Cocking her head to the side, she stared at him for a moment, wondering what had gotten into him, but with a shrug she turned her attention back to the man on the table.
“Thanks, guys,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll need you for anything else until after surgery, so you can go if you’d like. I’ll call you when we’re done.”
“I’m going to grab something to eat,” Roger said. “You want me to pick you up something, Sonya?”
She smiled at him. “That would be great. I’m starving.”
“All right,” he said. “Jack, you coming? Or are you going to stay and watch?”
“I’m comin’ with ya,” he said, following Roger to the elevator.
***
“Good, you have him ready,” Jennings said when he arrived in the operating “room” a few minutes later. “The guys take off?”
“Yup,” she said, and nodded. “They went to get something to eat.”
He laughed. “Well, not everyone can handle this part.”
She smiled and nodded toward Bill. “He still seems to be out…should we go ahead and start?”
He looked at the unconscious man—noting his breathing—snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, and nodded. “Yes, I believe we will. He looks like he’s still under.”
“Okay,” Sonya said. “I’ll call my contact and have him on standby to receive the goods.”
As she stepped out of the tent, Jennings lifted a clean scalpel from the surgical tray and slid it into Bill’s chest—dark red blood oozed out of the wound and slid across his pasty white skin. He watched Bill closely as he made the incision, noting only slight changes in his breathing as he slid the sharp blade down to open Bill’s chest cavity and stomach.
Sonya stepped back inside just as Jennings was putting on a face shield, preparing to saw the sternum.
“He’ll be ready when we need him,” she announced. “I’m going to hook him up and bleed him. Do you want me to help with the organs after I get the machine going?”
“Sure, it’ll make it go quicker. I can work on some of the bones while you skin him later.”
She nodded, slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, and did what was necessary to attach Bill to a modified dialysis machine. It would take the blood out of the body, but wouldn’t put anything back in, and in effect, harvest the blood efficiently.
After that was started, she collected a handful of clear plastic bags and joined Jennings at the table to find he’d completed his work on the sternum and was fitting in a metal spacer to separate the ribs. With a crack they gave almost willingly to allow access to Bill’s lungs and heart.
Bill’s heart rate jumped and staggered as the pain and shock registered in his body.
“Shit,” Jennings said. “Go ahead and give him something.” He nodded to the IV.
Sonya rushed around the table to pick up a syringe and quickly injected the clear liquid into the IV tube.
Bill’s body reacted almost instantly and his breathing became slower and shallower, which didn’t concern them since they were going to kill him in just a few minutes.
She tossed the syringe into a red sharps container sitting on the floor and went back around to stand by Jennings.
He clamped off the heart and quickly cut it out before handing it to Sonya. The heart beat a couple more times before going still. Neither of them paid any attention to the man on the table whose body spasmed.
Sonya turned to a small machine just behind where she and Jennings were standing, and attached the heart to a pump that would flush the organ with preservation solution. After the pump beeped, indicating it was done, she removed the organ from the pump, placed the heart in a bag, sealed the bag, and opened a large cooler sitting underneath the table—she was happy to see Jack had done his job and filled it with ice water earlier. After dropping in the heart, she quickly got ready for the next organ.
One after another they repeated the procedure with each and every internal organ of Bill’s body until it was empty. They were on their last one when the bleeding machine beeped, telling them it was done extracting the blood.
“That’s done,” Jennings said as Sonya added the last bag to the cooler. “I’m going to start on the ribs. Do you want to start on the skin?”
“Will do,” she said with a smile, pulling the IV needle out of the deceased man’s arm.
For the next half hour they worked like a well-oiled machine with neither of them talking, but knowing exactly what they needed to do. Even if they had tried to converse, the high pitched squeal of the saw as it cut through bone would have drowned out their voices.
Sonya worked diligently with a small, extremely sharp knife, peeling skin back inch by inch and scraping it away from the muscles—they’d only been harvesting the skin recently, since the burn units had started taking skin donations from patients who’d had skin removed because of chafing after major weight loss. She’d quickly mastered removing the skin—she was steady with a knife and had a lot of experience parting out human beings.
“When you’re ready, we’ll do the brain,” Jennings said, turning off the saw for a moment. “Then we can work on the muscle.”
“I’m pretty much done with the skin right now, until I can get at the back,” Sonya said. “So we can do the brain now if you want.”
“Great,” he said. “Grab a bag and meet me at the head.”
Nodding and laughing, Sonya retrieved another plastic bag and waited for Jennings to saw off the top of the skull so he could slide out the sponge-tissue of the brain; it only took ten minutes before it was in the cooler with everything else.
“That was easy,” Sonya said, taking a deep breath. “So, all that’s left is the bones, muscle, and the skin on the back, right?”
“Yes,” Jennings said, smiling and looking at the clock hanging on the wall. “We’re doing good. We’re almost done and we’ve only been working for about two hours.”
She laughed. “Would be great if we were faster.”
He chuckled. “Yes, it would, but then we’d be sloppy.”
She nodded. “Let’s strip off the muscle, since that will take the longest, and then I’ll call the guys. Do you want anything to eat? Roger is supposed to bring me something…”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jennings said. “No, I don’t want anything to eat. I’ll have something when I get home.”
She nodded, knowing he was very particular about his food.
Within the next hour, various chunks of muscle were added to the cooler and the skin was completely removed.
“Are we keeping the eyes?” Sonya asked, trying to remember if he’d said anything about research facilities that could use them.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not worth the hassle.”
“Okay,” she said, stretching the pieces of skin she’d cut off, hanging them from clips on a makeshift clothes line strung up off to the side of the operation room. “I’ll wash these while you cut up the bones. As soon as I’m finished, I’ll call Roger and my hospital contact.”
He nodded and started the saw again to cut up the joints holding the larger bones together, not wanting to damage them and compromise the marrow inside. Every scrap and cell they harvested went for either medical research or use, and he hated to see anything go to waste.
Sonya had just turned on the water hose they had hanging on a retractable reel from the ceiling when the elevator door opened and a young, thin man stepped out.
Chapter Five
Sonya smiled, then frowned, and turned off the water hose. She let go of the nozzle, stepped over to the hanging, plastic flaps, and spread them apart so she could see the newcomer clearly.
“Lloyd?” she asked. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”
Jennings, having noticed Sonya’s distraction from her task, turned off the saw and walked over to her side, smiling broadly at the young man.
“Yeah, it’s me, Sonya,” Lloyd Barnes said, coming forward to talk to them. “You seem surprise
d to see me. I would’ve thought you’d be expecting me.”
Sonya frowned and glanced at Jennings.
With a conceding shrug, Jennings smiled. “He did such a good job for us when we were in LA and then in Cleveland, I contacted Lloyd and asked him to come work with us again and help move some of the organs.”
“I thought we were going to send more for research this time, like we did in Nashville,” Sonya said, still confused. “I have my contact at the hospital ready to take almost everything.”
“Your contact can have what Lloyd can’t make us money on—you know we didn’t make as much as we should have in Nashville because our contacts weren’t as good,” Jennings said. “We have to make money to keep things going and you know it.”
She nodded and turned back to Lloyd, who was standing silently, watching the exchange. “Sorry, he didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“It’s okay, Sonya,” the young man said with a grin. “At least you know I’ll treat you right and won’t cheat you. Besides, you guys are a gold mine! I made more money from your work last year than I’d brought in the previous five years. I couldn’t just give that up, now could I?”
“Glad we could be your cash cow,” Sonya said. She turned, stepped back into the surgical area, walked back over to the hose, gripped the nozzle, started the water, and got back to work hosing off the skin.
Jennings and Lloyd conversed for a few minutes before Jennings returned to his task of cutting up and preparing the bones. Sonya intentionally ignored him.
When she’d finished with the skin, she took it off the clothes line and rolled the pieces neatly before inserting them into plastic bags and adding them to the cooler. Without a word to Jennings, she slipped out of the surgical area and headed for the locker room, not seeing Lloyd anywhere.
After taking a shower and dressing in her red dress and jacket, she called Roger.
“Hey, we’re done,” she said after he said hello. “Did you know Lloyd was coming?”
“Yeah, I thought you knew,” he said. “Jennings didn’t tell you?”
She sighed deeply. “No. I just wish someone had told me. Now I have to tell my contact that he’s not getting everything I thought.”
“I got you a chicken sandwich and carrot sticks, is that okay?”
“Sure, that sounds good. I’m still starving. See you in a few.” She chuckled and hung up the phone.
With another deep sigh, she called her contact at the hospital to explain what was going on.
***
“How mad is she?” Lloyd asked, waiting just outside the curtain while Jennings checked the dismembered man’s blood type.
Jennings didn’t respond right away, focusing on his task, but eventually he did answer.
“It’s not you she’s upset with,” he said, “so don’t worry about it and let me handle things, okay?”
Lloyd nodded. “Why didn’t you tell her I was coming?”
“Honestly,” Jennings said, “I forgot.”
“You know how she is and what a bad idea that was, right?”
Jennings sighed. “I’m aware of everything that is Sonya—I’ve been working with her for years. Can we drop it, please, and focus on getting these organs to someone who can use them before it’s too late?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Lloyd said.
“Holy shit!” Jennings exclaimed suddenly.
“What?” Lloyd asked, almost stepping through the curtain, but stopping himself at the last minute. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jennings said. “It’s a good thing, actually. The blood type is AB-Negative.”
“So?”
“That’s the rarest blood type in the world,” Jennings admonished. “I would have thought you’d know that.”
Lloyd laughed. “I’m not into all the medical stuff—I just sell. Retail is my biz.”
“What’s so funny?” Sonya asked, having walked up behind Lloyd while they were talking.
Lloyd jumped and spun around, gasping. “Shit, woman! Scare the daylights out of me, why don’t ya?” He noticed the dress she was wearing and let his gaze travel over her body in a suggestive manner.
She smiled and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said, and turned her attention to Jennings. “I called my contact and he’s still willing to take anything we have to give him. He said it will make his job of creating forged documents a little harder, but it was still doable.”
“That’s good to hear,” Lloyd said with a smile, stepping closer to her and lowering his voice slightly. “I would hate for my arrival to make your efforts a waste of time.”
Sonya glanced at the young man’s smiling face. For some reason she’d always liked him. She’d often thought it was because despite his outgoing, friendly exterior, there was a cutthroat, remorseless killer buried inside, which she deeply respected.
“I have good news, Sonya,” Jennings announced, stepping through the flaps and into the large area of the room. “The man’s blood type was AB-Negative.”
She blinked a couple of times and her mouth fell open. “Wow! That’s fucking fantastic! The blood will be invaluable to the hospital. They are getting the blood, aren’t they?” She looked back and forth between the men.
“Yes,” Jennings said with a chuckle, “the blood will go to the hospital, as it always has.”
“That’s almost enough to make me forgive you,” Sonya said with a smile.
Jennings laughed. “I’m glad.”
“Okay,” Lloyd said. “That’s enough chatting. I gotta get this stuff out of here and sold so it can be used.”
“Roger and Jack should be back any minute to help you load up,” Sonya said.
He nodded. “I’d appreciate the help.”
“Let’s decide what you’ll be taking,” Jennings said to Lloyd, heading back through the curtain. “I can separate out what you want while we wait and then you’ll be good to go, and so will Sonya’s contact when he arrives.”
“Do you want me to help?” she asked.
“No, my dear, you’ve already showered. There’s no sense in you getting bloodied up again. Besides, you’ll have to take off and get some rest for work tomorrow.”
She glanced up at the clock on the wall, noticing there were only six hours left until her shift at the hospital. “I didn’t realize it was that late. Don’t you have to work too, Jennings?”
He shook his head. “No. I just completed my turn on call, so I have two days off. Once your food gets here you should go home, eat, and rest.”
“Yes, sir, Dr. Jennings,” she said sarcastically, while smiling. “I’ll be sure to do what the doctor orders.”
Lloyd laughed. “I really missed you guys.”
They chatted amiably for the next few minutes while Lloyd decided what to take with him. Soon, Roger and Jack arrived, handing over Sonya’s food.
She decided to wait until her contact arrived before leaving, since he’d never met anyone else on the “team” before—he arrived ten minutes later.
Sonya introduced the man she’d met at the hospital, where she’d been hired for a short term as a traveling nurse.
“Everyone, this is Miles Gardner,” she said, pulling him forward and smiling at him.
“Hello,” he said and blushed scarlet, seeming flattered, yet uncomfortable, by the attention she was giving him.
Everyone nodded at the thickly built, thirty-something man of average height who wore glasses and had thinning hair.
“Nice to meet you all,” Miles mumbled nervously, but was set right at ease when Dr. Jennings started rambling off the list of parts he had for him.
Leaving Miles in the capable hands of the doctor, Sonya headed home, eating the grilled chicken sandwich and carrot sticks Roger had gotten her on the way.
Once her stomach was full her eyelids started drooping and she sped up to reach her house in a quiet suburban neighborhood that much faster. No lights were on in any of the houses when she turned onto her street, and she was g
lad. Even though, being a nurse, it was normal for her to work strange hours, she didn’t want people becoming suspicious of her movements. It also didn’t hurt that she was a single woman and always left looking like she was going out partying; she figured the settled, married couples who lived around her just thought she was wild.
Pulling up to the small split-level house she was renting—that was a conservative beige during the day—she pressed the button on the garage door opener attached to her sun visor and pulled into the garage. She sat inside her car, after pushing the button again, and waited for the door to close behind her before she climbed out and emptied the contents of the trunk. She threw the trash into a large garbage can she had in the corner of the garage, and emptied the vacuum in it as well.
She put the small bag with the vacuum back in the trunk, shut it, unlocked the door leading into the house, went in, shut and relocked the door, and washed her hands. After checking her phone for messages—thankful there were none—she headed to her bedroom to get a couple hours of sleep, stripping off her clothes as she went.
With a tired sigh, Sonya slid between the sheets of her bed, naked, and fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapter Six
Before the sun was up, Sonya’s alarm bleated insistently, demanding she respond to its disturbing call and rise from her bed. With a mumble and a growl, she slid a hand out from under her blankets, reached over, and slammed her fist down on top of the clock, violently silencing it.
Groaning, she turned her face into her pillow and wished she could go back to sleep, but she knew she couldn’t; it was time to go to work. She found it incredibly difficult to go to work at a job that was there for nothing more than looks, and didn’t even make up an eighth of what she made in her illegal endeavors.
Fighting against every ounce of her being—which wanted her to stay in bed—she crawled out and made her way to the bathroom before returning to her bedroom and sliding into underwear and brightly colored scrubs. I practically live in these things, she thought with a sigh as she trudged down the hall, glad to smell the aroma of coffee brewing. After going without coffee a few mornings because of her insane schedule, she’d purchased a coffee maker with an automatic brewing timer.
Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1) Page 4