AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The woman shook her head. “We were just so scared. I didn’t know what to do, so we came here.”
Warmth spread through Cameron’s chest. In the years since she’d moved to the island, people had worked to build a clinic they felt suited her abilities. From pieces and scraps they’d salvaged from the big island or mainland, they’d constructed a multi-room building where she could see to the health and well-being of her neighbors. But the clinic had become more than just a hospital. The building served as a kind of community center where people gathered for fellowship. Aimee and her son wouldn’t be the only uninjured islanders to come here seeking reassurance. Until further backup arrived, Cameron could use them.
“I need your help.”
Aimee’s eyes opened wide. “I don’t know anything about injuries or—”
“I don’t believe that. You’re a mother of an active little boy. You know injuries.”
The woman looked down at the boy clinging to her thigh and nodded.
“I just need you to help organize,” Cam explained. “Brodie and Ara need my attention, but so might others.” She looked around, spotting cuts and blood, even a bone splitting a forearm. This whole situation was an absolute fucking nightmare. And she was the only doctor.
“Here are some clothes.” Edmund appeared beside Aimee, thrusting a bundle of folded cloth her way.
She thanked him and took the proffered garments. “Edmund, can you help Aimee organize patients?”
The man nodded quickly.
“Assess their injuries. Let me know if there’s anyone I need to see right away. Anyone who only needs cleaned up and bandaged, try to do yourself or find someone else who can. If it’s too much, let me know. Stitches, bone-setting, anything like that, put them in the first open room and I’ll get to them when I can.”
Aimee’s face had gone ashen at the mention of bone-setting.
“Can you do this?” Cameron asked the two people in front of her.
Edmund nodded again. “We have this, Doc. We can do it.” He squeezed Aimee’s shoulder. “You take care of Brodie and Ara. We’ll see to the rest.”
Aimee clenched her jaw, straightened her spine, and nodded.
As Cameron slipped the oversized clothes on top of her swimsuit, her mind raced with the impossibility of giving everyone the help they needed. Still, she’d try. Maybe she could be a Band-Aid long enough for the team of doctors to arrive.
Maybe.
* * *
Ian took the last step off the plane, planting his booted foot on the cracked pavement of the runway. His gaze swung around the small airport. A metal hangar stood to his left with five airplanes under the cover of the tin roof. Each machine appeared just as small and insignificant as the tiny prop plane he and two members of his team had taken from the mainland.
Swinging his pack onto his back, he turned to Wes. “So, how far away’s the clinic?”
His friend gritted his teeth and offered a weak smile. Not good.
“What?”
“This isn’t the island.” Wes inclined his blond head toward a waiting chopper. “We have to heli over.”
“What the hell?” Wes knew he hated choppers. Every time Ian heard those blades rotating, he snapped right back to Bum Fuck Egypt and the hell he’d faced there. Glaring at his soon-to-be-former friend, he gritted out, “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
Matt, the newest recruit for their team, came down the steps, a supply crate in his hands. “Do you know what we absolutely need? Not everything’s going to fit on that bird. Not the first time anyway.”
Wes glanced at the helicopter and back to their teammate. “Yeah. We’ll definitely need the x-ray machine, possibly the ultrasound.” He chewed on his lip, his eyes squinting as he ran through supplies and equipment in his head. “The cooler of blood and the bone saw.”
“Whoa. What?” Ian clutched his friend’s shoulder. “The bone saw?”
Wes nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“Fuck,” Ian muttered. He didn’t have Wes’s intel about what they were up against, but if they needed a damn bone saw, the situation couldn’t be good.
They loaded the chopper in silence, moving as quickly as possible. Seven hours had passed since the plane had exploded. The people who’d called for help had waited long enough.
Once they were loaded into the helicopter and rising into the air, Wes turned to Alec Jonson, the liaison for their program. “What are we dealing with?”
Jonson shook his head. “I’ve only got bits and pieces relayed through a third party. There’s a doctor on the island. An American. As soon as the accident occurred, she had someone contact the mainland and ask for a team, but no one has spoken directly to her. From what I understand, she’s worked her ass off today pulling people from the water and trying to save them.”
“Just one doctor?” Matt asked.
Ian shot the rookie a quelling look. Just one? A place like this was lucky to have that. She probably wasn’t even an actual doctor, just someone who knew more than others.
Instead of answering, Jonson barreled on, “So far, I’m gathering there’s two patients with significant injuries. One’s a child. A piece of metal impaled her when the plane exploded. Without x-ray or ultrasound, the doctor didn’t attempt to remove the debris.”
Ian’s stomach churned. A kid?Fuck. He hated working on kids. The pressure to save a life barely lived always weighed heavier.
“The doctor also pulled a man from the water. He was trapped in the boat wreckage.”
“Boat wreckage. I thought there was just the plane?” Matt again.
“Well, when parts of the plane hit the water, it took out at least two boats. One with tourists from the island we just left and a fishing boat belonging to a native of the smaller island. There were minor wounds on some of the tourists, but most were taken to the island just to get them out of the water. A few will need more extensive attention. The fisherman’s in bad shape though. His legs were crushed, keeping him submerged. The doctor thinks at least one leg is unsalvageable. Of course, considering she had to resuscitate him, the legs may be the least of our worries.”
“Son of a bitch,” Wes murmured.
“Yeah,” Jonson agreed. “Dozen’s others have cuts, breaks. The guy on the boat has a pregnant wife. She and their small daughter were in the water with him. I haven’t heard of any complications, but you never know when you have a pregnant woman involved.”
Ian felt the other man’s words like a blow to his gut. No, you never knew what could happen when you were dealing with a pregnant woman and the unknowns of an unborn baby. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’ll take the amputation,” he offered. Though the stench of blood and the sound of saw cutting through bone would only remind him of humid tents and men he hadn’t been able to save, he’d rather cut off a leg than risk a child.
“No.” Wes fixed his dark stare on him. “You and I will take the kid. Matt and the doctor can handle the amputation.”
“Wes . . .” He protested, but the other man was already shaking his head.
“No offense to Matt or this doctor, but we all know you’re the most qualified. I want you on the kid. The doctor already thinks the legs are a loss. The man himself might be too. We’re putting our best hopes on the kid. Once the kid is stable, if you’re still eager to amputate, you’re welcome to help Matt. The doctor can handle cuts and breaks.”
Ian wanted to argue, but what was the use? Instead, he turned his head to the window. It wasn’t that he was eager to cut some poor bastard’s leg off. In a past life, he’d performed the procedure more times than he could accurately count. And he never failed to dread when the patient woke up and realized a part of him was missing—the same way Cameron had woken up in Africa and realized their child no longer grew inside her. Neither of those scenarios were experiences he relished repeating. But given the choice—he’d rather tell a man he’d lost his leg, than a mother she’d lost her child. He could be unemotional about a leg, but he couldn’t be that detached about the child and its family.
Out the window, fire dotted the once crystal water as oil and debris burned. Bits and pieces of boats, docks and airplane floated on the surface. People on both shores worked to remove the wreckage, likely scouring for anything or anyone salvageable. Ian closed his eyes on the destruction. He couldn’t think about this incident as a whole. Instead, he needed to focus on the patient Wes had assigned him. He’d x-ray the child. If the metal hadn’t struck any organs, he’d simply work to remove the obstruction and stitch up the kid. If organs were involved . . . well, they’d attack that problem if it arose.
As they passed over the small island, he spotted small huts and cottages dotted throughout the foliage. Instead of roads, worn paths dissected the land. There also weren’t any cell phone towers. Probably no electricity or running water. Why the hell would an American doctor choose to be here?
“We’ll put down on the opposite beach,” Jonson explained. “There’s only one vehicle on the island. It will be there to pick us up. Load what supplies you can on the first trip. We’ll make as many runs as necessary.”
Ian’s stomach pitched as the helicopter began its descent. No matter how many times he flew, the landing never got easier. Time to see what hell had erupted in paradise.
Ian didn’t make a sound as the Jeep came to a rocking stop in front of a cinder block and tin building. The clinic looked sturdy and inviting, but it couldn’t be more than 30 feet by 40 feet.
“Are you sure this is the clinic?” he mumbled, climbing from the Jeep and shouldering his pack.
The small building, with its sunny yellow door, shared space in a clearing with picnic tables and what appeared to be a community garden. Although small, everything was well-tended.
Hefting the x-ray machine from the back of the vehicle, Wes handed it over. “It’s what we have.”
Ian accepted the device with a nod, but before he could reply, a woman lumbered forward, latching onto the driver. A small girl clung to the woman’s neck.
“Edmund, are these the doctors? Are you the ones who’ll help my Brodie?” Tears swam in her dark eyes. From the tracks cutting through the dirt on her caramel skin, these weren’t the first drops to fall today.
Jonson stepped forward, allowing Ian and the rest of his team to continue to the building “We’ll do what we can, ma’am.”
When Ian followed Wes into the clinic, the inside was just as clean and orderly as the outside. Very different from some of the dirty, unsanitary shit holes he and his team had worked in before.
“Oh, thank God.” A woman rushed from behind a makeshift counter. Blood dotted the front of her dress, and her dark hair had long ago given up the fight to stay in a ponytail. As she brushed a strand away, her hands shook, smearing blood and dirt over her cheek.
“Ara’s in the first room. Luciana’s with her. She’s starting to wake up. We didn’t know if we should give her anything else for the pain.” She swallowed and blinked rapidly. “The pain must be unbearable. We didn’t know what to do for her. And Brodie . . .” Her voice broke on a sob.
“Are you the doctor?” Ian hoped not. Though if she’d spent the entire day pulling victims from the water and stabilizing a child with shrapnel in its chest, he could see why she seemed ready to lose her shit.
Her green eyes widened. “Dios no.”
“Is Luciana the doctor?” Hadn’t she said Luciana was with the patient?
“No. Luci’s the island mami. She takes care of everyone. Dr. C told her to stay with Ara,” another swallow, “while she worked on Brodie.” Her eyes darkened.
Brodie. The woman out front had asked if they were here to save Brodie. The pregnant woman who Jonson said had been on the boat with her husband.
Matt stepped around Ian and Wes. “Can you show me to Brodie and Dr. C?”
The woman nodded and hurried down the hall, Matt on her heels.
“I guess we’re in room one,” Wes murmured, lugging his supplies down the hall.
Hefting his own equipment, Ian followed. As he pushed aside the curtain that had fallen shut behind Wes, he froze. On the bed lay a girl so small she almost disappeared beneath the blankets and pillows. She looked like a tiny angel floating on a cloud with her smooth face, button nose and kewpie doll lips. Her long blonde hair was braided across her head. Her little face screwed up in pain and sweat dotted her sun-kissed forehead. And a large metal bar proturded from her side. The girl’s eyes blinked open. Although filled with tears, they were the most beautiful eyes Ian had ever seen and reminded him of the green of sea-glass. Right now, they held just as many messages as any bottle tossed at sea.
“Mommy,” her little voice choked out. “Mommy. It hurts.”
“Shh,” the woman next to her, Luci, squeezed the girl’s hand. “Your mommy’s close. She’ll be here, baby. Right now, these men are going to make you better.” The woman’s gaze swung back and forth between Ian and Wes, begging them not to make a liar of her.
“Mommy can make me better. Please, Mommy.” Although her last words were yelled, the sound barely traveled to where Ian stood in the doorway. The pain in her little voice shook him into action.
He strode across the room and began assembling the x-ray machine. “What’s her name?”
“Arabella.” The older woman’s voice clogged with tears. “We call her Ara.”
He nodded and stepped to the bed, looking down at the little girl. “Ara, I’m Dr. Ian. My friend, Dr. Wes, and I are going to make you all better. How’s that sound?”
She took a shallow breath, her eyes squeezing shut in pain. “Please,” she whispered as one small tear slid down her dusty cheek.
He squeezed her tiny hand and nodded to Wes to insert the anesthesia. He sighed. “Let’s get to work.”
* * *
When the young doctor pushed back the curtain and strode into the room where Cameron had spent the last hours fighting for Brodie’s life, her knees almost buckled in relief. She’d run out of gods to pray to and devils to bargain with. But just maybe she’d bought her friend enough time to save his life, if not his limbs.
The man stopped on the other side of Brodie and met her gaze. “Dr. C?”
“Cameron,” she replied. “Cameron Crawford, though we don’t really use full names here.”
He extended a hand. “Then I’m Matt. Let’s see how we can help your patient.”
“Friend,” she corrected automatically. He had to understand that Brodie wasn’t just a patient, he was her friend. Her family.
He offered a warm smile. “Friend,” he amended, surveying Brodie’s broken body.
Cameron had done what she could, but she knew it wasn’t enough. Her primary focus had been to stop the bleeding and keep him breathing. So far, she’d been able to slow his blood loss by looping his own bleeding artery back into his body. And for now, he was breathing on his own. Though he was still unconscious.
“You’ve done all this yourself?” the doctor’s eyes widened as he took in her rudimentary work.
She shrugged. “There was no one else.”
With a curt nod, he murmured, “Impressive,” then shoved his hands into a pair of surgical gloves. “Your friend is lucky to have you. Let’s see what we can save, shall we?”
Cameron nodded, relieved to let someone else take charge for the time being.
Emerging from Brodie’s room hours later, Cameron expected the sun to have already risen on a new morning. She felt as if she’d been inside that room with Brodie for days. Instead, a large moon still hung in the night sky.
At the moment, the young doctor and his director were taking care of her friend, and two more helped her daughter. Eventually, she’d need to tend to the other patients, but for now, she took a necessary moment to catch her breath. Afterward, she’d see to the dozens of cuts and breaks that had gone unattended while she tried to keep her family alive. Luckily, no one else’s injuries were as bad as Brodie’s and Ara’s. Keeping the two of them stable had been almost more than she could manage. Thank God she had the other doctors now.
Pushing away from the wall, she trudged toward the smaller exam room where she’d last seen her daughter. On the other side of the curtain, she could hear the doctors murmuring as they worked. That low hum used to be the background to her life. Now she had the ocean, a sound that today offered no comfort. Pushing aside the curtain, she caught the attention of the doctor on the opposite side of her daughter’s small body. When he looked up, swinging his dark hair out of his eyes, Cameron’s entire world tilted. Her heart sped, and her stomach churned. Her breaths came quickly, trying to keep time with the pounding in her chest. Above his mask, the doctor’s dark gaze narrowed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head and tried to change the reality staring back at her.
Then everything went black.
