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He’s not going to make it if we do.I’d already added up the signs in my head. Ineffective, agonal breathing, with a rapid, thready pulse. Clammy skin and cyanosis of the lips and nail beds. And the most telling sign yet—the shift of the trachea away from midline. The bullet had punctured the left lung, and despite the amount of blood coming from the wound, even more was pooling in the thoracic cavity, collapsing the left lung and putting pressure on the heart and remaining lung.
The kid had seconds left.
Murder-glare grabbed my wrist. “What the hell are you doing? He needs—“
“I’m saving his life,” I shook him off. The kid wasn’t breathing anymore. “Give me the goddamn—“
“Here.” Teresa was one of the more experienced ED floor nurses, and she yanked the kit from the orderly’s slack hands and shoved it into the backseat. “Dr. Brannigan asks for a kit, you give her the kit.”
I could’ve hugged her. If I were the hugging kind.
“Make a hole.” Teresa had climbed into the back seat next to me, both of us crouched in the floor pan while Murder-glare cradled the kid’s head. “What do you need, Doc?”
“Give me a scalpel.”
“Going old school, yeah?”
“We’re out of time.” I wiped a trail of blood from the kid’s bare chest and took the scalpel from Teresa, positioning it along the fifth intercostal space on the left side, just beneath the armpit. I was shooting from the hip here, the need for urgency overriding the need for calculated accuracy.
With a sharp thrust, I slipped the scalpel between the kid’s ribs, angling it towards the damaged lung.
Blood poured.
“Jaysus, Mary and Joseph.” Murder-glare murmured, his hands tightening on the kid’s shoulders, murmuring quietly in his ear as Teresa fitted an ambu-bag over his nose and mouth.
Teresa pumped the bag. Warm blood rushed over my hands, but that first long, gasping breath the kid took was music to my ears. After fastening a length of surgical tubing from the kit into a makeshift drain, I spoke calmly but directly to the assembled personnel. “I want two large-bore IVs here with lactated ringers, let’s get that BP up. Get a draw for a type-and-cross, we’re going to need at least two units.”
“Intubate?”
“Yes.” The kid was breathing on his own again, but not for long. We were already too far behind in the battle of blood loss.
From there the pieces fell neatly into place as the kid was pulled from the Town Car and prepped for transport. Stats were called out. I crawled out from the back seat, briefly registering Murder-glare right on my heels even though Redhead was visibly trying to keep him from following the procession of medical personnel. “Connor, let them work—“
“Get off me.”
I trotted beside the gurney. “All right, let’s get him to bay three—“
Teresa cocked an eyebrow. “Are you scrubbing in?”
“Dr. Carter’s busy. I’ve got this.”
We turned left into the chute, the long corridor that led to the surgical units. Wheels squeaked on linoleum. Voices raised. The portable monitor beeped unevenly like a crazed metronome, the displayed numbers already starting to fall.
“Bill, prep the crash cart. Teresa, set up imaging, I want—“
A hand tightened around my upper arm. It felt like a steel vice, the strength of that grip matched only by the steel in Murder-Glare’s eyes as he stood there, looking down at me with an intensity that drained the strength from my remaining limbs.
“Save him.” That voice was like a 240-volt shock straight to my brain. A Southie accent, with just a hint of rich Irish brogue. Memories from my past. I felt the blood drain from my face only to return a moment later, heated and raging. Just who the hell did he think he was?
“Get your hands off me.” I pushed at him, a seemingly immovable wall of pure muscle. Where the hell was security? “You can’t be back here—“
“Save him.Please.”
Please.The word sounded so foreign on the man’s tongue that I couldn’t help but look,really look, at the face glaring down at me.
At thoseeyes.
They were as tortured as they were menacing. So light blue they were almost grey, reminding me of the ocean in winter, frozen ice coating the rocky shore. There wasn’t an ounce of softness to them, but I was surprised at the amount of worry I saw there, worry with an equal measure of guilt. He was handsome in a dangerous way, pretty to look at but with a quiet violence simmering underneath. Hair as black as ink was shorn close on the sides but left a little longer on top, combed back from that severe brow. A strong, proud jawline set in determination, juxtaposed by the pleading tone, that one simple word so obviously foreign to those lips.
