A Berry Good Knight

A Dark and Stormy Knight (FIVE)

Hands on Brooke's shoulders, I attempted to awaken her with gentle shaking. Unfortunately, the only movement from her body was what I caused. Anxiously, I pressed two fingers to her neck to feel for a pulse. It took me a moment, but I finally located a pulse. It was thready, but at least she had one. Her breathing was labored and her fingertips and lips had taken on a faint bluish hue. Although I tried calling her name, I knew that it wouldn't do any good.

Having retrieved my cell when I went to Julie's and my hotel room for the car keys, I pulled it from my pocket, dialing 911. I kept my eyes on Brooke as the phone rang once before the operator answered inquiring about the nature of my emergency.

"My...friend overdosed on sleeping pills, which she chased with liquor, and we need an ambulance." I watched as Brooke's chest slowly rose and fall. Perhaps my eyes were merely playing tricks on me, but it seemed to move slower with every breath. "Please hurry."

"Ma'am, you're using a cell phone so I'm not able to pinpoint your whereabouts. Could you tell me exactly where you and your friend are?"

Having programmed it into my memory bank on the way there, I gave the emergency dispatcher Brooke's address. Seconds later, she assured me that an ambulance was on its way and that they would arrive in less than seven minutes.

"Ma'am, is your friend conscious?"

"No. When I got here she was seemingly asleep, but I can't wake her up. She's not responding to me at all." Using my good hand, I cleared my eyes of the salty moisture that had collected. There was no need to cry again. Brooke would be fine. She had to be.

"Is she breathing?"

"Yes. And she has a pulse. It's slow though."

"Keep your eyes on her. If she stops breathing, you'll need to perform mouth-to-mouth. If her heart stops beating, I'll have you give her an external cardiac massage. Are you familiar with either of these procedures? If not, I'll talk you through them."

"Shit." Without answering the dispatcher I dropped the phone and leaned on the bed, hooking my arms underneath Brooke's, relieved to learn that I could actually pull her. Carefully as possible, I transferred her to the floor because a firm surface was required for the chest compressions I was about to do since Brooke's chest had risen once more before stilling.

Moments after my confirmation that she had a pulse and was breathing, both stopped. Fortunately, though an occasion never arose for me to put such skills to use, I did have knowledge of CPR. As I gave Brooke fifteen chest compressions followed by four breaths, I could hear the concerned voice of the dispatcher coming through the speaker of the tiny phone laying on the carpet, but I couldn't answer her because that would mean temporarily abandoning the one woman I had come the closest to romantically loving.

Inwardly counting compressions as I pushed the heel of my palm into Brooke's sternum, I screamed our location when I heard the voices downstairs. After a cacophony of footsteps on the stairs, the ambulance team rushed into the bedroom. I stood back as they took over, asking me questions as they worked on Brooke. Most of them I wasn't able to answer. The only information I had was her age, name and that she had probably swallowed the pills that used to be in the vial on her nightstand with brandy. I didn't have knowledge of how much she took or the time she took it.

I could have informed them that I saw and spoke with her less than an hour ago fifteen miles away from there, but I was no longer certain that I had. A thousand questions were running through my head with no answers.

If Brooke was on the roof at the hotel, how had she gotten away without my catching her? Obviously, she hadn't jumped if she was able to drive home and swallow enough pills to put her in a coma. It wasn't possible for her to survive that fall.