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“Multiple gunshot wounds,” I continued. “Entrance wounds on the upper back, just right of the spine, and the lower back, left side.”
“Any exit wounds?” Raven asked.
“Two. Right upper chest and the right lower abdomen. Blood pressure is ninety over sixty, heart rate is one-thirty, and respiratory rate is twenty-eight.”
Raven and Tom nodded.
I sighed as the team shifted and their gazes swiveled back toward the door. I could vaguely make out the muffled sound of a siren. That meant it was close, right outside.
The moment the doors swung open, we moved. We were like racehorses shooting out of the gate.
“Gunshot wounds, multiple locations,” the paramedic closest to me reiterated as he and his partner transferred a freckle-faced boy onto the gurney.
“All right, let’s move,” I said, taking hold of the head of the gurney.
We sped down the hall to the trauma room waiting for us, and the moment we were inside, we flew to work.
“Start IV fluids and get me a central line kit,” I told Tom. “Raven, get me an airway.” I cut down the boy’s shirt and spread it open.
Bloodyhell.
Whatever wounds my patients presented with, I never envisioned their cause. I never allowed myself to look beyond the scope of what was directly in front of me, but this time, it came. Unbidden, the images flooded my mind, the boy terrified, running for his life. I could feel his heart pounding, his whole body shaking with terror. And then the fiery impact as someone shot him in the back, not once, but twice.
“Prepare a chest tube,” I ordered Tom, forcing the images away.
A penetration wound through the upper right quadrant of the abdomen risks damage to the liver, the lung.
The moment the blonde handed me the scalpel, I made the incision at the mid-axillary line and carefully inserted the tube between the boy’s ribs and into the pleural space.
The blonde connected the tube to the drainage system, and blood began to fill the collection chamber. I was right; the bullet had punctured the boy’s lung.
His heart rate stabilized, albeit weakly.
“Get a portable X-ray and notify the OR,” I told the blonde, then turned to Raven.
“Administer blood products, type-specific,” I instructed her, though she was already moving like she’d anticipated it.
It felt like hours, but it was really only minutes later when we managed to stabilize the boy enough to make it to the OR. Tom and an orderly helped the surgical team to wheel him out of the trauma room and down to the elevator while I sagged against the empty table.
“That one was too close for comfort,” Raven said, leaning back against the counter as she tugged off her gloves. “Poor kid,” she added, shaking her head.
I swallowed hard. “Do you…” I began, but decided against saying anything more. “Never mind.” I dropped my gloves in the rubbish bin and headed for the door.
“That kind of thing makes you think about all the bad stuff out there, right?” she persisted. “It makes you wonder how I can feel bad for that kid when I’m all for some of that ‘bad stuff’?” There was no anger marring her expression. It seemed like a genuine question.
“It’s none of my business, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. We have to work together, right? If you’ve got questions, then I’d rather you ask them than have them lingering like a wall between us.”
“All right, then yes, I do wonder how you reconcile certain aspects of your life with the work you do here.”
She shrugged. “In a perfect world, I’d be the first one to melt down every gun like the one that injured the kid today. I’d turn them into… I don’t know. Something useful. But this isn’t a perfect world. We work with what we’ve got, right?”
It was that simple for her, a neat and tidy box. I found myself envying her that clarity.
“Do you think Amadeo feels the same way?”
The question slipped out before I could stop it, but it wasn’t entirely my fault. Three days had passed since Amadeo had shown up in my home in the middle of the night. But instead of disappearing like some dark dream, he’d reappeared every night since.
