Closer: Bay City Paranormal Investigation, Book 4

the unthinkable happened, he’d never be able to get to Bo in time to save him.
Chapter Fifteen
    Sam’s concentration had begun to waver by the time the doctor came out to the waiting room with a report on Bo’s surgery. Keeping his senses on full alert always tired Sam, but trying to hold his psychic focus while he was already tense with worry was exhausting. When the surgeon—“Dr. Curran, call me Jack”—sat in the chair next to him and started talking, Sam let his mind relax, keeping only a slight connection with the psychic energy of the hospital.
    “Bo came through the surgery just fine,” Jack told them. “He’s lost a lot of blood, of course, and we’re replacing that, but he should make an excellent recovery.”
    While Sam sagged in relief, Dean leaned forward with a serious expression. “Jack, this is going to sound like a strange question, but you didn’t find any signs of infection, did you?”
    The surgeon’s pale eyebrows lifted. “No, we didn’t. But then again we wouldn’t expect to find anything like that so soon.”
    “No, of course not.” Dean flashed his most winning smile. “Thanks, Doc. We were really worried about Bo.”
The man’s gray eyes flicked between Dean and Sam with a calculating look. “You’re good friends of Bo’s, right?”
“Right,” Sam answered, doing his best to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “We have some other friends looking for contact information for his parents, just in case. Do we need to call them or anything?”
Jack let out a soft laugh. “No. But I need to ask you gentlemen something about your friend. It’s… Well, pretty personal. But it’s important.”
Sam glanced at Dean, who gave a tiny shrug as if to say he didn’t know what the doctor was talking about either. “We’ll tell you anything we can to help Bo.”
“Okay, good.” Glancing around, Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The ambulance report said Bo had no substances in his system, as far as you’re aware. But I have reason to suspect otherwise, and I need you both to tell me the truth. I won’t get him in trouble, but I need to know what he’s on, otherwise I can’t treat him.”
Alarm jolted along Sam’s nerves. “You found drugs in his system? What kind?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Frowning, Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “We did a toxicology screen—drug screen, that is—when he came in. It’s standard procedure for any trauma patient. It showed up negative for all the standard substances except benzodiazepines, but we expected that one to be positive since he had lorazepam after his seizure. However, some of the medications we gave him before and during surgery had either paradoxical or exaggerated effects. Of course, there are other reasons why that might happen with one drug. But we saw several medications all having unexpected effects, and that tells me Bo must have some sort of drug on board that we aren’t aware of. Whatever it was may have caused his seizure as well.” He turned his sharp gaze from Sam to Dean and back again. “If you two know of anything he might have taken in the last couple of days—anything at all—you need to tell me.”
Stunned, Sam shook his head. “Dean thought he might be still taking the pain pills he had after his surgery back in November. We wondered if he might be hooked on them, because he’d been acting really strange lately. But I talked to him last night. He swore to me he hasn’t been taking anything.” Sam glanced at Dean, who seemed to be deep in thought, then turned back to the doctor. “I believed him. I still believe him.”
“Hm.” Jack scratched his chin. “You said he’d been acting strange. How so?”
Sam didn’t want to bare Bo’s recent behavior for inspection by this stranger, but there wasn’t much choice. Bo’s health, maybe even his life, was on the line.
“He’s been very angry,” Sam said, staring at his hands so he wouldn’t have to see the doctor’s expression. “He flies off the handle for no reason. He’s been having nightmares lately, and he never used to. Overall, I guess he just hasn’t been acting like himself.”
He wasn’t about to mention the angry, brutal sex, or the portal. Some things, he figured, it was best to keep quiet about.
“So the tox screen was negative,” Dean spoke up. “What sort of drug do you think might’ve been in his system? What should we be looking for?”
“Honestly? I have no idea. Most drugs would’ve shown