by S. J. Harper
In the darkness, I don’t see the blow coming. There’s a brief flash of exploding color. Then, nothing.
THE
SACRIFICE
THE FORBIDDEN SERIES BOOK 1
Samantha Sommersby
Chapter One
I felt myself flying backward. It happened in the blink of an eye. One second I was on top of the world, the next plunged into darkness, surrounded by the sounds of metal scraping against metal, shattering glass and terrified screams—one of them my own.
The railway car I was on had jumped the tracks. It was skidding sideways, momentum causing it to careen out of control. In the dim tunnel light I caught a glimpse of the rapidly approaching wall. The car crashing into it sounded like an explosion.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it ended. For a moment it seemed the earth stood still. Silent. I was wedged on the floor between two seats, my left arm and shoulder throbbing in pain. Using only my right arm, I reached for the seat in front of me and pulled myself up to a standing position. Without a moment’s hesitation, I reached into my pocket for my lighter and struck a flame.
The air was thick with dust and debris that stung my eyes and filled my nose. I waved my hand in front of my face in an attempt to clear it. Squinting into the darkness, I called out for the woman who’d been in my arms just seconds earlier.
“Katherine?”
I spied her lying on the floor; she appeared unconscious. On impact she’d been thrown clear across the aisle. “Katherine!”
She didn’t respond. I fell to my knees alongside her. Reaching out with a shaky hand, I offered up a silent prayer before checking for a pulse. Thankfully, she still had one and it was strong, steady.
I guided the light over Katherine’s body, assessing her injuries. The butane burned and as seconds ticked away, the outer casing of the silver lighter became increasingly hot. Just as I noticed a tiny rivulet of blood seeping from her left ear, I dropped it.
“Bugger!”
The blood concerned me. The fact that she was unconscious concerned me even more. I pushed down the rising feeling of panic, then methodically began to search the area in front of me for the lighter. Within a few seconds I’d found it and was able to illuminate her face.
“Katherine, love, open your eyes.”
Still no response.
“Henry? Where are you?”
It was the elderly woman Katherine and I had been sitting across from just minutes ago. It had been after midnight when we’d pulled out of the Mornington Crescent Tube station. There were only five of us in the car, Katherine and myself, the elderly woman and her husband and a young man.
I stood and held the light out behind me, in the direction where the young man had been. I heard a cough and seconds later he emerged, stumbling down the aisle through the rubble and awkwardly stepping over a section of twisted metal frame.
“Is she okay?”
I remembered seeing the young man nursing a bottle in a paper bag as he boarded. He was obviously pissed, unsteady on his feet.
“I’m trying to find out. I need your help. Are you hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I’m Wes. What’s your name?”
“Mark.”
“Mark, I need you to help me. I’ve been injured.” I was suddenly acutely aware of the pain in my left shoulder. “I need for you to do as I say. Do you have a set of keys?”
“Yeah.”
I handed him the lighter, then leaned over and opened one of Katherine’s eyelids. “I’m a doctor,” I explained. “Move the light up here, in front of her eyes.”
With some relief I saw that Katherine’s pupils were dilated, and although they were non-focal, they were still reactive to light.
I ran my hand over her hair. “Stay with me now. We’ll get you out of here,” I assured her before turning back to Mark.
“Remove her shoes. We need to check her motor response. That’s it. Now, firmly run the key up the length of her foot.”
For a second I held my breath.
“Like this?”
Katherine’s foot retracted.
“Thank God!” I whispered. She’d clearly felt it.
“So she’s okay?”
“Not by a long shot. But it could be worse. Much worse.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Head injury. She’s had a bleed, I think. We’ve got to get her to a hospital.”
“Somebody help me. Henry?” It was the elderly woman again and she sounded short of breath.
I leaned down, placed a gentle kiss on Katherine’s forehead, then whispered, “Wait for me, love. I’ll be right back.”
My coat was crumpled under one of the nearby orange seats and I reached for it.
“Help me get this over her.”
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
“It’s nothing.” I climbed to my feet.
“Do you have a signal?” I asked, pulling my own mobile out of my pocket.
“No. You?”
“No. Let’s check on the others.”
Mark went first, holding the lighter out in front to show the way. First we reached Henry. He’d also been thrown across the carriage on impact, only his head had struck the window and shattered the glass. The scene was gruesome. The lighter went out, once again plunging us into darkness. I was almost grateful.
“Sorry,” Mark apologized. He relit the flame, now holding the outside of the lighter with a bandanna he’d retrieved from his pocket. “The casing’s hot.”
Mark turned his head away from the dormant body. I couldn’t blame him. The man’s face was covered with blood; his neck had been partially severed by a section of glass. He was gone.
“Is he dead?”
“Dead?” The woman began to franticly call out for her husband. “Henry? Henry!”
I quickly crossed the aisle and crouched down next to her. “What’s your name, love?”
“Margaret.” She was struggling for breath. “Where’s Henry?”
“Margaret, I’m a doctor. I’m going to try to help you. Are you hurt?”
“My arm. And my chest. It feels like something might have fallen on top of me. Where’s Henry?” Her breaths were becoming more labored. “Henry!”
There was nothing on top of her chest. I checked her pulse. “I want you to calm down for me now. You’re heart’s beating like a humming bird. Do you have a heart condition? Do you take any medicines?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Margaret looked me right in the eye. “Tell me!”
Before I could respond, the old woman gasped in pain and clutched her chest.
“What’s going on?” Mark sounded panicked. “Is she dead, too?”
Things were going downhill fast. If we didn’t act quickly, we were going to lose her. I bent over and placed my face next to Margaret’s.
“She’s not breathing and I’ve lost her pulse.”
“Fuck!”
“Could be just a heart attack, but she was struggling for breath earlier. Could be an injury to the chest wall, or a collapsed lung, maybe an embolism. I’m a psychiatrist, for Christ’s sake. It’s been years since I’ve done this sort of thing and my left arm is useless! You’re gonna have to help.”
“Help do what?”
“Save her. Come over and sit by me. Give me your hand. I’ll guide the chest compressions.”
Mark dropped the lighter on the floor. “Damn it!”
“Leave it! Look, we don’t have a lot of bloody time here. We need to open her airway. I want you to place your hand under her neck to tilt her head back and then pinch her nose, move her chin forward, and give her two breaths. Got it?”
There were a few scattered lights lining the left wall of the tunnel. My eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness and I could now see the outline of the woman.
“What if I do it wrong?”
“Do it!”
He did, then I leaned over the woman again to assess her breathing. Nothing. I re
ached for Mark’s hand and placed it beneath mine on her chest.
“We’re going to do chest compressions. Not too much force. Fifteen times. Ready? One, two, three, four,” I counted. There was an audible crack. I felt Mark begin to pull back.
“I can’t do this.” He sounded as if he were about to cry.
“It’s just a rib. Not so much force. Keep going all the way to fifteen. That’s it. Now, breathe twice!”
We continued the cycle six times with no response.
“It’s not working!”
He was right. For the first time in ages I felt incompetent. I’d been of no more use to Margaret than the pissed boy had been. I reached up and wiped the sweat from my brow.
“No, it’s not working,” I admitted, realizing that I had to accept defeat and move on. Katherine was still alive and she needed me, was depending on me.
“Now what?”
“Now we check on my girl. We’ve got to get her out of here.”
I stood and made my way back to Katherine, Mark following closely behind.
“Maybe we should wait? Don’t the Tube rails have electrical current flowing through them?”
“We’ll be careful. I made a promise to the lady. I intend to keep it.”
“Take a chance, Katherine. You know I’m right. You know it. You can feel it, can’t you? You won’t regret it, not for one bloody second,” I’d promised her, leaning down to steal one more kiss, enticing her into wanting, into forgetting, into surrendering.
“We have no lights. What if they send through another car and they don’t see us?” I asked him, before crouching down to examine Katherine again. “Ow! Bugger it!”
Pain shot through my arm and shoulder as my left elbow grazed a nearby seat. I rolled up my tie, placed it in my mouth, and bit down. Then I straightened my back, closed my eyes and tried to push the dislocated ball joint back into place. I couldn’t manage it.
“Dammit!” I yelled, spitting the fabric out of my mouth, gritting my teeth against the pain.
“Christ, I could use a drink.”
“Me too, Mark.” I managed a small smile. “My shoulder’s dislocated. You help me fix it and I’ll buy you a bottle when we’re out of here. Deal?”
“No. No way. What if it goes to pot? I didn’t do so well with Margaret.”
“You did fine. You’ll do fine. This works ninety percent of the time like a charm.”
“What do I need to do?”
“First you need to pull on my wrist with one hand and brace against my upper chest with the other. Pull gently, increasing the pressure until I tell you to stop. Then you’ll hold that position, keeping the pressure steady for a bit.”
“How long is a bit?” Positioning himself as instructed, Mark began to pull.
“Until it relaxes,” I ground out.
“Relaxed yet?”
“Stop! Hold steady, now.” I tried to breathe through the pain. My eyes were watering. “All right! Now, I need for you to rotate the joint back into place. Like this.” I did my best to demonstrate. “Only at the same time.”
“I don’t know,” Mark said hesitantly.
“Stop being a nancy! We’re wasting time. Just bloody do it.”
Mark closed his eyes, then took a deep breath. I took a breath too and steeled myself for what was coming. With a swiftness I was grateful for, Mark twisted the joints. The pain was excruciating, almost dizzying. I cried out in anguish as the bone clicked audibly back in place.
“All right?” asked Mark wrapping his arm around my waist. “You’re not going to pass out on me, are you? I sure as fuck can’t carry both of you out of here.”
“No.” I swallowed down the bile that had risen in my throat. “No, I’m not going to pass out.”
The pain was subsiding. Gingerly, I tried to move my arm.
“Good job. It feels better. I have a bit more mobility.”
“So I did okay?”
“You did great. I won’t be able to carry Katherine out, though. I’m gonna have to ask you to do it. Can you do that, Mark?”
Before he could answer, the bright beam of a flashlight shined through the window of the carriage. Help was on the way.
Chapter Two
I rode in the back of the ambulance with Katherine and one of the paramedics. As soon as we pulled into the bay I opened the rear door and jumped to the ground. Laura Stanton, trauma surgeon, burst through the double doors leading to Accident and Emergency. Eric Riley, the hospital’s top neurosurgeon and a friend since medical school, was close in tow.
“Any change since the last radio report?” Laura asked.
“No.” I was trying my damndest to not think the worst. “Laura, she’s been out for nearly thirty minutes.”
“What’s her GCS?”
“Eight, I think. I’m not sure. It’s been a long time since I’ve assessed—”
“Don’t worry, you’ve done well. Let’s get the patient intubated and into CT.”
“Her name’s Katherine.”
“Katherine. Okay, then. You can come, Wes. But stay back and let us do our jobs. We’re good at what we do. You know that. Right?”
She gave me an encouraging smile. I was glad she was there. Laura was extremely competent. She had a quiet confidence about her, but not a shred of ego. More important than that? I trusted her.
“Right.”
“Then let’s get cracking.”
I followed the trolley down the hall toward the trauma room. I made rounds at this hospital almost every day, but I’d never been in the trauma center, not once. I felt helpless, out of sorts. Six, maybe seven people crowded into the room. I stepped back and anxiously watched as the team of professionals quickly and efficiently went about their various tasks. Within minutes Katherine was stripped of her clothes and intubated, a ventilator breathing for her. Someone handed me a bag with her clothes in it. I set it on a nearby counter.
Eric ordered a CT with and without contrast, type and screen/cross. “I’ll meet you in radiology,” he said before walking out of the room.
Laura turned to the lab technician. “Did you get that?”
“Yeah.”
“Run a CBC, Coag profile and lytes as well.”
“Got it covered.” The petite Asian woman began to search for a vein.
They were going to operate. I ducked out into the hall, my stomach in knots. “Eric!”
He paused and turned back to face me. “She important to you?”
I nodded.
“She’ll be okay, Wes. Have I ever let you down?”
The question made me chuckle. “Too many times to count.” I looked him in the eye. “But never when it really mattered.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.”
The elevator arrived and Eric ran to catch it, leaving me alone in the long, sterile hall with blood on my hands and remorse in my heart. It was my cock-up, my fault that Katherine was in that carriage, my fault she was here. It was all my fault.
“Wes? I thought you might want to hold onto this.” Laura placed Katherine’s engagement ring in the palm of my hand. “We’re taking her up to CT. We’ve got to get her registered. Is there family to notify?”
“Family? Yes. In the States. I’ll take care of it.” They wheeled her past me on a gurney. There were lines and tubes everywhere. It seemed surreal.
“Wes?” Laura was frowning. “Are you all right?”
“Me? Yeah. I’m fine. Go.”
Laura started after the trolley. “Do me a favor. Go to A & E and get checked out, just to make sure?” she shouted back over her shoulder.
I agreed.
“Doctor?” The paramedic was standing just inside the entrance. He was holding Katherine’s purse and my coat. “The belongings?”
“I’ll take them.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cigarettes. My hands were shaking, but I managed to get one out of the pack.
“Need a light?” he asked as we stepped outside into the cool night air.
<
br /> “Thanks, I’ve got one.” I sat on a nearby bench and began to search though my jacket pockets. Then I remembered I no longer had my lighter. Mark had dropped it and I never picked it back up. I checked my watch. Had it really been just a few hours since I’d committed to abstain from the fags for the night?
“You smoke?” Katherine asked, surprise evident in her voice.
“Yeah.” I placed the cig between my lips and flipped open the cover of my lighter.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that’s bad for you?”
“A man needs some vices.” I shrugged.
“How come I didn’t smell it on you earlier?”
“I showered? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe you haven’t gotten close enough.” I stepped closer.
“Whoa there, cowboy! I agreed to a perfectly platonic dinner. Just two people eating food and watching a play.” She pulled the cigarette out of my mouth and placed her hand on my chest.
“Together, like a date.” Clearly I wasn’t going to have time for a smoke.
“Date? This isn’t a date!”
“It isn’t?”
“No!”
“You sure?”
“Yes!” she said, getting increasingly flustered. “I told you, I’m engaged.”
“I, for one, thought this was a date.” I couldn’t help but smile.
She changed the subject. “Why don’t you quit smoking?”
“I guess I just haven’t found the proper motivation. Tell you what, kiss me and I’ll abstain, from the fags that is, for the rest of the night.”
“What about tomorrow, or the next day?”
“That depends,” I told her as I leaned forward and lowered my lips to hers.
“On what?”
“On how well you kiss.”