AllFreeNovel
Share Us
SERAPHINA
“You really don’t have to stay in the apartment with me,” I told Dalton after what felt like an endless amount of time feeling as though I had to make polite conversation when what I really wanted to do was ask if he’d heard from his brother.
“Noah and the other guys should be back soon,” he responded, checking something on his phone. “Wait. Correction. Noah and Merrigan are on their way.”
I got up and walked over to the window, wishing I had some way to work through my anxiety. Waiting was hell. Not as bad as what my sister was going through, though.
I saw a car pull up in front of the building. Noah got out first, followed by Merrigan. I moved away from the window and sat on the sofa. Dalton stood when they walked in.
“How are you holding up?” Merrigan asked, walking straight over to me and sitting down.
“Trying to remember that no matter how hard this feels, what my sister is experiencing is much harder.”
“It’s difficult when we feel powerless. Especially when we’re the kind of woman who usually is not.”
I nodded, wondering why she was here. Surely, it wasn’t only to console me.
“I’ll let the three of you talk,” offered Noah, who had walked to my other side, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. It was such a familiar gesture, and while I suppose it should’ve made me uncomfortable, it felt reassuring.
“Stay, please,” said Merrigan. “In fact, let’s move to the table, yes?”
She pulled a laptop out of her bag.
“Should I get mine?” I asked even though I had no idea why we’d moved to the table or what we were doing.
“Yes. We all should.”
Dalton excused himself to his apartment, saying he’d only be a minute.
“I asked Ridge if we could work on the action plan for when the victims have been rescued from the containers.”
“Containers? How many are there?”
“We believe there are eight. Perhaps ten.”
I felt sick to my stomach. This wasn’t a matter of twenty or thirty people being trafficked. This could be two or three hundred.
“We’ll need to set up a triage center on the same scale as we would a catastrophe with a large number of victims,” she said once Dalton returned. “I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing, but we’ll have support from people who do.”
“I do,” said Noah’s brother. “We’ll start with a basic intake station, then prioritize by condition.” He turned to me. “Please understand that we need to be prepared for all possible outcomes.”
“I do.”
Noah was seated beside me and squeezed my hand.
“We’ll separate victims into four categories. ‘Minor,’ or those needing little to no medical attention. The second category will be what we refer to as ‘Delayed.’ For those victims, they may need an IV for hydration, but otherwise, we’d anticipate their condition to be stable.”
He was creating an outline on his screen and turned his laptop so we could see it.
“Next would be ‘Immediate.’ The victim will need immediate medical attention—classified within twenty minutes or less. Finally, while we don’t anticipate having victims in what is medically referred to as ‘Expectant—’”
“Pregnant?” Noah asked.
Dalton shook his head. “In this instance, it refers to those unlikely to survive. The focus, then, would be on palliative care and pain relief.”
He turned the screen toward him. “In Yavaros, we were able to make use of an empty warehouse. In looking at photos of the shipyard, quite a few structures would fit the bill. The unknown is whether any are empty.”
“I’ll find out,” Merrigan offered.
