Finally, his head snaps to me.
“I need to help your sister now.” My tone is firm, unflinching. “Either step back, or I’ll have you removed.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?!” he snaps at me. “She’s my sister! She’s?—”
“Maksim.”
It comes out like an order. Like Yulian would say it. I barely even notice that, barely realize how rude I’m being.
But Maksim doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, he springs into action, as if the command had come from Yulian himself. “Come here, Anton.”
“Get your hands off of me! She’s my sister! I need to be with my sister!”
He’s thrashing, but Maksim holds him in a vise. “A little help here, boys?”
Two recruits rush to hold Anton down. With their help, Maksim manages to remove him from the room.
Finally, I can focus.
I touch a hand to Zhenya’s cheek. She’s getting colder, growing paler by the second.
That’s when Kallie comes back to me with the rest of the supplies. She must have given Kazimir first aid, because her hands are bloody. She washes them with water and a generous pour of whiskey, then turns to me. “Well?”
“You take the stomach, I’ll take the thigh.”
She doesn’t make me say it twice.
As Kallie shrugs off her jacket and uses it to staunch the blood flow there, I get to work on Zhenya’s leg. The abdominal wound is by far the worst one, but her thigh is bleeding too much. I don’t like it.
I make a tourniquet with Kazimir’s belt and staunch the blood flow.
It doesn’t cut it off completely, but it’s something.
Carefully, I lift her leg a little. A matching hole is at the back of her thigh—good. It means at least one of the bullets made it out. As for the one in her stomach, we won’t know until she’s at the hospital. Flipping her now to check would be a huge risk, and I’m not comfortable with that.
Suddenly, I realize Zhenya hasn’t moved once. Not while I was tightening the tourniquet, not while I lifted her leg. Nothing, zilch, nada.
As if she didn’t feel a thing.
“Zhenya, are you there?” She doesn’t answer, but her glassy eyes roll towards me. “Can you feel this?”
I poke her softly in the leg. Then, when she doesn’t react, I poke her hard.
She doesn’t budge.
Shit.“Kallie, I think?—”
“Yeah,” she grits. “Me, too.”
We don’t say it. It’s never a good idea to speak the ugly truths in front of the patient, not while in the middle of an emergency.
If the other bullet is lodged in her spine, only surgery can help her.
I clean out the thigh wound as best as I can, then tear a large towel into strips. It’s not the best dressing, but for now, it’ll do.
The ambulance arrives. The paramedics recognize me and Kallie from the ER.
I explain the situation as I help them load her up. The loss of sensation in the lower half of the body puts them on high alert, along with the significant blood loss. The absence of an exit wound at her back, too, all but confirms my theory.
