years I have seen it all, so nothing surprised or rattled me anymore.
Well, nothing until this Friday morning.
I was changing my scrub top for the first time that shift when a call came in from paramedics in route. I caught only the last few words, “GSW to the chest with massive blood loss, five minutes out.”
Adrenaline started to pump through my veins, as it did every time they had a ballistics trauma in route. In the back of my mind, I cursed myself for being excited at someone else’s horrible misfortune. But this is my job and I’m damn good at it. My best friend, partner in crime and fellow trauma RN, Barb Kelly, walked up to me as I was entering the locker room.
“Hey Lei, did you hear there is a GSW in route?” she asked with a little too much enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I was just gonna change really quick, it’s still five minutes out. My last case was this huge biker with a superficial laceration and damn if he wasn’t a big baby. The guy jumped at the sight of the lidocaine and knocked over the Betadine, which of course spilled all over me.” Pulling the wet scrub top over my head, I tossed it in my locker.
Barb glanced over her shoulder, heading to the bathroom. “See ya in there. Oh hey, did they announce which trauma room they are putting him in?”
Talking through fabric as I pulled on a clean ceil blue scrub top, I told her, “Nah, I wasn’t really paying too much attention. All I heard was GSW and I knew I had to change quickly so I could be the first one in there and beat you. I haven’t had my adrenaline fix tonight. And before you ask, no, the big biker baby does not count.” I stuck my tongue out at her with a giggle.
Barb chuckled and rolled her eyes as she closed the door to the bathroom. “Well, let me know which room. There is enough to go around.”
I shook my head and started out the locker room door back to the pit to see where the charge nurse had assigned the incoming trauma. On the way down the hall, the call came overhead, “Incoming GSW two minutes out trauma three.”