All of Me

by Sorelle, Gina

“Not anytime soon.”

  Well, other than his stalking episodes, anyway.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nathan chose to ignore Danny’s sarcastic ass reply.

  “9, we’ve got a shooting at St. Mary’s Hospital.”

  His world stopped and Nathan froze. Danny grabbed the mouth piece and pressed the radio button. “Copy that. Details?”

  “Several injuries. Other cars en route presently. The suspect was tackled by staff and is being held. He is no longer a threat.”

  Nathan grabbed the mouthpiece from Danny. “Any fatalities? Who was hit?”

  “We don’t have that information right now. No fatalities reported yet.”

  Nathan’s heart was pounding so hard he thought it might split his ribcage wide open. He didn’t hear Danny talking or the sound of their siren wailing as he raced toward St. Mary’s. The only thing he was aware of the hideous, sinking feeling in his stomach.

  Nathan pulled out his cell phone, but his hand was shaking so badly he dropped it. Danny picked it up and Nathan told him, “Call Stella’s cell. Now. Hurry up. Please.”

  Danny found her number and dialed. After four agonizing rings and a kick to voicemail, Nathan slammed the accelerator to the floor.

  “Call the hospital’s main line!” he yelled at Danny.

  “We’re almost there. Maybe we should wait-“

  “Do it!”

  “Okay, D. I’m on it.” Danny looked up the number and dialed. But no one answered.

  As soon as Danny hung up, Nathan’s cell rang. “Thank God!” He grabbed it from Danny and answered. “Stella!”

  “No, it’s Nina.” Nathan’s heart sank. “I just heard the call over the radio. What do you know?”

  “There was a shooting. Suspect has been subdued. There are some injuries, but no fatalities that they’re aware of,” Nathan replied hoarsely.

  “Thank God.” Nathan could hear Nina’s siren wailing in the background. “I’m on my way. I’ll see you there.”

  Nathan hung up. His phone rang again. This time he checked…it was an unfamiliar number.

  “What?”

  “Officer Drazek?” a male voice asked.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “This is Christopher. Stella Ciaramitaro’s friend. From work.” Christopher sounded flustered and upset and every muscle in Nathan’s body tensed up. “Where is Stella? Let me talk to her!”

  The brief pause was enough to push Nathan over the edge. “Put her on the fucking phone!”

  “The guy came in through the ER…she was shot,” Christopher said, now crying.

  “Oh, my God…”

  The phone slipped from Nathan’s fingers.

  Danny grabbed it. “This is Officer Daniel MacDonough. Two whom am I speaking?” After a brief pause, Danny asked, “Is she alive? Uh-huh…okay…yeah, we’ll be there in a few minutes….okay, thanks.”

  Danny hung up.

  “Is she alive, goddamn it?”

  Danny’s brief pause was the longest two seconds of Nathan’s life.

  “Yeah. She’s in bad shape, but she’s alive. He said she was hit near her stomach, Nathan. They aren’t sure about what’s going on with the baby yet. But they are working on her right now…they’re doing all they can.” Danny clapped a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Jesus Christ, I’m so fucking sorry.”

  The baby.

  He’d been so worried about Stella he hadn’t thought about the baby.

  Our baby.

  Nathan squealed into the ER entrance and threw the cruiser in park. He ran in through the double doors. He ran past other officers trying to relay information to him and past crying, shaken employees and patients. It was a chaotic, loud, messy scene, with people and police running everywhere and sounds of shouting and things crashing in the distance. Nathan slammed his fist into the round, silver button and slid between the opening doors leading back into the actual ER.

  And that’s when he saw all the blood. It was everywhere: on the floor, on the walls, splattered against the glass separating the nurses’ station from the patient rooms.

  “Stella!” Nathan shouted, frantically searching for her in every space, corner and room. “Stella!”

  As chaotic as the waiting and triage area had been, it was eerily quiet and calm back here. There were many visibly shaken employees and a few gown-clad patients scattered throughout the ER. They all turned toward Nathan as he continued screaming Stella’s name.

  He ran up to the blonde nurse he recognized as the one who had tried to patch his hand up that night. “Where is she?”

  She started crying harder and another nurse put her arm around her shoulders. “In surgery.” The blonde pointed toward the opposite end of the ER. “They’re working on her right now.”

  As Nathan ran in the direction she’d pointed, the sounds of loud talking and multiple crashes grew louder. He finally found the room with all of the commotion and yanked the door open.

  “Get out! We’ve got an emergency surgery in progress here!” One of the masked guys yelled out over the loud cacophony of the surgeon’s clipped, loud orders and the clanking of equipment. But then he looked up and saw a police officer standing there. “Oh, sorry, officer!” He handed the surgeon an instrument and pointed out toward the main ER. “They’ve got the guy out there! This is one of our nurses! Got shot in the chest!”

  Nathan’s knees went wobbly as he stared at the still form beneath the blue surgical sheeting. He dazedly took in the rest of the scene: bloody gauze everywhere, instruments being handed and returned, and a handful of people scurrying around doing god-knew-what as the surgeon continued his work. A TV screen beside the gurney had the image of her insides – red, slick and shiny; the surgeon occasionally glancing up to check his work as he feverishly attempted to keep Stella alive.

  “Officer?” Another masked employee looked up at Nathan. “Is everything okay?”

  “Is that…” Nathan swallowed hard as he stared at the bloody instruments being shoved in and out of a hole in her chest. “…Stella? Ciaramitaro?”

  Her brows rose up over the shield goggles. “Yes. Do you know her?”

  Nathan nodded stiffly. “She’s my…girlfriend.” The word came nowhere close to describing what she was to him, but that’s the only thing he could come up with at the moment.

  “Oh…I’m so sorry,” she said in a pitiful tone that made Nathan want to put his fist through something.

  “Is she going to be alright?” Nathan took a step closer to Stella, but the nurse placed her hand on his arm and stopped him.

  “We’re doing everything we can.” She patted his arm. “Why don’t you wait outside so the doctors can concentrate on getting Stella all patched up, okay?”

  “The baby?” Nathan’s vision blurred when the surgeon called out for a clamp, saying something about the bullet nicking an artery.

  “We are going to take excellent care of both of them,” the nurse said, shoving Nathan more forcefully toward the door. “We’ll come give you an update when she’s stable.”

  Nathan stumbled backwards until he was out of the room; still watching everything through the small, square window in the door.

  “What’s going on in there?” Danny’s voice came from somewhere over Nathan’s left shoulder. “How’s Stella? She’s gonna be okay, right?”

  But Nathan couldn’t answer. He couldn’t move or answer or do anything but watch the horrific nightmare unfolding in front of his eyes.

  Danny said, “They’ve got the guy in custody.”

  Suddenly snapped out of his stupor, Nathan whipped around. “Where is he?”

  “He’s gone. They took him. Some schizophrenic homeless dude. I guess everything was cool until the nurses tried to tie him down so he didn’t hurt himself. He pulled a pistol out of nowhere and started shooting. He got Stella and a couple other employees. One nurse got an arm wound and a security guy got hit in the thigh. A few more people got banged up pretty bad from tackling the guy.”

&n
bsp; It was horrible and it was wrong, but Nathan couldn’t have cared less about any of that. He only cared about Stella.

  “Her sisters are all here. Nina’s talking to the responding officers and the other three are out in the main ER area,” Danny said. “They’re all asking for you.”

  Nathan turned back towards the operating room. He watched as the surgeon bit-by-bit, very carefully pulled a bullet out of Stella and dropped it into a metal pan.

  He nodded slowly. “Tell them I’ll be right there.”

  Nathan didn’t want to leave Stella, but he wasn’t sure he could watch much more of this. He didn’t understand what they were doing or if Stella was responding well or not. He wasn’t about to bust in there and distract them and he couldn’t bear to stand here doing nothing.

  So after an intense, excruciating inner struggle, Nathan turned and walked away.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Oh, my God, Nathan, is she okay?” Gigi raced toward him as Nathan walked back into the triage area. She grabbed onto his arms and shook him; her hazel eyes wide and full of fear. “They wouldn’t let us back there, Nathan! Please tell me she is okay! Please!”

  “She’s…” Nathan’s voice faltered as he tried to relay what he’d witnessed.

  Stella fighting for her life. The surgeons cutting and digging and sewing and screaming as they raced against time to fix her. Stella lying there lifeless…their baby possibly dead inside of her.

  “Everything I love is on that table,” he whispered.

  To Gigi, but mostly to himself.

  “Oh, honey, I know,” Gigi whispered back, pulling him into a hug.

  Fi grabbed onto his uniform sleeve. “Please say she is alive, Nathan, please…”

  She and Kat were clinging to each other; Kat’s expression a frozen mask of dread and shock.

  “She’s alive,” Nathan said and all three sisters cried out in relief. “But she is in bad shape. The surgeon said the bullet might have nicked an artery. There was…” He flashbacked on the gauze and the blood splatter and the TV screen. “…there was a lot of blood. And…the…baby…”

  When Nathan’s teetered slightly, Stella’s sisters guided him to a waiting room chair. He buried his face in his hands, trying to regain some of his composure. But the tears came on fast and they came on furiously and Nathan could do nothing but ride them out.

  “Breathe,” Gigi whispered, rubbing circles into his back while, she herself, cried into a ball of Kleenex.

  Kat and Fi sat side by side in two chairs, still holding onto one another and trying to piece together what had happened to their sister. Some facts they got right and others wrong, but Nathan was physically incapable of confirming or denying anything at the moment.

  At some point Nina came over with her Collinwood partner looking as heartsick and terrified as the rest of them. “They’re still working on her,” she said. Her face had drained of blood and the tear stain tracks on her cheeks stood out starkly. She wiped away newly fallen tears with her palms.

  Kat asked the question Nathan was dying to ask, but didn’t want answered. “Did you hear anything about the baby?”

  Nina shook her head. “I think they’re still trying to get Stella situated. If the baby’s…” She blew out a hard breath and tried composing herself. “…whatever happened, it’s happened. She’s not far enough along to take the baby out, so we just need to hope and pray the baby is okay.”

  Nathan had been praying to any and all gods he could think of since he’d gotten the call. He’d been bargaining and promising and flat-out begging…anything to ensure Stella and the baby’s well-being. He wasn’t sure it was working, but there was nothing else to do.

  Nathan knew his fellow officers were taken aback and confused by his behavior. Many, if not all, of them had ever seen him crack a smile or raise his voice let alone cry. They couldn’t possibly know his connection to the woman they only knew as GS victim #1 and Nathan felt their unanswered questions hanging thickly in the air.

  But those questions would have to be answered later if they were answered at all. Because all Nathan could manage to do now was breathe in, breathe out, pray, and try not to fall apart completely.

  And they waited.

  Danny came by occasionally to check on him or offer a few words of support that Nathan barely comprehended, but appreciated all the same. Danny tried to comfort Stella’s sisters. He brought waters and eventually coffees as the minutes dragged into hours.

  Nathan was surprised to notice that a lot of guys from his department stuck around to support him. Nobody said anything to him, but there could be no other reason for their pacing, whispering, and occasional pats on the back. These were guys he’d served with for ten years, but had never had any personal relationships with. But police departments were families like that…when one of their own suffered a tragedy, they pulled together. And, in that moment, Nathan was grateful for their solidarity because he was a man on the edge.

  He’d paced the area from triage back to the ER so many times he was surprised he hadn’t worn a groove into the tiled floor. About once every 20 minutes or so, Nathan would go back to check on Stella and each time he braced himself before looking through that window. The hospital staff didn’t want Stella’s sisters back there – there were too many of them and they were too…well…loud. But, as a cop, they’d given Nathan carte blanche to go in and out.

  But each time it had been more of the same…more probing and pulling and stitching and repairing. The surgeons and support staff look as beleaguered and battered as Nathan felt, but they never let up. If anyone was going to be able to save Stella and the baby’s lives, it was these people. Because, as so many of her coworkers had told him, they loved her too. And they weren’t gonna let her go without a fight.

  But on his current trip down there, a sudden commotion broke out. An alarm’s wail pierced through the quiet and one of the surgeons shouted, “Her BP just plummeted! Grab the paddles!”

  Nathan watched in stricken horror as one of the nurses grabbed the crash cart, pressed a few buttons, and lifted the paddles.

  She handed them to the doctor who yelled, “Clear!” He applied the paddles to Stella’s now bared chest and detonated. Her back arched and her chest popped up as the current flowed into her. “Clear!” the surgeon yelled again and, again, he applied the paddles to Stella’s chest. He looked over his shoulder at the still wailing monitor. “Nothing! Again! Clear!”

  Nathan’s knees gave out and he dropped to them hard, palms falling to his thighs. He began rocking back and forth, praying and cursing and crying as the only things he’d ever loved lay dying a few feet away.

  And he was powerless to do anything about it.

  “Oh, god, Stella…please don’t leave me…please, god, no…” he whispered, eyes squeezed tight, his throat on fire, and his chest so constricted he could do little more than pant in deep, shallow breaths. “Please, please, please, please…”

  In those seconds, all Nathan could think about was her warmth and her love. The sound of her voice and the unrestrained joyfulness of her laugh. All of the touches and kisses and words of love flooded his memory; mingling with feelings of despair about all of the shit he’d put her through. All of it seemed so pointless and childish now and he’d give anything to have one more chance to be everything Stella deserved. And, if he couldn’t, to spend every day trying and praying that she might love and want him anyway.

  Nathan was so mired in his prayers, memories, and regrets that it took him a while to realize the operating room had gone quiet. There was no more yelling or clanking or beeping. An eerie silence had descended on the area and Nathan could think of only one reason why…

  He forced himself to his feet and looked in the window.

  But instead of the defeated, awful scene he’d anticipated, he saw tears of joy and hugging and patting on backs.

  Because Stella had survived.

  The heart monitor hanging near the front of the bed showed a strong and
steady heartbeat. The surgeon had closed her up and the techs were tiredly, but happily, cleaning up the disaster zone.

  The nurse who had talked to him earlier saw him standing there and gestured for him to come in. She pulled down her mask and peeled off her gloves. “Dr. Hansbrough?” She tilted her head toward Nathan. “This is Stella’s boyfriend. Can you talk to him real quick?”

  A tall, lanky blonde man wearing silver rimmed glasses dragged ass over to Nathan. He pulled down his mask and cleared his throat. “We think she’s out of the danger zone. We’ve repaired the damage done by the bullet, which punctured her right lung and resulted in a hemopneumothorax, or blood and air collecting in the lung. The bullet also nicked the left bronchial artery, which caused massive blood loss and a dropping of her blood pressure.” The doctor ran a hand over his head and stretched his neck. “We repaired the damaged to her artery, inserted a drainage tube, and closed her up.” He clapped a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “I think she’s going to pull through just fine. Stella is a fighter – god knows she’s broken my balls enough over the years,” he add with a tired smile.

  “And the baby?”

  Nathan hadn’t wanted to ask. But he needed to know…to face the facts and adjust and get himself right so he could be there for Stella when she woke up.

  The doctor removed his hand and backed up a few steps. He pointed at a small, bedside monitor. “See those blips?” At Nathan’s nod, he said, “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. And it looks really good. Strong and steady, just like we want to see.”

  Nathan gulped down the giant knot in his throat. “So the baby is alive? She’s okay?”

  The doctor nodded. “The bullet went in just above where Stella’s amniotic sac is, so the baby wasn’t hurt at all. The trauma to Stella’s body and the loss of blood could have been disastrous, but luckily she was already ten feet from a Level I trauma center when she was shot. We have no reason to believe the baby sustained any damage.”

  Nathan yanked the doctor into an embrace, relief and gratitude momentarily putting on hold all of his aversions to public displays and affection. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he repeated like a mantra.