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There was a sharp, sudden explosion.
Deafening. So painful, I screamed as hot vibrations gusted past my ear.
Then another explosion.
I screamed, but it made no sound. Only ringing, high and sharp. The whole world was ringing.
I covered my ears as my parents flopped to the floor. They stared at me, eyes lifeless, as blood spewed from their foreheads.
And all the while the world kept ringing.
My head kept spinning.
And then the world went black.
Chapter One
Heidi
The pungent odor of antiseptic permeated the emergency room, but beneath the sterile scent, the coppery tang of blood clung to the air. It was always there, a visceral reminder of old stab wounds and broken bones, and an ever-present omen of the lacerations and severed limbs still to come.
But right now, in this moment, it was calm. Too calm.
Not empty—not nearly so. Every treatment room was occupied, patients waiting for splints or stitches—or, in the case of the young gentleman behind curtain number seven, a tetanus shot for the rusty nail he’d landed on arse first.
I cringed as I dropped the man’s chart down at the nurse’s station, and my own backside twinged in sympathy. But as the blonde spiky-haired nurse who’d helped me treat him sidled up next to me, I fought the urge to rub away the vicarious pain.
“It’ll be some time before that kid gets drunk and takes another stroll through a junkyard,” she joked.
I didn’t know her name, only that she was quick to joke and just as quick to buckle under pressure.
“It’s quiet tonight,” she mused, looking around, then she flinched. “I mean, it’s calm tonight,” she said, enunciating each syllable carefully.
Really. It’s not like I’m going to break if somebody says the wrong thing. I made an effort not to roll my eyes at her and gave her a tight smile instead.
Calm for now, perhaps, but the storm was coming. I couldfeelit.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I said, but I’d barely gotten the words out when the emergency room doors flew open and a giant of a man burst in, drenched in sweat, his clothes stained with blood. He staggered under the weight of another man, who lay motionless in his arms, bleeding profusely.
A cold weight settled in the pit of my stomach.
It hadn’t always done that. When I’d started my residency here, I’d had little instinct for who might live and who might die. But now, I could see it. There was a laxity in the man that spoke of more than injury; it spoke of surrender, the body’s capitulation to the greedy hand of Death.
“Clear a trauma room, stat,” I called out, because whether Death had come for this man or not, it was my job to stand in His way.
And I could be one hell of a roadblock.
The calm was over; the storm had come.
The staff on the ward moved like the storm’s lightning. In thirty seconds, the man was on a stretcher and in a trauma room, with the big man who’d brought him here close on his heels.
The big guy was muttering a steady stream of obscenities the whole way, but I could barely catch them with the way his face was twisted in rage. Looked like all the usual words, plus something that might have been “Luke” or “lush” or “Lucianos”.
I couldn’t be sure, though; I only had half an eye to pay attention to his lips. Someone needed to get him out of here, but I didn’t have time.
“Primary survey first,” I called out.Airway, breathing, circulation.
I grabbed a pair of gloves and yanked them on, the cold latex snapping against my wrists as the nurses in the room sprang into action.
