Chapter 19 The girl on the verge of death? The doctor saved her, so it's alright...
At times, Dr. Osborn dislikes facing problems and prefers to escape them, as is the case now.
His beloved younger brother, Harry, grabbed Dick by the collar, his expression grim as he questioned him. All Alan heard were words like 'How dare you!' and 'fxck off,' the kind of words that would make Matthew, the lawyer who was strict with his children, furrow his brow within three seconds.
He treated the noise as background noise and directed Daniel to carry the unconscious girl into the emergency room.
Daniel, panting, explained to Allen, "They refused to take the ambulance! Good heavens, but the child has started having seizures, I can't..." So he had no choice but to drive the unconscious girl and her mother to the hospital himself.
Alan supported the girl from behind and shouted to the nurses in the emergency room, "We need a bed here, Maggie! The surgery you wanted is here!"
Maggie instantly perked up and darted to Allen's side, like a soldier who had received an order.
Dick and Harry, standing behind Allen, were pulling at each other's hair ornaments—mainly Harry pulling at Dick—while reaching out to help.
Allen, unable to bear it any longer, yelled at the two to shut up, while instructing Maggie: "16-year-old female, unconscious, suspected drug overdose... Maggie, go get a CBC, CMP, Coag, and U-Tox..."
"Wait... U-Tox?! Grace couldn't possibly be doing drugs!" The woman following behind Daniel, her expression anxious, shouted in denial. "Please, save my daughter! She's always been a good girl!"
“Madam, these are just some necessary tests, please don’t worry,” Maggie reassured softly, dutifully keeping irrelevant people out of the examination room. “Please entrust this to Dr. Osborn; he’s one of the best ED doctors in our hospital, and he will do everything in his power to save the patient!”
Dick and Harry both fell silent, and Dick stood at the door with a worried expression, holding a bouquet of roses.
Maggie glared at him disdainfully, telling him and Harry, those two nuisances, to stop blocking the way and interfering with their best Dr. Osborn.
Given that Dick was a regular at the emergency room and was definitely not a friend of Dr. Osborn (Maggie gritted her teeth at the rose), Maggie bluntly ordered him to take her anxious mother to the waiting area.
Dick chose to cooperate with Dr. Osborn, and was then somewhat surprised to find that the woman was someone he knew.
"Mrs. Laura? It's you?"
“…Officer Grayson, is that you?” Julie Laura looked up in a panic, but her eyes finally lit up when she saw Dick. She grabbed Dick’s clothes as if he were her last lifeline. “Please save Grace!”
Dick then realized that the blonde girl lying unconscious in the emergency room was the daughter of his former colleague.
Officer Liam Laura died in the line of duty a year ago, leaving his wife to raise their 16-year-old daughter, Grace, alone. Dick attended the funeral and saw Grace, who always stayed quietly and gently behind Mrs. Laura.
Looking at Laura's haggard appearance and her somewhat worn clothes, Dick keenly realized that the mother and daughter's living conditions did not seem to be ideal.
“Please calm down, Mrs. Laura.” Dick tried to help her to the waiting area, but Mrs. Laura was clearly unwilling to leave.
Mrs. Laura was sobbing uncontrollably, her words tumbling out incoherently: "I don't know what happened... Grace has always been healthy! Tomorrow she's going to New York to visit a lab... You know, she's always been very interested in physics, and she worked so hard for this opportunity, but I don't know what happened... Tonight, she was packing her bags, and when I called her for dinner she wouldn't answer. When I went to find her, I found her lying on the floor, convulsing... She hasn't had dinner yet, is it because she's hungry?"
It certainly couldn't be because of hunger.
Dick could also tell that Grace was not in a good state.
"Blood sugar is normal, heart rate is extremely fast, blood pressure is 150/110, heart rate is 150." Maggie looked at Allen, waiting for further instructions.
Allen nodded to indicate that he understood.
Grace had lost consciousness, and the urine test results were not yet available, but Allen was almost certain that the girl's coma was caused by a drug overdose.
He pushed open the door to the treatment room, stood in front of Mrs. Laura, and scrutinized the woman. "Tell me, is she using cocaine or heroin?"
"Impossible!" Mrs. Laura cried out to Allen in despair, "Grace could never have done drugs!"
“Looks like you have a distorted view of your daughter,” Allen said. “Are you waiting for the police to come and figure out her personal preferences? You’d better pray that the next time your daughter does drugs, it’s in a drug center in New York and not in Brudhaven, or worse, that I don’t even get the drug test results before she gets high…”
“Allen!” Dick stopped Allen from continuing his sarcasm, pulling Mrs. Laura aside. “Perhaps you can recall something else. Has Grace been acting strangely lately? Maybe she’s been tricked, or perhaps she’s been threatened…”
“Dr. Osborn!” Maggie shouted from the treatment room.
Allen quickly turned back to the ward, and after clearly seeing the image on the screen, decisively ordered: "Prepare an esophagus/gastroduodenoscope, 70 mg of ketamine. Fxck, this silly girl is smuggling drugs!"
When Mrs. Laura heard Allen's words, her expression went blank for a moment, and then her legs went weak and she almost fell to the ground, unable to even speak.
Dick quickly helped her sit down.
Harry, peering through the transparent sliding door of the treatment room cubicle, watched his brother's efficient movements with his arms crossed, shrugging: "Maybe we should have sent a more reliable cop instead of Mr. Grayson, this rookie. After all, this isn't a small case... Wow, let me count, she has about a dozen packets in her stomach!"
“There are 18,” Allen said. “They’re in balloons. I’m afraid one of the bags leaked.”
He looked at Mrs. Laura and said, “Your daughter is very likely to die from a drug overdose. If she succeeds in smuggling drugs, many more people will likely end up like her. I suggest you think carefully about how to plead with the judge... Also, providing more information might earn you some sympathy.”
"Please save her, please save her!" Mrs. Laura said, trembling. "I don't know, Grace wouldn't!"
“It’s not a question of whether she would or wouldn’t, it’s that she already did it.” Dick looked at Mrs. Laura seriously. “Can you recall who Grace has been in contact with during this time? We need to find out who made her do it.”
“I don’t know, I really don’t know! Oh my god, I…” Mrs. Laura held tightly to Dick, “We haven’t been having a good time lately, I… I’ve complained a few times about how fast the money is going to disappear…”
But it shouldn't be like that.
Dick thought to himself.
BPD officers who die in the line of duty receive a substantial monthly allowance, partly from the Police Foundation and partly from the state. This money is enough for Mrs. Laura and Grace to live a relatively comfortable life.
But things had gotten to a point where it was beyond what Blue's Haven emergency room could handle. Dick had no choice but to immediately call Eric and tell him to bring the narcotics squad, but he was thinking a little further: there must be an organization behind this kid getting his hands on so many drugs.
This reminded him of the mysteriously disappearing drugs under Squid's control and the secret medications that always seemed to find their way into New York and Gotham.
Grace, who was in the ward, suddenly woke up from her coma. Allen, who was using forceps to remove the drugs, cursed under his breath: "Continue injecting ketamine."
However, just as Maggie was about to continue the injection, Grace suddenly screamed and jumped up from the hospital bed.
She shoved Allen aside and roughly tried to pull the forceps out of his throat.
The endoscope, which hadn't yet left her body, allowed Allen to clearly see one balloon burst inside her, followed by a second one.
"Maggie, prepare 20 units of sulfadiazine and put it on an IV drip! Bring the ambulance and give me nitroglycerin!"
However, Grace suddenly became incredibly strong. She jumped off the hospital bed, forcefully overturned Allen who was blocking her way, and snatched the tray.
It contained drugs that had just been removed from her stomach.
Allen was pushed backward by her.
Dick reacted quickly and rushed forward, stopping Grace just as she was about to run out of the emergency room after knocking over a group of medical staff.
Grace turned around, and the thin girl punched Dick in the face. Dick grabbed her wrist decisively, but was still nearly knocked to the ground by her incredible strength.
The little girl's strength had become almost the same as that of the Scarecrow who was constantly forced to exercise by Batman. This was definitely not the strength a normal girl should have!
However, Grace didn't give Dick a chance to react. She let out a sharp roar and continued to punch and kick him.
Dick sidestepped Grey's haphazard attacks and bent down to get behind the girl.
Then he grabbed Grace by the neck, twisted the girl's hands behind her back, and forced her to the ground.
Mrs. Laura screamed in despair, trying to rush over to protect her daughter.
Daniel held her tightly.
The emergency room lobby was chaotic, but the doctors and nurses quickly moved aside in an orderly manner, seemingly unfazed by the scene.
"Security! Call security!" Maggie pressed the alarm.
"No, no, no, don't hurt my daughter! Please!" This was Mrs. Laura's desperate cry.
Grace struggled desperately as if she felt no pain, and before Dick could handcuff her wrists, she actually used brute force to throw Dick off her!
Then she picked up the large plate of drugs from the ground and ran desperately towards the bathroom.
Allen tried to stop her, but she bumped into him and sent him falling backward, his elbow hitting the wall.
Ignoring everything else, he continued shouting, "Notify the DEA and NSA! She's going to destroy the evidence!"
Dick got up and chased after Grace, but Grace was two seconds faster. Before Dick could grab her wrist, Grace had already emptied all the balloons on the tray into the bathroom drain and flushed.
"Damn it, Grace, do you even know what you're doing?!"
Grace's eyes were bloodshot. She grabbed the toilet brush and stabbed it at Dick.
Dick grabbed the mop by the door and retaliated.
Allen, who was right behind him, took off running, his face contorted in a grimace.
A dramatic scene unfolded in the bathroom: a police officer versus a high school girl. By the time Dick finally slammed Grace's head to the floor, Allen was already considering asking for a different patient and a different roommate.
Grace stopped moving, but the next second, she clutched her heart in pain.
"She had a heart attack due to a drug overdose!" Allen ran over and turned the girl over. "Maggie, 2 mg of midazolam!"
When Grace finally passed out and was able to lie back in her hospital bed, her condition finally stabilized temporarily.
Allen rubbed his elbow, which he had accidentally bumped during the shoving, looking a little tired, and made sure to tell his younger brother to go and rest.
It's almost midnight now.
Harry didn't want to leave, but when his brother's stern gaze fell on him, he could only reluctantly nod and agree to drive to Alan's shabby apartment to spend the night.
Before leaving, he glared fiercely at Dick: "Listen, stay away from Allen, or you're dead!"
Dick sighed deeply. He wondered how best to talk to Alan—he had successfully offended the entire family in a single day, but now he didn't know how much Norman Osborn liked him… Oh well, Alan seemed completely indifferent to his father.
Therefore, they must move out after they get married.
He placed the ravaged roses from the night before in a vase at the front desk, earning Dr. Edward's "You are a hero" expression.
Allen sat in the lounge, frowning as he searched through Grace's past medical records.
Mrs. Laura stayed by her daughter's side in the hospital room, but she still said she knew nothing.
Grace's past medical records also showed that she was an perfectly healthy girl, and a physical examination a year ago had not revealed any signs of drug use.
"Are you alright?" Dick came over with an ice pack and sat down next to Allen.
He placed an ice pack on Allen's elbow and heard Allen hiss softly: "...Baby, I think you need to get it checked out by an orthopedist. Your elbow is red and very hot."
“I just used ciprofloxacin on myself, so there shouldn’t be any problems.” Alan didn’t notice Dick’s change in address at all. His eyes were fixed on the computer screen, and then he suddenly muttered under his breath, “Damn it.”
Dick's gaze fell on Allen's fingers, only to find that Allen's fingers were trembling slightly, as if he couldn't hold the mouse.
Allen clenched his fist and turned to look at Dick: "I told you I'm fine. I have a lot of things to deal with here. Why don't you go and ask that girl's stupid mother why her daughter insisted on stuffing a bunch of drugs into her stomach?"
“…Maybe you should rest for a while, Allen.” Dick reached out and took Allen’s hand. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but… Allen, I’m here. Maybe you can try to trust me a little more.”
Allen pulled his hand out of Dick's grasp and looked away: "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Blue alert! Blue alert! Dr. Osborn! She's dying again!"
Allen jumped up from the chair and rushed into the treatment room without looking back.
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