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He tried to stand, then staggered backward and collapsed against the wall.
“Bennet,” Red said in her sexy, bedside-manner voice, “we’ll be with you in a few minutes, okay?”
“Take your time, Doc. Get Kessler stable.”
“I’m stable,” Kessler said. Her voice was weak and thready.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Red was also out of the dirty overclothes and had clean, gloved hands. She knelt beside our patient and shone a penlight in each of Kessler’s eyes. “Equal and responsive. Breathing’s shallow. Skin clammy.” She glanced at the blood seeping around my hands, then nodded to me, confirming she would need to place a tourniquet. “Kessler, I’m giving you a shot now. That’s for the pain. Then I’m going to run two lines, one for blood, one for saline. You’re going to feel awesome in just a few minutes.”
“You hear that, Cyn?” Derek said. “I told you Bond was coming. She’s got you now. You’ll be fine.”
I glanced at Red, who didn’t miss a beat as she administered the shot and ran the lines. The pressure she must be feeling was unimaginable to me, but she was in the zone, doing the work she’d been born to do, working with the team that needed her as much as she needed them, whether she realized it yet or not.
* * *
Samantha
Men.Most of the time I knew where their minds were. It wasn’t that difficult to tell. But sometimes I wondered. Between Evan’s decision to join my roster and Derek’s pronouncement of blind faith, a lesser woman would have been thrown off her game. Luckily for everyone, I, like most surgeons, had a bit of a God complex. If it came to performing a vascular repair down here in this dirty little cinderblock room, I might waiver a bit, but stabilizing my patients and setting a tourniquet, no problem.
The morphine shot and blood transfusion worked a charm on Kessler, but the blood loss was still too profuse. I knelt by the medical bag and pulled out a SOF-T kit. I placed the wide, black band over Kessler’s thigh just above the wound and set the metal windlass.
“It’s going to hurt,” I told Kessler. The morphine would help with the pain, but not obliterate it.
“Ready when you are, Doc,” she said.
I took her at her word and didn’t give a countdown. In my experience, that was the best way to do it. I twisted hard. She screamed. I locked the metal bar in place. She took deep breaths to manage the pain.
“Good job,” I told her. I nodded to Evan. It was time to check my handiwork.
He released pressure slowly and carefully, and remained poised to restart it if we saw a gush, which we didn’t. I carefully removed the layers of gauze. Evan sucked in his breath when we saw the long, wide wound exposing muscle, the wounded artery, and even a flash of bone. But the point was we could see it all because the field was clear.
“It’s working.” I peeled off my gloves and reached for new ones. “I’ll need to clean the wound, but let’s get Bennet some relief first.”
Bennet cracked his eyes open and smiled. “Doing just fine here, Doc.”
“No need to be a hero,” I told him. “Although you already are.” I glanced at Evan. “And you’re not the only one.”
“Right back ‘atcha,” Evan said softly.
I gave Bennet three units of morphine and used his watch to monitor his vitals. When they approached normal, a sign that the pain medicine was kicking in, Evan pulled Bennet away from the wall and slid behind him while I crouched in front of him and lined up the ball in the socket.
“On three,” I said. On my count, we applied quick, hard, opposing pressure and popped his shoulder back in place.
He groaned with the pain, but quickly quieted and breathed normally. While I cleaned and wrapped Kessler’s wound, Evan kept an eye on his best friend.
“Thank God you showed up when you did,” Bennet said. “My hands and arms were numb. I could have held position another minute or two, tops, then...”
We all knew what his unfinished thought was. Then Kessler’s bleeding would have gone unchecked, and by the time the extraction team arrived, she would have been gone.
“Penn and the team are collecting hostiles, four so far, and locating weapons, no apparent explosives,” TJ said on our comms. “Bond, Kessler, Prescott, Bennet, you’re all heroes today, and one hell of a team. Now sit tight. We’re coming to get you.”
