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Whatever this is about, all this is just useless speculation. I clearly need to get my apartment secure. And maybe I’ll do that before I say anything to Janus.
I turn around to head back toward the station, jumping over the low concrete wall of the parking lot but I’m feeling even more shaky now, and when I reach the avenue, the cars are swimming in and out.What the hell’s wrong with me?I just need to sit down for a second or two. I move between the cars, a pain in my chest like someone’s got it in a vice, and I sway into the hood of a car sitting in the traffic. The driver yells at me through the window.So goddamn odd. I slump down on the sidewalk and close my eyes, and the last thing I remember is a truck horn blaring right next to my head.
18
Kate
When I see the body on the stretcher my heart goes into overload. Then someone shouts “Crashing!” and my body begins to shake. I’m light-headed. My limbs freeze. I’m mouthing words in my head that don’t make it past my lips, but nobody is paying me any attention as the crash team swarms around. A resident I don’t recognize starts chest compressions. Carol, one of the nurses, inserts a cannula in his arm with a steady hand as another couple of nurses work on his breathing and attach a bag valve mask, and Henry, another doctor, sticks pads to his chest. The attending, Neil, leans over him, blue scrubs already crumpled from a day of emergencies just like this one.
The beep of the defibrillator charging fills the room, and the call “Clear!” appears to come from nowhere as people straighten away from his body and everyone turns to watch the monitor. Sickness lurches through my stomach, and, almost in slow motion, word snippets start to bubble up in my head.
“I know the patient. He’s been in before. He experiments with a mix of recreational drugs.” My voice quavers, and Neil’s gaze swings to mine and sweeps over me, eyes narrowing.
“That’s all we need, some fucking weird drug combination,” Neil mutters. “Okay, people! Suspected mixed overdose, unknown drugs. Carol! You’re on notes and timing. Marcie!” he barks. “Did the EMS administer anything to the patient?”
“No, said he was drifting in and out of consciousness, wasn’t making much sense,” one of the nurses answers. “No information on whether the patient took anything himself.”
“Let’s move with the epinephrine. A mix of drugs. Fuck! Who’s on toxicology today? I want them here now! Someone pull his records. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Move. Move. Move.”
“What about naloxone?” I say, still stuck to the floor, but blood starts to pump around my body, heart spinning fast. Books and articles swim before my eyes; all the reading I’ve been doing ever since that first, fateful, day. Neil’s eyes narrow again.
“Yes. Why?” he barks.
“If he’s used anything opioid-based, then it should help, and it won’t cause issues if it’s something else.”
His gaze doesn’t flicker. “Signs of an opioid overdose?”
“Pinprick pupils, unresponsive, a reduced respiratory rate or stopped altogether.”
“Excellent. Marcie!” he shouts. “You heard that. I want IV naloxone, please! Fucking fast, right now!”
Carol says, “Two minutes,” and the familiar beep fills the room again as Henry charges the defibrillator, and everyone shifts back as he shocks Fabian again.
“Come on, tell me what I’m dealing with,” Neil says, leaning over, voice tight.
He spares no prisoners and he’s an asshole a lot of the time, but I wouldn’t want anyone else if I had an emergency. He paces and he fidgets, but everything moves like an express train when he’s in Resus. His eyes haven’t shifted from the body on the table as the resident steps back and restarts CPR.
“Alcohol?” the resident says.
I shake my head. “He’s not much of a drinker. I read some research about cocaine being implicated in blood clots,” I mumble, looking down at Fabian’s inert body.
“What would we see if this was cocaine-related?” Neil asks.
“Hypertension and prolonged QRS.” I glance at the trace. “We’ve not got that,” I say quietly.
But Neil just nods at me. “Good. I like that we’re reducing the options. We could easily have a clot for other reasons.”
A clot.Fuck.
The call “Clear!” echoes through the room again, and everyone straightens away from Fabian again as Henry calls out, “Shocking on three: one, two, three.”
“Come on, come on, youasshole,” Neil mutters, examining the monitor.
The nurse, Marcie, appears at my side and presses the naloxone into my hand, and the words blur as I peer at the vial and show it to Neil, who nods, so she syringes it up and administers it via the IV in his arm. Fuck, I feel helpless.
“How many shocks?” Neil barks.
“Three,” Carol says, her head bent over the recording she’s keeping as we do this. Chances of success decrease with each attempt. I know it, and I don’t want to know it.
