You'll come crawling

Hit 'N' run

You'll Come Crawling

Chapter THREE: Hit 'N' Run

Nadia pulled her car into the staff parking lot of the hospital. The large single story building didn't have all the facilities of a major hospital, but it was the largest in the area and had a helipad for flying out any urgent cases the facilities here couldn't handle. Nadia's shifts at the hospital were sporadic at best, during the holidays she could be put on everyday for a fortnight otherwise she would be lucky to get a shift a week some months. She worked for a temp agency, so some days she could be working in the hospital others she could be doing home calls for assisted living patients. Being a nurse is a pretty weird job for a werewolf, a career choice that was frowned upon by her birth pack. It would be too easy for someone to find out she wasn't human, not really the case as Nadia found out, there was such a critical shortage of nurses in so many countries around the world that it was easy to find hospitals and temp agencies that forgo staff medicals in the hope of having staff to work.

Nadia walked into the hospital, the stench of bleach and antiseptic hitting her almost like a wall, during the course of her shift her senses would dull from being bombarded with too many strong, competing scents but she could never prepare herself for the first time she walked in the door and was sucker punched with an olfactory overload. Nadia flashed her identification card at the nurse on reception and headed into the staff area, after changing into her uniform she checked her roster. Her shift had been extended until midnight, a fun 12 hours on the emergency ward, a shift that would likely be extended again if the people of Albany got up to their usual Friday night shenanigans. Pumping peoples stomachs at one in the morning had never been a career highlight for Nadia.

"Nurse Novak are you looking after me today?" Nadia smiled as doctor Michaels entered the staff room, he dropped down on one of the worn couches with a groan of pleasure.

"Are you working emergency tonight?" Nadia liked doctor Jeremy Michaels, he was a young doctor, fresh out of med school and still doing his residency and he treated Nadia with respect, something she soaked up and thrived on.

"Yep, I've been here since 6am." Nadia grimaced sympathetically, rookie doctors where always given the worst shifts.

"Has it been busy?"

"No more then usual, it's bound to liven up tonight though."

"I'm looking forward to it." Nadia said sarcastically, "I'll see you out there." Jeremy waved her off and she went to find the head nurse.

The head nurse was as bitter as doctor Michaels was optimistic, she had to be in her position, Nadia imagined she gave off the same no nonsense vibe when cleaning up corpses or giving reports on them. Nadia was given a ward to monitor for the first six hours of her shift, then she would move onto the emergency ward and help with the inevitable influx of alcohol poisonings and other alcohol related mishaps. After six hours of checking charts, administering food and pills, and changing catheters Nadia was ready for a break, she checked in with the head nurse and then ducked out for a fifteen minute break.

The staff canteen had mediocre food at best, it came from the same kitchens that made the mediocre food for the patients, Nadia picked up two roast beef sandwiches and sat herself down in the corner of the room. Animal instincts never really left her no matter what form she was in, she scoped out the room and exits while she remade her sandwiches. She opened up one sandwich and removed the lettuce and cheese then added the roast beef from the other sandwich. Really the only thing she wanted to eat was the roast beef but she probably looked strange enough dissecting her sandwiches she didn't want to make things worse. So far things had been pretty quiet at the hospital, hopefully the people of Albany had figured out how to imbibe responsibly. Nadia was halfway through her sandwich when her pager went off. She wolfed down the other half in two bites and took off towards the reception area. Obviously she had jinxed herself.