Chapter Four

At St. Anne's Hospital, Evelyn was welcomed with joy by both the staff and the patients. It had been several months since she had left, and she was happy to be back.

A few moments later, the medical chief, Dr. Andrews, called her to his office when he heard of her return.

"May I come in, Sir?" Evelyn said as she knocked twice before entering the chief's office.

"Hello, welcome back, Dr. Evelyn, or should I say Dr. Wolf?" He asked, unsure of what to call her.

"Whichever is fine by me, Sir," she replied.

"Okay, Dr. Evelyn it is. You can have a seat."

She thanked him as she took her seat. His office had not changed much; he still had those collections of sports memorabilia signed by his favorite athletes decorated everywhere.

He would always tell his colleagues that if not for his father, he would have been an athlete, and you could see it might have been true because of his lifestyle.

"How was the honeymoon, by the way?" Dr. Andrews asked.

"Good. Fine."

"Okay," he said as he took out a cigar from his drawer and lit it.

"Sir, is there a reason why I'm here?" Evelyn asked.

"Oh. Yes. I wanted to welcome you and also tell you that there have been frequent animal attacks these past few weeks," he puffed out the smoke and continued. "I just wanted to get your mind prepared- that's all."

Evelyn watched as he continued puffing out smoke like a vaping machine. She was not surprised but was really amazed by how a doctor in his late 40s could partake in that kind of lifestyle.

Several times he had been queried by the hospital directors for smoking in patient rooms and even bringing a cigar to the operating theater. If not for the fact that he was a very gifted neurosurgeon, he would have been sacked for his several misconducts.

"Thank you, Sir, for telling me," Evelyn said.

"You can leave now."

"Okay, Sir," she stood up and headed for the door.

"Hold up. Why are you at work when you should be resting?"

She looked back and asked, "What do you mean, Sir?"

"I meant you were not supposed to resume work until a few weeks later."

"I just wanted to be here," she replied.

"Hope your husband is aware and he agreed?"

"I don't think I need his permission to do something that I love," she answered with a high tone, beginning to get angry at his statement.

He raised his hands in surrender and said, "I'm sorry if I offended you. I was just curious."

"Yeah. Okay," she opened the door and walked out.

Dr. Andrews was a gifted doctor, but he was a misogynist, and that was his major flaw that caused people to dislike him.

She took the elevator down to the fifth floor, where her office was, to change and get ready for the day's work.

Immediately she stepped out of the elevator, she was welcomed by her best friend, Rebecca, who hugged her intensely.

"Evelyn, I've missed you a lot. How have you been?"

"I'm fine. You're looking good," Evelyn told her. "Don't tell me you've been waiting here for me."

"I heard you got called up to the Chief's office, and I was about to take the elevator to the ninth floor," she continued. "My girl, you look better than I do."

Rebecca held her friend's arm, and they both went to Evelyn's office.

"I saw Michael outside. He said you guys had a little misunderstanding."

"Did he really say that to you?" Evelyn asked as she brought out the office keys from her bag to open the door.

In her office, Evelyn dropped her bag on the desk and sat on a chair while Rebecca sat on one of the visitor's seats across from her friend.

"Yes," she replied.

"He's always been very secretive about his family from the onset. He's hiding something, and I'm curious about it."

"Well... Maybe there's a reason behind his silence?" Rebecca asked.

"He shouldn't be hiding things from his wife. All the talk about a ritual after the wedding ceremony, and I know very little about it." Evelyn noticed her friend's silence and asked, "Are you alright?"

It was too much for Rebecca, having to keep lying to her friend, but she had no choice. Michael had promised to tell his wife about the supernatural world, and she just had to let him. If he failed to tell her, then she would reveal everything to her best friend.

"Yes, of course."

"You became very quiet when I mentioned the ritual," Evelyn said, staring at her friend.

"What do you mean? Ritual? What ritual?" Rebecca asked nervously.

"Do you know anything about the ritual in the Wolf family?"

Rebecca paused for a minute. "No, I don't," she replied.

"Your family is close with Michael's. So I thought you might know about it."

"We are not close. We just share a history, and the Wolves and the Knightons have been longtime business partners. That's all," Rebecca answered.

"I just..."

Evelyn was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone in her office.

"Hello," she answered the call.

"Hello, Dr. Evelyn. This is Nurse Brady. Is Dr. Rebecca there with you?"

"Yes, why?"

"There's an emergency. Both you and Dr. Rebecca are needed urgently in the ER."

"Okay, we're on our way," Evelyn dropped the call and put on her coat.

"What is it?" Rebecca asked.

"We're needed in the Emergency Room," she said as she took her keys from the table.

They both rushed to the ER and saw that it was filled with injured people.

"Dr. Evelyn, Dr. Rebecca. Good morning." A colleague of theirs greeted them.

"Good morning, Dr. John," they both answered.

"There's been an accident. A bus with about twenty people crashed somewhere around the outskirts of town," he told them. "Several of them were attacked by wild animals and some sustained minor injuries. Dr. Shaun asked for you in Theater 1."

"Alright, but what about these people here in the Emergency Room?" Evelyn asked.

"Their injuries are minor. The extreme ones are undergoing surgery as we speak," he answered.

"Okay. Let me go assist Dr. Shaun." Evelyn went to OR 1.

"Well, what about me?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh sorry, Dr. Bryan needs you in OR 2," John replied.

"Alright," Rebecca said as she left for the second operating room.

A few minutes later, Evelyn got to the operating theater. She washed her hands thoroughly and put on her scrubs before entering.

"Good, Dr. Evelyn, you're finally here," Dr. Shaun said after seeing her enter the OR.

"What do you need me to do?" She asked.

"Collect the suction from Nurse Linda. I need to stop the bleeding." He said.

She collected the suction from the nurse and cleared the blood in the victim's stomach while Dr. Shaun stitched the torn muscles in the victim's abdomen. The surgery took several hours.

"There, we're done. Good job, everyone," he said as he congratulated his team. "He's stable for now, so let's sew him up."

"Yes, Dr. Shaun," one of the nurses present answered.

As soon as they began stitching his stomach, the man went into shock, and his blood pressure began to spike. After a while, he had no heartbeat.

"Oh no. What happened? But we stopped the bleeding," Dr. Shaun said as he checked for any ruptured blood vessels.

Evelyn told him, "What if he has a concussion?"

"What?" He asked.

"He might have had a concussion due to the accident," she told him.

A nurse brought out the defibrillator and stuck the electrode pads on the patient's chest.

"Clear," Evelyn warned before each shock.

"Go to the lab and get his CT scan; let's check if there's any sign of concussion or bleeding in his brain," Shaun told Nurse Linda.

"Okay," The nurse said and hurried out of the OR.

Dr Shaun turned to another nurse. "I need you to page Dr. Andrews now. It seems like we're going to be needing his expertise," he said to her.

Evelyn continued the cardioversion, shortly followed by CPR, but there was still no pulse.

After a while, the patient was not responsive to the shock. "Stop, Evelyn," Dr. Shaun told her.

"Hold on a little," she said as she continued with the CPR.

Dr. Shaun checked his watch. "Time of death: 12:09 PM." He pronounced.

Shortly after, Dr. Andrews entered the operating theater and saw that it was too late.

"We lost him, didn't we?" The chief surgeon asked.

"Yes sir. We did". Evelyn said as she scrubbed out of the operating room.