Acting ignorant to my scorn, the driver returns his cap to its original position before he increases his speed. With him seemingly knowing all the backstreets of Kirkland, we make it to Mercer Private remarkably quick. He barely skids to a stop at the front of the automatic double doors of the ER when I throw open the car door and curl out.
I’m hoping our arrival will replicate a blockbuster movie but am left disappointed when our race into the ER isn’t greeted by a doctor in a white coat ushering us toward the first available medical bay. We’re seen by a grouchy nurse seated behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass who snarls at me while pushing an admission form through a minute slot in the glass. “There’s a thirty-minute delay.”
“She needs to be seen before that. She’s bleedingveryheavily. She is barely conscious.”
After drinking in Demi’s white face and blood-soaked dressing gown, she taps her pen onto the clipboard two times before she lowers her eyes back to the paperwork in front of her. I get they’re under the gun, and that they most likely have non-urgent cases all the time, but today isnotthe day for me to see sense through the madness.
“She’s fuckin’ bleeding! She could die. Let us in!” My anxiousness to get Demi seen is gorily exposed when I bang my fist onto the glass separating us. It smears the spotless material with Demi’s blood, making the desperation in my voice pinnacle. “Please…”
My beg halts before it’s fully issued, hindered by a faint female voice projecting across the room. “Maddox?”
While praying like fuck my family’s high distinction in this state will assist me, I spin around to face the voice. Not all my prayers are answered when my eyes land on Dr. Avery, the psychiatrist Caidyn suggested I contact to speak with Demi after she was assaulted by her uncle, but her presence is better than stumbling onto an old acquaintance stuck in line with me. Avery is a doctor. She just studies people’s psyche instead of their physical capabilities.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?” Although she’s asking questions, she doesn’t give me the chance to speak. Just like she does in her shrink chair, she seeks answers directly from the patient. “Her pupils are dilated, and her skin is pale. How long has she been wearing her nightgown?”
“Twenty, thirty minutes?” I guess, incapable of checking the time since I’d have to loosen my grip on Demi to do so. She isn’t heavy. There’s just no chance in hell I’d risk dropping her for a more positive response.
Dr. Avery thumps her fist onto the bulletproof glass as aggressively as me. “This patient is hemorrhaging. Call Dr. Falgar. Ask him to come to my officeimmediately.” Not waiting for the nurse to respond to her snapped command, she signals for me to follow her. “Dr. Falgar is an OBGYN. He’s working today, but there are no free beds in the ER.” While rolling her eyes with more sophistication than a twenty-nine-year-old should have, she waves her ID card over the security lock that will gain us access to the ER. “There rarely is in this hospital.”
The sound of chaos trickles into my ears when I shadow Dr. Avery’s walk through the bustling ER. The nurse’s lack of sympathy is understandable when I take in bay after bay after bay of patients. Each medical bay has more security personnel than it does medical staff, and almost every patient is under the influence of some sort of narcotic. They’re barely coherent.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” I mutter under my breath when it dawns on me what is happening. Karma is kicking my ass for all the bad shit I’ve done the past eight weeks as does the realization that the money I earned running drugs town to town was left on the cab floor. I was so eager to get Demi seen by a medical professional, I exited the taxi without my gym bag, meaning even if she comes through this with a sound mind, I don’t have the means to fully remove her from it.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Dr. Avery’s pull at this hospital is showcased in the most brilliant way when our arrival at her office occurs simultaneously with a dark-haired man I’d guess to be in his mid-thirties. He requests for me to place Demi onto the bed Dr. Avery uses to make her patients feel ‘relaxed’ while he dumps a set of stethoscopes onto Dr. Avery’s desk.
“What are you looking for?” I ask in confusion when he thrusts up the sleeves of Demi’s dressing gown instead of pushing on her stomach as I was anticipating. “She isn’t an addict,” I growl out when it dawns on me what he’s doing. He is checking her arms for track marks.
Hetsksme like I’m being unreasonable before he raises his eyes to Dr. Avery. The disdain on his face shifts to remorse when she briefly shakes her head. “She isn’t from around these parts.”
His eyes flash back to mine. They’re full of silent apologies. Although annoyed at his assumption, I let it slide when his focus shifts from unearthing Demi’s last ‘hit’ location to her midsection.
He checks her pulse, listens to her heart, then prods the lower half of her stomach. When a low, painful grunt emits from Demi’s lips, her hand instinctively creeps out in search of my body, wrongly assuming it came from me. It was the same painful groan I release amid a nightmare.
I don’t see Igor being the focus of my nightmares after today, though. Demi will be responsible for both my dreams and nightmares.
I feebly shrug when Dr. Falgar asks, “How far along is she?”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks, at most.”
Dr. Falgar gives me the same frustrated look he did when he arrived before racing into the corridor. When he returns with a portable ultrasound machine, Dr. Avery pushes aside the stacks of paperwork on her desk.
Although his equipment is compact, it’s powerful enough for him to announce the diagnosis of an incomplete miscarriage. “Her uterine wall is extremely thick, and her cervix is open, so I’m confident in saying retained tissue is most likely the cause of the bleeding. An emergency D&C should correct it.”
“But…” I ask when I hear one hanging in the air.
He waves the ultrasound wand around Demi’s midsection for a couple of minutes before he locks his eyes with mine. The silent apologies of earlier have disappeared. Now, nothing but fret is seen. “More is occurring here than retained miscarriage product.” I hate that he’s referring to our baby as a ‘product,’ but his next lot of words switches my anger to worry. “Her blood isn’t coagulating as it should. It’s very thin and excessive. I’ll order blood to be drawn when we arrive at the OR, but I may need to do a blood transfusion before the results come in.”
With my head swimming with information, I steer toward the simpler part of his reply. “You’re taking her to the OR now?”
As he jerks up his chin, two orderlies enter Dr. Avery’s office with a gurney like you see on all the medical television shows. “If we don’timmediatelyperform a D&C, she risks bleeding out.” He requests for the orderlies to be careful before he assists them with lifting Demi onto the gurney. “A standard miscarriage is usually without complications, but for someone with a blood disorder, it can be fatal.”
His words knock me for a six more than any punch I’ve endured. “Is there anything I can do?” I feel like a helpless idiot, but my father always said it is better to offer than to leave someone stranded.
