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“Looking good,” the one surgeon told me. “We’re going to close her up and give her some time before we go in again.”
“Fuck,” the other said at the same moment as the alarms went off. Blood began to spurt from inside the incision. They went to work with lap pads and tried to create a visual.
She was blowing stitches. They weren’t holding. I tracked it to the way her heart rate slowed. It wasn’t V-fib, for it was genuinely slowing. Her blood pressure dipped.
Goddammit, Steph, I wanted to scream at her. Don’t fucking do this.
Still, I said nothing. Did nothing. I didn’t move. I might as well have been stone, locked into place as I tried to will her to keep fighting. Anything she needed, fuck, they could take it from me.
Hypovolemic shock.
I recognized it even as they tried to stop the bleeding. Four bags of blood, and she was still losing it too fast.
Flatline.
They kept going. Extraordinary measures. New bags of blood hung. Manual CPR while they tried to get those bleeders clamped and stopped.
No sooner did they get one closed when another would rupture.
CPR wasn’t buying us much time. At ten minutes down, the surgeon looked at me and I understood. Doc understood.
Mickey J wanted to shout at him to keep going. Vandal wanted to threaten his life. Only Doc understood the futility of it.
She was already gone.
I shifted my gaze to the clock on the wall that had started the minute she’d flat-lined. My heart was a rock in my chest; as still as my sister’s.
He was waiting for my answer—an answer I didn’t want to give. Finally, I nodded once.
“Time of death…”
Everything slowed. The work, the hands trying to save her, all because it was done. She couldn’t be saved, and the surgeon backed off, as did the nurses as I walked forward.
Steph’s eyes were closed, her expression so peaceful it didn’t belong in this place where a hellish battle had been waged to keep her with us. Her features blurred as my eyes went hot. Carefully, I reached over to lift the mask from her and the anesthesiologist helped.
Stroking her hair back, I pressed my lips to her forehead. I wanted to weep, but the tears burning in my eyes refused to fall. The petrification of my heart left a dead weight in my chest.
One of the doctors put a hand on my shoulder. One by one, they cleaned up some but then left me with her. Giving me time. Time I didn’t know what to do with as I stood with the final remnant of my family.
The woman who never gave up on anyone. Mickey J wanted to rail against the world, to yell and break things. He wanted to grieve and to mourn. It didn’t matter if the level of traumatic damage had doomed her before they dumped her in front of the warehouse.
A warning?
A threat?
A punishment?
I didn’t fucking care what the intention had been. Doc stayed with her so Mickey J could beat himself bloody inside me. I wasn’t ready to leave her.
Nevertheless, when I was… when I walked out those doors, Vandal was going to find every single fucker who put a finger on her, and I was going to tear them apart.
They were going to feel every ounce of her pain.
Steph never gave up on anyone. She loved with her whole heart. She would tell me that vengeance didn’t help anyone.
Maybe it didn’t. However, it would hurt those fuckers, and that would have to be enough for now.
A tear sloshed down on her cheek as I pressed another kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I should have been better.
