Read Violets in February for Free Online

mean your given name.”
    She held his gaze. “Lucy.”
    “Thank you for saving my life, Lucy. I will not forget this.” He nodded and let the two soldiers help him to the door.
    Lucy followed, standing by the railing as they loaded him onto the back of a truck. The three trucks left, spraying dirt high into the air. “I must clear up.”
    Tim shook his head. “Did you sleep last night?”
    “Not as such. I was on duty.”
    “Then you sleep now. Vic and Mani can handle the clinic.”
    “I can sleep later,” Lucy huffed. “Right now I have to go clean up before clinic starts. That bed needs wiping down and then remade with clean sheets and the floor needs sweeping. I also need coffee, assuming there is any left.”
    She spent the morning in-between seeing patients, scrubbing down the bed and washing the bed linen. She hung it to dry and headed back inside as the last morning patient left.
    Mani smiled. “Are you coming for lunch?”
    “I’ll be right there. Just need to get the clean linen out.” She headed into the laundry space and climbed on the stool. The linen had been pushed right to the back of the shelf. She groaned. “Figures. Hate working with tall people,” she muttered.
    She stood on tiptoe, but the sheets were just out of reach.
    Lucy sighed. She put one foot on the counter and stretched as far as she could.
    Just as she gripped the sheet, her foot slipped. She fell backwards, twisting, trapping her left knee in the bars of the stool. Pain flooded her and she closed her eyes.

4
    Lucy struggled through the sticky black cloud surrounding her and forced open her eyes. Her left leg was still half twisted, half suspended. Using her elbows, she pushed herself to a sitting position, crying out with pain. She felt down her leg, trying to work out how she was trapped, and managed to pull the stool away. Agony rocketed through her, and she bit her lip, in a vain attempt to muffle the scream.
    She took a moment to suck in a deep breath, which didn’t help, before letting her fingers probe her knee. They only confirmed what her eyes told her. The knee cap was dislocated.
    The door flung open. “Lucy, you all right in here?”
    “Over here,” she managed.
    Vic’s running footsteps grew closer, until his feet appeared beside her. “Lucy? What happened?”
    “I fell. Hurt my knee.”
    Vic tried to help her up. But that simple movement had her screaming and begging him to stop. He put her down again. “I’m going for some help. Don’t move.”
    “Not planning on it,” she gasped. She closed her eyes. Don’t act like a baby, Luce. You can control this pain. It doesn’t control you.
    More footsteps ran into the room.
    She opened her eyes to find Vic, Mani, and Tim looking worriedly at her. “Hi.”
    Tim gently pushed her down. “Just lie still. OK, gents, roll her onto the spine board on three.”
    “Spine board? It’s my knee, not my neck.” She tried pushing up, crying out again.
    “Don’t argue.” Tim’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh. “Ready?”
    Lucy closed her eyes. She hadn’t been on a spine board since med school when they had to practice on each other. And she’d hated it then. Pain soared off the scale as they rolled her first to the right and then back flat. Tears filled her eyes as she was lifted and carried.
    “It’s OK,” Tim said. “We’ll fix this, don’t cry.”
    “Not…crying…” she whispered. She was more mortified than anything else. Yes, it hurt, and hurt a lot, but she didn’t want them seeing her like this. Even the gentle thud as they set the board on the exam table barreled through her as if they’d shot her.
    Vic grabbed the scissors and began to cut her left scrub leg lengthways, ignoring her protests. “You really do make a lousy patient, Lucy. What did you do?”
    “Told you, I fell. It’s dislocated.”
    Vic’s face creased in concern. “I can see that.” He finished cutting off the scrubs, turning them into shorts so short, Lucy’s