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“Minka—”
I kill the call and hold my breath as my lungs spasm deep inside my chest. As tears burn my eyes, and Aubree’s whimper of fear settles in my bones.
“You’re going to have to feed everyone.” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and breathe. Breathe. Center myself. Then I drop them again and study Slade through the stars covering my vision. “I don’t even know what kind of surgery Suzanne needs, but these things take time.”
“She has a tumor in her lungs,” he croaks. “It’s bigger than her heart, and needs to come out. She can’t breathe on her own anymore,” he sobs. “But they could save her if they’d just do the surgery.”
“Well…”
I try to think. To stay calm. To remember back to medical school, though I soon after disposed of unnecessary knowledge to make way for what I needed to be successful as a medical examiner.
I don’t ask him if she has cancer. If she needs radiation therapy. Or chemo. Or if she’s strong enough to survive the surgery in itself. I just focus on the base facts.
“That sort of operation will easily take eight hours, Mr. Slade.”
“So?” His breathing becomes erratic. Dangerous. “If they get started now, we’ll be done by morning.”
“Right.” Slowly, I push up from the chair with my hands raised. But I stay behind the desk. Safe.Sort of.“But even if they start right now, eight hours is a long time not to feed these people.” I gesture toward the forty-odd others who watch our back and forth. “They’ll need food, and water, and bathroom breaks.”
“And medication,” Aubree cuts in.
She draws Slade’s gaze with a snap and earns my ire.
“You know as well as any of us that some people rely on medication to live,” she presses. “Sometimes, it’s needed every single day. Or multiple times a day.” She points toward an older woman whose face is a dangerous shade of red. “Blood pressure. Diabetes. Hemophilia.” She doesn’t look at me, but she speaks of me. “Eight hours without these medications can kill a person, Mr. Slade.”
He studies his crowd. His unwilling audience. Then he looks back to me and Aubree. “So treat them. You’re the doctors.”
“We can’t treat someone if we don’t have their meds.” Aubree rises to her knees, too brave. Too ballsy as Slade turns. “Release those who are reliant on medication. You’ll still have dozens of us left to barter with.”
“I need meds!” A middle-aged man with a paunch to his stomach thrusts to his feet. He clearly works here. He wears black slacks and a button-up shirt. Shined shoes, and a perfectly shaved face. “I’m diabetic and need my medication within the hour or I’ll die.”
“You’re a liar.” A woman, one of the tellers, looks up at her colleague with disgust etched into her expression. Then she peers to Slade. “He’s lying! He’s healthy.”
“Barbara!”
“There’s a child here!” She pushes to her feet and meets his glare with one of her own. “A man has been shot. That lady’s about to have a freakin’ heart attack. And that one,” she points to a woman with a rounded belly, “is clearly pregnant. But you’d lie to get out of here, and leave others behind?”
“I want to live,” he snarls. “I want to go home.”
“Weallwant to go home.” The pregnant woman stands too, and sneers at the guy. “We’re all scared, okay? But you’re a coward.”
“Don’t call him a coward,” another inserts. “He has a right to go home, just as much as the fat chick.”
“Hey!” Barbara turns and lifts her hand like she might smack him. “You do not get to walk on backs to save yourself! This woman is having a baby. This other one is clearly ill. He,” she points to Earl, “is bleeding to death. So how about you sit down and shut up, and let those who need more attention have it?”
“Why don’t youallsit the hell down!” Slade spins on them, ignoring Aubree and me completely, and has every single person dropping straight back to their asses. “No oneis going until I get what I want. But raise your damn hand if you need medication to get through the night.”
“Oh god.” The red-faced woman sobs and lifts her hand. “Please.”
“You!” He swings back my way, using his gun to point. I see it in my mind… the accidental shooting. The way I die because Parker Slade’s hand sweats and his adrenaline makes it impossible to calm down. “Pen and paper. Write down what they need, and we’ll get it sorted.” Then he looks to Aubree. “Is he going to live?”
She looks down, movements jerky, and studies her patient. “Um… I don’t…” She swallows. “I don’t know. I think so, assuming he can get help before infection sets in.”
“Then he stays in for the night too.” He brings his expectant gaze back to me, so I snatch up a pen and a sheet of paper from the desk, and wait.
He stops at the very end of the line, points his gun, and asks, “What do you need?”
I scribble notes as each person rattles off theirorder. We need insulin for an actual diabetic—not the lying employee. Corticosteroids for an asthmatic. Beta blockers for the woman with high blood pressure. We even have someone with celiac disease, which means a specialized meal.
