Chapter 1

The night sounds and smells traveling on the air told April that it was truly summer in Mississippi. The traffic, just off the clinic grounds, told her it was highway 90 running there. It was the same as everything else at the clinic. The highway was the old version of highway 90. The one that wound it's way through town, not the new one that by passed, the bypass. The heat and humidity were worse than any April remembered, but then it seemed to be like that every year.

April was 48 years old and for over half of her life, she was either a nurse, or learning how to be a better nurse. First she became an LPN because it was the only school she could afford. Then the US Army offered her a scholarship, if she agreed to serve three years after she graduated.

After her RN, and two tours in Afghanistan she saved some cash. The cash, and the proceeds of the new GI bill, she was able to get a masters degree in nursing. She could have done it in three years, but she went to the longer four year NP specialty. She did that for two reasons, she had the tuition money from the army, a part time job with a local urgent care clinic, and finally she had a cop boyfriend who was recently divorced.

It worked out really well until someone shot her cop. No it didn't kill him, but it probably would have been better for her, if gun thug had been better at his job. instead of killing him, it made him reassess his life's direction. Of course when he did that his wife and child seemed more important that a piece of ass.

So here I am ten years later, and ten pounds heavier, she thought. She found herself still working for the clinic just outside Biloxi Mississippi. It was the clinic where she worked part time while she pursued her NP degree. She had worked at that clinic until the day she received her medical license in the mail.

She had more practical experience than any doctor in the area, which the clinic owners loved. They got someone who was trauma triage trained, for the salary of a Nurse practitioner. She had always planned to got to work somewhere else, but she just couldn't seem to leave her boyfriend Brad. She had started on the night shift, and just stayed with it after Brad had gone home to his wife.

April dated several men, most of them were on the fringes of the Clinic's orbit. Some were cops, some firemen, some military men, mostly they were men who weren't likely to ask for a commitment. It just seemed to work best that way.

"I need some help here," a black male about thirty said pushing his way through the line. April looked up and saw him almost dragging another black main into the clinic.

"Someone call an ambulance I will try to help him till they get here," April said as one of the RNs on duty helped the man onto a gurney. They quickly rolled him into a cubicle and pulled the curtain.

"Don't you call no one," the man who brought his friend in said. "Anybody shows up and she dies. He said pointing the gun at April. He followed his friend and the two nurses into the curtained off treatment area.

"You can't be in here," April said to the man.

"I ain't leaving my boy," he said pulling a pistol from behind his back.

"You need to put that away right now, it makes me nervous, and I have work to do," April said.

"If you don't fix Bobo, this piece is gonna make you dead. Bobo dies, you die. You understand that bitch?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll do what I can," April said as she began to work on the young black man. To the RN she said, "Go get me a GSW tray stat." She really hoped the gunman would let her out and then tjhat she would run like hell and take everyone else with her.