I let my gaze wander further down. The bilirubin looks good too, but the CRP level gives me pause.
As a reaction to the injury, a slightly elevated level would be expected, but it is markedly elevated.
As if he had an active infection, something systemic perhaps. But then he would also have to have a fever or chills, and he doesn’t. At least I hadn’t noticed anything.
That’s odd.
Confused, I check the platelet count. That too is higher than would be expected.
Nervousness rises within me.
Where is the LDH level?
There – elevated.
Suddenly I can’t breathe.
This is…
This could…
No, no, no, don’t you dare panic now, I scold myself, but only a fraction of a second later it crashes over me like a thirty-foot wave.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
JADEN
Dr. Ethan Stone, the man wearing a shirt and tie under his coat, whom I already ran into in the ER the other day and who is apparently the new head of surgery, studies my X-ray and MRI scans with a highly professional expression.
‘No bone injuries, your muscles and tendons appear to be intact,’ he says absently. ‘You were lucky, Mr Reynolds.’
I figured as much. The examinations weren’t really necessary, but I knew Nyla would feel more comfortable if I went along with them, so I didn’t object.
‘Good, then I can be discharged.’ I push myself up on the examination couch. My shoulder hurts, but I don’t let it show. Even if a few things have changed, there are still some superhero genes left in me.
He doesn’t react, continues to stare at the X-rays. Now and then he smiles faintly, then he shakes his head again.
‘Dr. Stone?’ I ask, louder this time. ‘Can I be discharged?’
At once his expression turns businesslike again. ‘From my point of view there’s no reason not to. Your attending physician will take care of it.’ With his hands buried in the pockets of his coat, he says goodbye and heads for the door.
There he almost bumps into Nyla, who comes in at that moment. She doesn’t seem to take any notice of him, doesn’t even greet him before he disappears into the hallway.
Instead she fixes me with a piercing look, her cheeks bright red, her breathing fast. She is holding a medical file in front of her chest, her fingers gripping it so tightly that the edges crumple.
‘I’m allowed to go home,’ I say, no idea why. Maybe because the sight of her scares me.
She keeps staring at me without blinking. What is this? Why is she standing there at the door and not saying a word?
I get up from the examination couch and walk over to her. When I’m about to kiss her, tears suddenly start running down her cheeks. She wipes them away, gasping for air.
‘Did something happen?’ Admittedly, the question is stupid, because that something happened is obvious.
She puts the file on top of the cabinet and reaches her hands out to me. At first I think she wants to hug me, but then she feels along my neck.
‘Does that hurt?’ she asks me when she reaches my lymph nodes.
My shoulder is injured, why should my lymph nodes hurt? ‘No,’ I say, and suddenly there’s panic in her eyes.