Jessica Meigs - The Becoming Read Online Free PDF

Jonathan’s.
    “I know,” Theo said. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, and he cleared his throat, trying to dislodge whatever was wedged in there. A heavy sense of ominous doom settled over him as he uttered his next words. “He’s got the vitals of a dead man, but he’s kicking like he’s still alive.”
    “What the hell do we do in a case like this?” Jonathan asked.
    “Honestly? I’m not sure,” Theo admitted. He checked his watch and looked out the back doors to where several of the first responders were lurking and watching as if the two men in the ambulance were putting on a stage show. Then he sighed. “Go on and get in the front. I’m going to splint his legs and arm and see what else I can do for him. I predict it won’t be much.”
    Jonathan nodded and stripped off his gloves, tossing them in the biohazard bin before jumping from the back of the truck. He stared at the patient in front of him as his driver shut the back doors, wondering what in the hell to do. He’d never seen anything like this. No breathing, no pulse, no blood pressure, nothing. By all logic, he should have been calling in for the coroner. But the patient still appeared to be alive. Theo blew out a breath and, as the ambulance started rolling, he stood, opened a cabinet, and pulled out trauma dressings, gauze, tape, and splints to at least cover the wounds and shore up the damage that he could do something about. It wasn’t far to the hospital, and after that, this strange man and his lack of vitals would be someone else’s problem.
    “Hey, Jon, do me a favor and call ahead to the ER. Let ‘em know what we’ve got,” he called as he moved up to the patient’s head again, intending to work his way down from his head to his toes to catalogue every injury the man had. The man glared at him, snapping his teeth in much the same manner as he had at Jonathan. Theo tried to shrug off the creepy feeling it gave him and took out his penlight to check the man’s pupils. Fixed and dilated, just like he’d figured they would be. The man’s corneas were even starting to cloud over a little. Theo shuddered and reached for his stethoscope again.
    Before he got his hands on it, Jonathan yelled from the cab, “Theo, hold on!” Theo reflexively grabbed the bar on the ceiling, gripping it tightly with one hand as the ambulance swerved, seemingly dodging around something before weaving back the other way. The top-heavy vehicle skidded and tilted. The last thing Theo heard before he fell across the patient’s legs and crashed into the IV cabinet was Jonathan crying out, “Oh my God!”
    Theo’s head struck the metal bar next to the IV cabinet, and his world tumbled into blackness.

Chapter 5
     
    The temperature outside was already cool and quickly dropping, but Gray paid it no mind as he led April out into the parking lot, her hand in his, their fingers laced together. “Did you have any particular places in mind you wanted to go?” he asked, hoping fervently that the several beers in his system wouldn’t interfere with his driving if she decided she wanted to go back to his place. Theo would kill me if he knew I was thinking about driving after drinking, Gray thought, but he didn’t care. April was there, and he was drunk enough to do whatever she asked him to at that point.
    “Just the car is fine,” April said. Her heels clicked and ground on the parking lot’s gravel-strewn pavement. Gray glanced down at them. They were tall red heels, strappy things like the ones he vaguely remembered her once referring to as her “fuck-me pumps.” They made her bare legs look incredibly long and slender. “I just wanted a little privacy so we could talk without me having to yell over that damned music.”
    Gray grinned and tightened his grip on her hand. “What were you doing in a country bar, anyway? You hate country.”
    “If I recall your obsession with Nine Inch Nails correctly, so do you,” April said pointedly. That elicited a