by Kahlen Aymes
The barrel of the gun painfully nudged the base of my neck, pushing into my flesh and making it burn.
“I’m the Grim Reaper,” the smaller kid said over my shoulder with a cackling laugh. He was so close that his sour breath whizzed past my nostrils. He smelled of whiskey, sweat and blood. His voice was whiney and high-pitched. “If you know what’s fucking good for you, asshole, you’ll stop trying to save that worthless piece of shit. We ain’t fucking around! I’ll shoot you!” He jabbed the gun into my flesh again, harder this time. I couldn’t help but cringe, pain shooting sharply down my neck and shoulder. The leader’s eyes narrowed and his thin lips lifted in an evil grin.
“The doctor is just doing his job!” Jane said. The bravery she showed was admirable, but I could see the horror in her blue eyes, her brow pinched with immense strain. My own heart was thumping sickeningly in my chest as if counting down to my own death. I tried to focus on the kid in front of me, and getting the powder in the wound without attracting too much attention.
“And I’m just doing mine, bitch!” The leader moved forward and shoved her roughly to the floor. She screamed, then fell against the table with a grunt, sending some of the steel instruments clattering to the floor.
“Do you really think you can get away with this?” Jane asked, looking up at the man as she slowly rose to her feet with a wince and positioned herself back at my side. “This is a hospital. There are hundreds of people here. You can’t kill everyone!”
The man laughed, sneering maniacally, his tone sinister and his rotten teeth showing the black discoloration of a meth addict. “I can kill you and everyone in this room, bitch! After that, will you give a flying fuck? Will your family care that you saved this dirt-bag? You’ll be dead; lights out.”
I tried to fill the wound with the medication as inconspicuously as I could but my mind was on one person. I closed my eyes for a brief second and my soul seized.
Julia. Would the last time I spoke to her be an argument on the phone? I never answered her when she told me she loved me. I fucking hated myself in that moment.
For the first time in this nightmare, her beautiful face flashed before my eyes. Our entire relationship passed in front of me in a rapid series of stills. My heart thudded so loudly I thought it would burst from my chest, and my throat tightened, bile rising up until I thought I was going to vomit. I coughed and wiped at my forehead on the sleeve of my scrubs. I realized that if I let this boy die, I’d be breaking my Hippocratic Oath, yet, if I saved him, we’d all probably get killed. We’d probably get killed anyway, I acknowledged. I felt like I was suffocating and wanted to be rid of the confining surgical mask and eye guard that was standard operating procedure when treating an open wound.
“Aren’t you listening, motherfucker?” A single shot rang out as the small man fired into the ceiling and the women screamed, all of us flinching in unison. The menacing laugh of both men echoed through the stark room. I glanced at Kari, still next to the kid on the floor. His blood was seeping around his lifeless body in a puddle. She shook her head. He was dead. I moved my head toward the door, silently telling her to get out of the room while the criminals were somewhat distracted. She stayed low and quietly opened the door, slipping outside the room.
“We’re listening,” Jane said, more softly now, working to keep the focus on us. Her eyes searched my face and she let go of the bag and began moving around toward the man with the knife. I shook my head at her, but she ignored me. She was so brave, yet my mind was screaming for her to stop. What the fuck was she doing? It’s okay, Ryan, her eyes pleaded with mine.
“Get out if you wanna keep breathing!” One of them said behind the handkerchief that covered the lower half of his face.
The other two nurses looked at me with wide eyes and I nodded. “Go. You, too, Jane.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide and frightened, but determined, as she continued to move around behind me, while I kept my finger in the wound in the patient on the table.
“Come on, let’s take it easy. You’re right.” Jane tried to reason with the unreasonable. “Is he worth any of our lives? What about you? Don’t throw your lives away. You can leave. We won’t call the police.”
I kept my movements to a minimum, trying to thwart any attention to myself so I could continue to work, but it was difficult with no help.
The man laughed bitterly. “Jack, she says she won’t call the cops. I think she wants to be our friend. Maybe she wants to party.”
He grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her mask from her face, grabbing her chin roughly and tilting her face. She winced in pain but didn’t make a sound. I paused for a split second but didn’t turn around. “Leave her alone,” I commanded softly.
The man named Jack shoved me roughly and I stumbled and fell hard against the wall. “My boy said stop working, Doctor Do-gooder! Are you fucking deaf?”
I stopped what I was doing and whipped around, knocking the gun away from my neck. The rest of the instruments fell with a clatter on the floor and the gun went off when it clattered to the floor. My heart seized. I was unsure, at first, if I’d been shot or not, as adrenaline raced through my veins.
The young man staggered back and away from me, and the air whooshed from my lungs as the other man put a fist in my kidney, doubling me over. I grunted as intense pain shot through my torso. I fell to my knees, shaking in agony.
“Ryan, stay down. He’s not worth it,” Jane pleaded softly. “Please.” I could see her chest rising and falling with the effort of her breathing, her arms at her side, palms face up as her eyes begged me to do as she asked. I couldn’t. These men were insane with hatred. They didn’t value the life of their friend who bled to death in front of them. They sure as hell weren’t going to listen to reason.
It was all a blur after that as I stumbled to my feet and a flash of steel appeared before me. Jane yelled my name and ran forward, shoving me away with all her might, making me fall off balance and fall backward.
Jane’s scream pierced the air just as pain sliced through my shoulder and right arm. I slammed heavily into the wall with a loud bang.
My vision blurred as resentment and anger welled up inside me. Who the fuck did these bastards think they were? What gave them the right to decide whether any of us would ever see anything outside of these walls? If Jane, now lying on the cold tile floor, her lower abdomen ripped open and pouring out blood, would survive more than this minute or the next? Who the hell were they to decide if I would ever lay eyes on Julia again or if she’d be made a widow on this night?
Sirens screamed outside in the ambulance bay as I crawled over to Jane. Her body jerked and her eyes glassed over, starring up into nothing, blood quickly saturating her scrubs.
“Jane!” I moved over her and lifted the material away. The shirt of her scrubs was slit open and a large cut was made in her pants below her waist. “Jane, you’re gonna make it. Look into my eyes. Stay focused on me, Jane!”
She blinked and opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her pupils were huge and dilated. I knew they’d be unresponsive if I tested them. I pulled off my gloves and reached for a box of gauze bandages from one of the counters and pulled out handfuls of it to press to her wound. She was cut on her lower torso, below her belly button; the huge, gaping slash full of blood that seeped in again as soon as I could mop it up, gushing in time with her heartbeat. Fuck, it was bad. It had to be the abdominal aorta or the uterine or common iliac artery for that kind of pulsing rhythm. There was no time for new gloves, but I didn’t concern myself with the risks. She needed surgery and stat. Sweat was starting to bead on my brow and drip down into my eyes. I wiped at the sting with my sleeve but it did nothing to alleviate the problem and only succeeded in smearing my own blood across my face.
I struggled to keep my voice from shaking. “C’mon, Jane, stay with me.” My heart stopped, her eyes that were staring up at me were fading fast. She wouldn’t make it to the OR at this rate. I had no access to instr
uments and even if I did, blood was filling the cavity too quickly to see where the artery was cut so I could get a clamp on it. She was bleeding out, her blood seeping down her body and onto the floor, into the knees of my scrubs.
If I wanted to save her, I had one choice. I reached inside her, using my fingers to search for the flow of blood and when I found it, I used my fingers to pinch it off. I needed both hands to secure the artery on both sides of the wound. It was a fumbling remedy. At best, blind and slippery, but it was all I had.
“Jack, let’s go! The cops are coming. Kill that fucker so we can get out of here!”
Somewhere in the back of my mind my subconscious reminded me that the police were already on the scene and that the boy on the table was close to death as well. Worse, that I could be the ‘fucker’ they were planning on killing. In the split second it took for the two men to move around me and plunge the knife into the chest of the kid on the table, I prayed. Prayed I’d be alive. Alive to try to save Jane and to make sure Julia knew how much I loved her.
The kid jerked violently, and I did, too. My first instinct was to jump up and try to stop them, but given my current circumstance at Jane’s side, it was impossible. Jack pulled the knife brutally from the boy’s chest and the air wheezed out of my lungs like I’d been the one stuck. I was helpless. All I could do was listen to them leave and then pray that someone would come through the door. I couldn’t move. To do so would mean Jane would die for sure. My own blood was soaking the sleeve on my right shoulder and running in streams down my arm and mingling with hers. I barely noticed.
“Kari! Kari, get in here! Bring a gurney and get Caleb and Dr. Wagner! Stat! Jane is hurt badly!” I shouted. Kari and Jared burst into the room, followed by three other nurses and the attending.
“Holy shit, Ryan. Have you been stabbed?” Caleb asked as he and a wide-eyed Kari ran forward.
“Forget about me. Jane is critical. Kari, grab some clamps! Tell Dr. Wagner we’ll need Jameson. She needs emergency surgery.” The madness of a scuffle and several gun shots that popped just outside the doors reminded me that it was not over as the police dealt with the gang. My heart felt like it would fly from my chest. I wasn’t sure if the pulse in my hands was mine or Jane’s. This wasn’t some stranger whose life I held, literally, in my hands.
Caleb frantically pulled on some gloves and moved to my side, ripping open the sterile package containing the surgical tools which would contain the clamps, as another group of nurses and doctors rushed in and Dr. Wagner got on his phone and assembled Dr. Jameson and the surgical team. “Oh, my God!” he said.
“Clamp just above the fingers on my left hand and below them on the right.” I was breathless. “A little higher.” He pushed the open clamp into Jane’s wound. “Higher! Got it? Now the other.”
My colleague clamped off the other side and the others lifted her to a gurney and began working on stabilizing her.
I sighed heavily. I was covered in blood, not sure if it was Jane’s, the kid’s, or my own. My knees felt weak and Kari helped me to a chair, while the others scrambled around Jane.
Caleb ordered fluids and blood, the nurses were rushing around hooking up the equipment and doing CPR. They were in overdrive, and if Jane had a chance, I was confident our team would make the most of it.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Guilt crashed over me. Was it my fault that kid was dead? Or that Jane was barely alive? My head tried to wrap around what happened. She moved in front of me just after my shoulder was sliced. No doubt, without her intervention, it would be me fighting for my life.
“Call time of death.” I flushed, thanking God it had come from the other side of the room. It was a hollow, wooden echo that got lost behind the din of the discussion over Jane. Jane would be prepped as soon as they had her stable and rushed in for emergency surgery.
I glanced to my left. The boy didn’t make it; they were pulling a sheet up over his body. Somewhere he had a mother who had just lost her sixteen year-old son to a senseless tragedy.
“Caleb, how bad is she?” I asked hoarsely, but loud enough for him to hear me. I winced. My shoulder was on fire as I gingerly tried to move it. It felt sticky, the blood beginning to clot and crust in the streams down my arm. It was a sign it wasn’t too deep. I’d need stitches, but no major arteries or veins were struck and the muscle, though protesting, worked. I grunted in pain.
“Not good, Ryan. She’ll probably need a hysterectomy. Her insides are like hamburger.”
I had no words. In light of my own weekend quest to make a baby with Julia, and the miscarriage we suffered, I felt Jane’s loss and felt it hard.
“Come with me, Ryan,” Kari said. “Let’s head into another room so I can get this cleaned and stitched up.”
“I’m fine,” I protested. I’d gotten the least of it.
“Stop being stubborn. There’s nothing more you can do. She’s still alive because of you.”
“It should be me on that table.”
“Hush. You’re being silly. You were amazing. You knew what to do to help her and you did it without hesitation. All that blood is a dangerous situation. Some people wouldn’t have been so selfless, Ryan. If I ever get hurt, I hope you’ll be the one working on me.” Her eyes filled with understanding and compassion. “Come on. We’ll only be in the way and they’ll be transporting her soon.”
“Okay.” I nodded as she helped me up and nodded to the wheelchair she had waiting. “But I don’t need that damn thing.”
Julia~
I glanced at my watch and sighed, impatient and anxious to get home to Ryan. Even though I’d been annoyed as hell with his insensitivity to Ellie’s broken heart, I couldn’t stay mad at him. He was tired, working his ass off and all he wanted was to see me. How could I hold that against him? It only reminded me how perfect he was and I found myself aching to put my arms around him.
This weekend had been something we’d both been looking forward to, and if I was honest, I was annoyed with my friend, too. Why couldn’t she see how she alienated Harris? Every time she questioned and mistrusted, he closed off more and more, which only fed her suspicions.
I sighed in resignation. I was tired of listening to the same thing over and over when she clearly wasn’t hearing my advice and she wasn’t listening to the man she loved. I reminded myself how I used to feel when Ryan went out on dates; I was devastated, even though we weren’t even dating. Ellie had to be feeling even worse, except it was all in her head. That was the infuriating part and it made it all a huge waste.
Somehow I managed to get on a plane, but it was much later than I’d originally planned. Witnessing the state of Ellie’s relationship with Harris, made me sick at how I’d left things with Ryan. I hated any sort of distance between us, and more than the 3000 miles that had separated us, the emotional chasm, however temporary, left me bereft and itching to fix it.
I called Ellie’s mother, who’d always coddled her daughter as long as I’d known her and was only too happy to come be with her only child. Ellie cringed at her mother’s meddling, sometimes feeling smothered, but in this case, she ran into her arms like a small child. After the older woman arrived, I made a hasty exit, inviting my friend to come to New York as soon as she could manage it. A change of scenery was just what she needed to get her head and heart around her own situation and the New York Fashion District was just the distraction to help.
Despite Ellie’s adamant posturing that Harris was sleeping with a different woman every night, I knew in my heart he wasn’t. Harris’s sorrow had turned to anger after multiple attempts to convince Ellie to the contrary failed. Who could blame the poor guy?
Finally on the tarmac in New York, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked it for message from Ryan. I frowned at the blank screen. That was weird. He had to be really mad if he hadn’t responded yet. We usually made up within hours.
“Where you going, miss?” the driver asked as he loaded my bags in the trunk of his cab. He had olive skin and a heavy
European accent, flashing me a pleasant smile when he held the back door open. I gave him the address to our apartment and climbed into the backseat. As we made our way through town, the radio played as the concrete jungle that was Manhattan, now lit up and glowing, passed by in a mirage of brilliant colors. I leaned my head back on the seat and closed my burning eyes. I was exhausted, even though my internal clock was three hours earlier than the 12:13 my watch showed.
“It’s nice they’re finally playing music. The past hour’s been nothing but that incident at the other end of town. What a shame kids have to go all crazy like that.” The old man readjusted the Yankee’s baseball cap on his head as he shook it. I barely noticed. I was watching a couple nuzzling each other on the corner as we waited at a red light.
“Hmmm?” I smiled and looked at the man’s face in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you have Sirius?”
“In this old hack?” He laughed. “Good thing I don’t, too. Need to know what’s going on around here. I like oldies and talk radio. This thing at St. Vincent’s tonight. Stupid kids,” he huffed gruffly.
I quickly tuned in to what he was saying. “What?” I asked anxiously. “What about St. Vincent’s?”
I dug the phone out of my purse and pushed Ryan’s speed dial, holding the phone to my ear at the same time waiting for the driver’s answer.
“Some gang thing. A shooting, and then a fight in the Emergency Room. Several people were injured, I think a few died, and several others injured, from what I hear. I hope they get those bastards.”
My breath left my body. “Oh, my God!” I blinked as my eyes started to sting. “When? When was it?” Panic seized my chest. Ryan was working tonight and maybe that was why he wasn’t answering his phone!
“Just tonight.”
“Oh, my God! Please take me there! I have to get down there! Now!”
“It might not be safe, or the cops might not let anyone in. According to the news, they’ve been deflecting emergencies to other hospitals.”