Shelbyville

Chapter 13

I loved working with Evie. She seemed to have a knack for knowing when I needed her to just appear, and she did just that. Before Stacey could dredge into the story, she was upon us in the room. She seemed to know that something was amiss, but I couldn't ignore the accusatory look in her eyes either. I would say that I was surprised that it was her and not one of the security guards that had came and disrupted me and my patient, but I wasn't. Based upon their sloppy appearance and sluggish demeanor, though they were both nice, neither seemed highly motivated to go above and beyond the call of duty.

"Travis is complaining that he hasn't received his meds yet," she informed me. Her chocolate brown eyes bore into me from my perch on Stacey's bed.

"Great, Stacey just finished taking his pills, here I come," I said jumping at the chance to evade Stacey and whatever harm he had planned in his twisted mind. Evie held the door for me and waited while I retreated out of his room. I was grateful that Stacey didn't choose this moment to exert his force over us, and let us escape unscathed.

Evie sighed as soon as the door was shut behind us and we were in the hallway. It was one of those sighs that usually preceded a lecture. I cringed internally. I was not making the best impressions these days.

"You have to be careful with this one," she warned as we put distance between his room and us. "He's dangerous, and why were you sitting on his bed?" She asked. Reflecting on the situation, it looked compromising, it looked novice, a rookie's mistake no doubt.

"He's intimidating," I blurted out dumbly. I sounded new, I sounded in over my head, stupid.

"Of course, he is, they all are!" Evie's voice raised slightly and I saw Monica jerk her head over from jotting down Kenny's activity on her clipboard. "Someone like Stacey, you give an inch he takes a mile," she sighed again, it was tired and defeated. "You don't want anyone like him gaining any sort of advantage over you, he's manipulative, he's...." another sigh. "Going to kill someone here or be killed one of these days." The finality of her statement was ominous.

"A bit extreme," I mumbled not sure what else to say.

"Better to be cautious then careless," she warned. She took her seat at the nurse station presumably to begin documenting all of her assessments of her patients. I completed giving all of my patients their medications and asked the appropriate questions to satisfy my nightly charting. Aside from the sleezy encounter with Stacey at the beginning of the night, everything seemed to be going smoothly, so far.

I finished my paperwork around 2 a.m. It normally didn't take me that long, but I found myself easily distracted tonight. Plus, everyone else was sleeping and there would be little else to keep myself occupied the rest of the shift. Evie swiveled to face me in her chair. It would seem she had been waiting for me to finish my charting.

"You've caused quite a stir here," she stated. It wasn't an informative statement, I knew she was dying for me to demand an explanation by the way she dangled the statement over me. I didn't appreciate gossip, but I needed to make an ally somewhere, especially with an enemy as vicious at the potentially lethal Carrie.

"I have?" I responded casually.

"Oh yes, Carrie?" She began laying the bait of my co-workers name in front of me, waiting for me to become ensnared in the trap.

"Yes?" I nodded acknowledging that I knew to whom she was referring.
"Yea, she does not like you!" I was not surprised; everyone was probably aware of it.

"Does she like anyone?" I asked. The comment seemed harsh, I needed to find a more neutral tone, a way to soften the blow. "Besides Stacey?" Good job Katie, you sound bitchy and confrontational. Or worse, what if it was classified information? What if that was information no one but Carrie, management, and Kyle knew about? What if you just threw the closest person you had to a friend under the bus? I scrambled in my brain to find a way to justify why I had made such a contemptuous statement, but Evie didn't seem to pick up the sharp tone of my words. She laughed it was good natured and friendly.